Principal Engineer
UK

The median Principal Engineer salary in the UK is £80,000 per year according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 20 May 2024.

The first table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
20 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 271 509 410
Rank change year-on-year +238 -99 +126
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 1,039 557 1,475
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 1.04% 0.56% 0.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.10% 0.61% 0.94%
Number of salaries quoted 428 403 448
10th Percentile £56,750 £59,000 £60,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £85,000 £85,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% - +21.43%
75th Percentile £93,750 £115,000 £98,750
90th Percentile £115,000 £150,000 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £72,500
% change year-on-year -3.45% - +7.41%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 94,627 91,047 156,403
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.71% 91.54% 96.08%
Number of salaries quoted 67,562 57,571 85,106
10th Percentile £28,500 £32,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £38,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% - +9.09%
75th Percentile £70,750 £80,000 £78,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% +5.26%

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Principal Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Principal Engineer in the UK

Principal Engineer
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Principal Engineer.

Salary trend for Principal Engineer in the UK

Principal Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Engineer over the 6 months to 20 May 2024.

Salary histogram for Principal Engineer in the UK

Principal Engineer
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 20 May 2024. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +207 891 £80,000 -5.88% 361
UK excluding London +239 792 £70,000 -3.45% 297
Work from Home +23 201 £77,500 -18.42% 127
London +54 187 £92,500 -13.95% 85
North of England +114 163 £65,000 -14.75% 66
South West +91 162 £70,000 -12.50% 44
South East +49 154 £72,500 +3.57% 90
Midlands +88 119 £75,000 -9.09% 16
East of England +83 88 £77,500 +6.90% 76
Scotland +11 87 £70,000 -17.65% 10
North West +51 85 £65,000 -11.86% 58
West Midlands +67 63 £75,000 -31.82% 7
Yorkshire +102 58 £65,000 -18.75% 6
East Midlands +27 56 £75,000 -9.09% 9
North East +11 20 - - 2
Wales +14 16 £60,000 +34.33% 2
Northern Ireland +33 3 £90,000 - 3

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 May 2024, Principal Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 252 (24.25%) Problem-Solving
2 244 (23.48%) Agile
3 243 (23.39%) Google
4 238 (22.91%) Software Engineering
5 218 (20.98%) Data Science
6 217 (20.89%) Mentoring
7 214 (20.60%) GCP
8 193 (18.58%) Data Engineering
9 192 (18.48%) DevOps
10 185 (17.81%) Analytical Skills
11 178 (17.13%) Self-Motivation
11 178 (17.13%) Data Pipeline
12 175 (16.84%) Platform Engineering
12 175 (16.84%) Roadmaps
13 172 (16.55%) BigQuery
14 168 (16.17%) Looker
15 162 (15.59%) Change Management
16 161 (15.50%) GDPR
16 161 (15.50%) DataOps
17 158 (15.21%) Technical Leadership
18 153 (14.73%) Technology Roadmap
19 146 (14.05%) AWS
20 139 (13.38%) Degree
21 120 (11.55%) Systems Engineering
22 109 (10.49%) Social Skills
23 105 (10.11%) Security Cleared
24 95 (9.14%) Java
25 91 (8.76%) Python
26 60 (5.77%) Customer Service
27 59 (5.68%) Azure

