Principal Software Engineer Jobs in England

Principal Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Principal Software Engineer salary in England is £68,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 9 July 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 528 693 784
Rank change year-on-year +165 +91 +6
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Software Engineer 185 170 82
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 0.35% 0.19% 0.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.39% 0.20% 0.12%
Number of salaries quoted 92 132 66
10th Percentile - £65,000 £67,750
25th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £76,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £68,000 £83,750 £90,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.81% -6.94% +2.86%
75th Percentile £77,500 £100,000 £113,750
90th Percentile £113,250 £116,125 £160,000
UK median annual salary £68,000 £83,750 £90,000
% change year-on-year -18.81% -6.94% +2.86%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in England. 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 England with a recognized job title 47,979 86,514 70,624
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.47% 94.64% 91.12%
Number of salaries quoted 26,566 62,566 49,212
10th Percentile £28,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £39,500 £38,750 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -12.50% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £71,250 £81,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £90,000 £100,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £52,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +4.76% -12.50% -

Principal Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Job vacancy trend for Principal Software Engineer in England

Principal Software Engineer
Salary Trend in England

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

Salary trend for Principal Software Engineer in England

Principal Software Engineer
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Software Engineer in England over the 6 months to 9 July 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Software Engineer in England

Principal Software Engineer
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Software Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 9 July 2025. 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
South East +143 84 £68,000 -2.86% 14
Midlands +134 65 £73,750 -13.24% 2
West Midlands +108 42 - -
East Midlands +63 23 £73,750 -13.24% 2
London +24 15 £125,000 +33.33% 7
North of England +24 9 £75,000 +15.38% 8
North West +1 9 £75,000 +15.38% 5
South West +84 6 £100,000 +33.33% 4
East of England +26 5 - - 10
Principal Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 July 2025, Principal Software 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 across the England region featuring Principal Software Engineer in the job title.

1 144 (77.84%) Agile
2 138 (74.59%) BPSS Clearance
3 122 (65.95%) Software Engineering
4 88 (47.57%) Degree
5 82 (44.32%) Computer Science
6 75 (40.54%) UML
7 72 (38.92%) Chartered Engineer
7 72 (38.92%) Waterfall
8 66 (35.68%) MATLAB
8 66 (35.68%) Simulink
8 66 (35.68%) Aerospace
8 66 (35.68%) Validation
9 65 (35.14%) Software Testing
10 64 (34.59%) Automotive
10 64 (34.59%) Systems Engineering
11 57 (30.81%) Configuration Management
12 54 (29.19%) ISO/IEC 12207
12 54 (29.19%) Ada
12 54 (29.19%) Ada 95
13 22 (11.89%) AWS
14 20 (10.81%) Python
15 18 (9.73%) Microservices
16 17 (9.19%) Kubernetes
17 15 (8.11%) Cloud Native
17 15 (8.11%) Java
18 14 (7.57%) Mentoring
19 12 (6.49%) Docker
19 12 (6.49%) CI/CD
20 11 (5.95%) Event-Driven
20 11 (5.95%) Problem-Solving