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 29 (2.79%) Apache Spark
2 10 (0.96%) Confluence
3 6 (0.58%) IIS
3 6 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.58%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.38%) Apache
5 1 (0.096%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.096%) CMS
5 1 (0.096%) nginx
Applications
1 8 (0.77%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.19%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.096%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 214 (20.60%) GCP
2 146 (14.05%) AWS
3 59 (5.68%) Azure
4 42 (4.04%) Dropbox
4 42 (4.04%) Google Drive
4 42 (4.04%) OneDrive
5 39 (3.75%) SaaS
6 27 (2.60%) Amazon S3
7 25 (2.41%) Amazon SQS
8 22 (2.12%) Google Docs
8 22 (2.12%) Lucidchart
8 22 (2.12%) Miro
8 22 (2.12%) Slack
9 19 (1.83%) Serverless
10 18 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (0.77%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (0.58%) Datadog
13 4 (0.38%) Amazon SageMaker
13 4 (0.38%) AWS Fargate
13 4 (0.38%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.44%) Internet
1 15 (1.44%) LAN
1 15 (1.44%) WAN
2 13 (1.25%) Wireless
3 7 (0.67%) Firewall
4 6 (0.58%) TETRA
5 5 (0.48%) 4G
5 5 (0.48%) Bluetooth
5 5 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (0.38%) Ethernet
6 4 (0.38%) MPLS
6 4 (0.38%) Network Security
6 4 (0.38%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.29%) IGMP
7 3 (0.29%) IPv6
7 3 (0.29%) Multicast
7 3 (0.29%) OSPF
7 3 (0.29%) RIP
7 3 (0.29%) SNMP
7 3 (0.29%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 172 (16.55%) BigQuery
2 168 (16.17%) Looker
3 28 (2.69%) Big Data
4 27 (2.60%) Hadoop
5 26 (2.50%) Elasticsearch
5 26 (2.50%) Redis
6 22 (2.12%) Scylla
7 10 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (0.87%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
10 5 (0.48%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.38%) Apache Hive
11 4 (0.38%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.29%) Neo4j
13 2 (0.19%) Apache Cassandra
13 2 (0.19%) MySQL
13 2 (0.19%) Relational Database
14 1 (0.096%) Amazon Redshift
14 1 (0.096%) HBase
14 1 (0.096%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (1.54%) Rational DOORS
2 10 (0.96%) JIRA
3 5 (0.48%) Cypress.io
3 5 (0.48%) Git
3 5 (0.48%) Visual Studio
4 4 (0.38%) Selenium
5 3 (0.29%) Android Studio
5 3 (0.29%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.29%) Postman
5 3 (0.29%) Rational Rhapsody
6 2 (0.19%) Subversion
7 1 (0.096%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.096%) MLflow
7 1 (0.096%) TeamCity
General
1 185 (17.81%) Analytical Skills
2 109 (10.49%) Social Skills
3 58 (5.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 55 (5.29%) Finance
5 46 (4.43%) Aerospace
6 39 (3.75%) Manufacturing
7 34 (3.27%) Marketing
8 33 (3.18%) Law
9 31 (2.98%) Electronics
10 29 (2.79%) Banking
11 27 (2.60%) Games
12 26 (2.50%) Telecoms
13 22 (2.12%) Financial Institution
14 21 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
15 20 (1.92%) Investment Banking
16 19 (1.83%) Legal
17 14 (1.35%) Automotive
18 11 (1.06%) Public Sector
19 10 (0.96%) Military
20 8 (0.77%) Health Technology
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (3.66%) Kafka
2 33 (3.18%) GraphQL
3 27 (2.60%) Spring Boot
4 26 (2.50%) Spring
5 25 (2.41%) .NET
6 21 (2.02%) React
7 19 (1.83%) Node.js
8 8 (0.77%) PyTorch
9 7 (0.67%) .NET Core
10 6 (0.58%) scikit-learn
10 6 (0.58%) TensorFlow
11 4 (0.38%) CSS
11 4 (0.38%) MXNet
11 4 (0.38%) RESTful
12 3 (0.29%) Playwright
12 3 (0.29%) WinForms
13 2 (0.19%) Hibernate
13 2 (0.19%) LAMP
13 2 (0.19%) NumPy
13 2 (0.19%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 178 (17.13%) Self-Motivation
2 42 (4.04%) iPad
3 40 (3.85%) Algorithms
4 38 (3.66%) Cloud Native