Principal Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England 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 3 (1.62%) Confluence
Applications
1 66 (35.68%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 22 (11.89%) AWS
2 9 (4.86%) GCP
3 6 (3.24%) Azure
4 3 (1.62%) Serverless
5 2 (1.08%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (0.54%) Azure API Management
6 1 (0.54%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (0.54%) Azure Logic Apps
6 1 (0.54%) Firebase
6 1 (0.54%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.08%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.78%) MongoDB
2 5 (2.70%) NoSQL
3 3 (1.62%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.62%) Redis
4 2 (1.08%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.54%) Big Data
5 1 (0.54%) MySQL
5 1 (0.54%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 9 (4.86%) Git
2 5 (2.70%) JIRA
3 3 (1.62%) Subversion
4 1 (0.54%) Ant
4 1 (0.54%) CMake
4 1 (0.54%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.54%) webpack
General
1 66 (35.68%) Aerospace
2 64 (34.59%) Automotive
3 8 (4.32%) Banking
4 7 (3.78%) Finance
5 6 (3.24%) Law
6 5 (2.70%) Retail
7 4 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (2.16%) Marketing
8 3 (1.62%) Electronics
8 3 (1.62%) Military
9 2 (1.08%) Front Office
9 2 (1.08%) Games
9 2 (1.08%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.54%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.54%) Public Sector
10 1 (0.54%) Social Skills
10 1 (0.54%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.95%) React
2 8 (4.32%) Kafka
3 7 (3.78%) Node.js
4 5 (2.70%) .NET
4 5 (2.70%) Lambda Expressions
5 4 (2.16%) Micronaut
5 4 (2.16%) Quarkus
5 4 (2.16%) RESTful
5 4 (2.16%) Spring
5 4 (2.16%) Spring Boot
6 3 (1.62%) CSS
6 3 (1.62%) Drools
6 3 (1.62%) GraphQL
6 3 (1.62%) HTML
6 3 (1.62%) Jest
7 2 (1.08%) Boost C++ Libraries
7 2 (1.08%) FIX Protocol
7 2 (1.08%) OAuth2
7 2 (1.08%) pytest
7 2 (1.08%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.11%) Cloud Native
2 10 (5.41%) Distributed Systems
3 7 (3.78%) Algorithms
4 6 (3.24%) Product Ownership
5 3 (1.62%) Data Structures
5 3 (1.62%) Greenfield Project
5 3 (1.62%) Public Cloud
6 2 (1.08%) Derivative
6 2 (1.08%) Equities
6 2 (1.08%) Fixed Income
7 1 (0.54%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (0.54%) FPGA
7 1 (0.54%) Housing Association
7 1 (0.54%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.54%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.54%) NHS
7 1 (0.54%) PKI
7 1 (0.54%) Robotics
7 1 (0.54%) Verilog
7 1 (0.54%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 3 (1.62%) Linux
2 1 (0.54%) Android
2 1 (0.54%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.54%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (77.84%) Agile
2 122 (65.95%) Software Engineering
3 82 (44.32%) Computer Science
4 75 (40.54%) UML
5 72 (38.92%) Waterfall
6 66 (35.68%) Validation
7 65 (35.14%) Software Testing
8 64 (34.59%) Systems Engineering
9 57 (30.81%) Configuration Management
10 18 (9.73%) Microservices
11 14 (7.57%) Mentoring
12 12 (6.49%) CI/CD
13 11 (5.95%) Event-Driven
13 11 (5.95%) Problem-Solving
14 9 (4.86%) Artificial Intelligence
15 8 (4.32%) DevOps
15 8 (4.32%) Machine Learning
15 8 (4.32%) Mathematics
16 6 (3.24%) SDLC
16 6 (3.24%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 66 (35.68%) MATLAB
2 54 (29.19%) Ada
2 54 (29.19%) Ada 95
3 20 (10.81%) Python
4 15 (8.11%) Java
5 10 (5.41%) TypeScript
6 7 (3.78%) JavaScript
7 6 (3.24%) C++
7 6 (3.24%) SQL
8 5 (2.70%) C
9 4 (2.16%) Go
10 3 (1.62%) C#
11 2 (1.08%) Rust
12 1 (0.54%) PHP
12 1 (0.54%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 138 (74.59%) BPSS Clearance
2 88 (47.57%) Degree
3 72 (38.92%) Chartered Engineer
4 6 (3.24%) Security Cleared
5 5 (2.70%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.62%) Master's Degree
6 3 (1.62%) PhD
7 2 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.54%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (29.19%) ISO/IEC 12207
2 3 (1.62%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.08%) QA
System Software
1 12 (6.49%) Docker
Systems Management
1 17 (9.19%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.24%) Terraform
3 1 (0.54%) Ansible
3 1 (0.54%) Progress Chef
3 1 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 1 (0.54%) Apple
1 1 (0.54%) ForgeRock
1 1 (0.54%) Okta
1 1 (0.54%) Ping Identity