5 31 (2.98%) Data Structures
6 19 (1.83%) Data Centre
7 14 (1.35%) Management Information System
8 13 (1.25%) FPGA
9 10 (0.96%) IoT
10 9 (0.87%) Product Ownership
11 7 (0.67%) Embedded Systems
11 7 (0.67%) Virtual Team
12 6 (0.58%) Mobile App
13 5 (0.48%) Hackathon
14 4 (0.38%) Renewable Energy
15 3 (0.29%) Enterprise Software
15 3 (0.29%) Greenfield Project
15 3 (0.29%) Smart City
15 3 (0.29%) VHDL
16 2 (0.19%) Arduino
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.79%) Linux
2 19 (1.83%) Windows
3 7 (0.67%) Android
4 5 (0.48%) Embedded Linux
4 5 (0.48%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.48%) Unix
5 4 (0.38%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.19%) VxWorks
7 1 (0.096%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.096%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (24.25%) Problem-Solving
2 244 (23.48%) Agile
3 238 (22.91%) Software Engineering
4 218 (20.98%) Data Science
5 217 (20.89%) Mentoring
6 193 (18.58%) Data Engineering
7 192 (18.48%) DevOps
8 178 (17.13%) Data Pipeline
9 175 (16.84%) Platform Engineering
9 175 (16.84%) Roadmaps
10 162 (15.59%) Change Management
11 161 (15.50%) DataOps
12 158 (15.21%) Technical Leadership
13 153 (14.73%) Technology Roadmap
14 120 (11.55%) Systems Engineering
15 60 (5.77%) Customer Service
16 53 (5.10%) Cybersecurity
17 52 (5.00%) Analytics
18 50 (4.81%) Computer Science
19 47 (4.52%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 95 (9.14%) Java
2 91 (8.76%) Python
3 35 (3.37%) Scala
4 31 (2.98%) Go
4 31 (2.98%) SQL
5 26 (2.50%) C
5 26 (2.50%) C#
6 25 (2.41%) Kotlin
7 24 (2.31%) Bash
7 24 (2.31%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.83%) C++
9 10 (0.96%) JavaScript
10 6 (0.58%) Embedded C
11 4 (0.38%) Assembly Language
11 4 (0.38%) Ruby
11 4 (0.38%) Swift
12 3 (0.29%) R
13 2 (0.19%) Perl
13 2 (0.19%) Rust
13 2 (0.19%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 139 (13.38%) Degree
2 105 (10.11%) Security Cleared
3 52 (5.00%) Master's Degree
4 39 (3.75%) Chartered Engineer
5 33 (3.18%) DV Cleared
6 32 (3.08%) SC Cleared
7 15 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
7 15 (1.44%) HNC
8 8 (0.77%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.29%) MCT
9 3 (0.29%) Sun Certification
10 2 (0.19%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.19%) CCIE
10 2 (0.19%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.19%) JNCIA
10 2 (0.19%) JNCIS
11 1 (0.096%) HND
11 1 (0.096%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (15.50%) GDPR
2 10 (0.96%) QA
3 9 (0.87%) Data Quality
4 7 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 4 (0.38%) IEC 62304
5 4 (0.38%) ISO 13485
6 2 (0.19%) Def Stans
6 2 (0.19%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.19%) SLA
7 1 (0.096%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.096%) TickIT
System Software
1 24 (2.31%) Firmware
2 12 (1.15%) Docker
3 9 (0.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.77%) Active Directory
4 8 (0.77%) Embedded Firmware
5 6 (0.58%) Forefront TMG
5 6 (0.58%) Hyper-V
5 6 (0.58%) VMware Workstation
6 4 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.19%) VirtualBox
8 1 (0.096%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 47 (4.52%) Kubernetes
2 15 (1.44%) Terraform
3 6 (0.58%) SCOM
3 6 (0.58%) WSUS
4 2 (0.19%) Ansible
5 1 (0.096%) Puppet
Vendors
1 243 (23.39%) Google
2 41 (3.95%) EMC
3 27 (2.60%) Dell
4 24 (2.31%) Microsoft
5 15 (1.44%) Fortinet
5 15 (1.44%) Juniper
5 15 (1.44%) Sandvine
6 12 (1.15%) Oracle
7 9 (0.87%) VMware
8 8 (0.77%) QinetiQ
9 7 (0.67%) Databricks
10 4 (0.38%) Dataiku
11 3 (0.29%) Progress
12 2 (0.19%) CheckPoint
12 2 (0.19%) Confluent
12 2 (0.19%) Forcepoint
12 2 (0.19%) ForgeRock
12 2 (0.19%) SAP
12 2 (0.19%) Sitecore
13 1 (0.096%) SnapLogic