Principal Architect Job Trends

Principal Architect
UK

The median Principal Architect salary in the UK is £85,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 25 October 2025.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 623 620 664
Rank change year-on-year -3 +44 +196
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Architect 38 127 80
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.077% 0.19% 0.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.085% 0.19% 0.15%
Number of salaries quoted 37 60 51
10th Percentile £75,850 £50,000 £64,006
25th Percentile £77,270 £69,938 £93,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £85,000 £75,000 £110,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% -31.82% +27.54%
75th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £120,000
90th Percentile £113,750 £120,125 -
UK excluding London median annual salary £83,401 £70,000 £105,000
% change year-on-year +19.14% -33.33% +54.98%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides 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 44,505 65,397 53,065
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.16% 95.27% 95.59%
Number of salaries quoted 26,370 37,254 41,120
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £32,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,750 £43,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £56,509 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.09% -5.82% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £93,750 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -10.00% -4.76% -

Principal Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Principal Architect' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Principal Architect job vacancy trend in the UK

Principal Architect
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Principal Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Principal Architect job vacancies in the UK

Principal Architect
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Architect over the 6 months to 25 October 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Architect in the UK

Principal Architect
Top 15 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Architect within the UK over the 6 months to 25 October 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
England +33 35 £85,000 +13.33% 31
UK excluding London -26 27 £83,401 +19.14% 25
Work from Home +43 20 £82,801 +2.86% 18
Midlands +31 9 £100,000 +42.86% 4
North of England -2 8 £82,282 +64.56% 4
South West +44 7 £100,000 +11.11% 2
London +67 5 £107,500 -5.49% 10
East Midlands -1 5 £100,000 +42.86% 2
North West -4 4 £83,401 +3.60% 2
West Midlands +50 3 £116,401 - 2
Yorkshire +5 3 £79,000 +58.00% 2
North East +13 1 £81,764 -
Wales +9 1 £81,764 -
Northern Ireland +5 1 £82,801 - 1
Scotland -26 1 £81,764 -18.24% 2

Principal Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 October 2025, Principal Architect job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Principal Architect in the job title.

1 15 (39.47%) Security Cleared
2 13 (34.21%) Azure
3 12 (31.58%) TOGAF
4 11 (28.95%) AI
4 11 (28.95%) Decision-Making
4 11 (28.95%) Machine Learning
4 11 (28.95%) Python
5 10 (26.32%) NIST
5 10 (26.32%) Risk Assessment
5 10 (26.32%) Risk Management
5 10 (26.32%) Security Architecture
5 10 (26.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 9 (23.68%) Architectural Patterns
6 9 (23.68%) AWS
6 9 (23.68%) SC Cleared
7 8 (21.05%) Cybersecurity
7 8 (21.05%) Information Assurance
7 8 (21.05%) Information Security
7 8 (21.05%) Information Security Management
7 8 (21.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 8 (21.05%) NCSC
7 8 (21.05%) Network Security
7 8 (21.05%) Penetration Testing
7 8 (21.05%) QA
7 8 (21.05%) Risk Analysis
7 8 (21.05%) SABSA
7 8 (21.05%) Security Management
8 6 (15.79%) Analytics
8 6 (15.79%) Databricks
8 6 (15.79%) DV Cleared

Principal Architect Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 2 (5.26%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 13 (34.21%) Azure
2 9 (23.68%) AWS
3 6 (15.79%) SaaS
4 5 (13.16%) GCP
5 3 (7.89%) Azure Data Factory
5 3 (7.89%) Microsoft Purview
6 2 (5.26%) OpenShift
6 2 (5.26%) Snowflake
7 1 (2.63%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (2.63%) Amazon S3
7 1 (2.63%) Amazon SQS
7 1 (2.63%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (2.63%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (2.63%) Power Platform
7 1 (2.63%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (21.05%) Network Security
2 1 (2.63%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (7.89%) Metadata
2 2 (5.26%) Apache Hive
2 2 (5.26%) Big Data
2 2 (5.26%) Hadoop
3 1 (2.63%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (2.63%) Data Lake
3 1 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (2.63%) DynamoDB
3 1 (2.63%) NoSQL
3 1 (2.63%) Power BI
3 1 (2.63%) Tableau
General
1 14 (36.84%) Social Skills
2 10 (26.32%) Influencing Skills
3 9 (23.68%) Finance
4 8 (21.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 8 (21.05%) Legal
5 4 (10.53%) Public Sector
6 2 (5.26%) Banking
6 2 (5.26%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (2.63%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (13.16%) .NET
2 3 (7.89%) Kafka
2 3 (7.89%) PySpark
3 2 (5.26%) JDBC
3 2 (5.26%) LDAP
3 2 (5.26%) OAuth
3 2 (5.26%) OAuth2
3 2 (5.26%) ODBC
4 1 (2.63%) .NET Core
4 1 (2.63%) ASP.NET
4 1 (2.63%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 3 (7.89%) Distributed Systems
2 2 (5.26%) Management Information System
2 2 (5.26%) NHS
3 1 (2.63%) Cloud Native
3 1 (2.63%) Distributed Architecture
3 1 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 2 (5.26%) Linux
1 2 (5.26%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (31.58%) TOGAF
2 11 (28.95%) AI
2 11 (28.95%) Decision-Making
2 11 (28.95%) Machine Learning
3 10 (26.32%) Risk Assessment
3 10 (26.32%) Risk Management
3 10 (26.32%) Security Architecture
3 10 (26.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 9 (23.68%) Architectural Patterns
5 8 (21.05%) Cybersecurity
5 8 (21.05%) Information Assurance
5 8 (21.05%) Information Security
5 8 (21.05%) Information Security Management
5 8 (21.05%) Penetration Testing
5 8 (21.05%) Risk Analysis
5 8 (21.05%) SABSA
5 8 (21.05%) Security Management
6 6 (15.79%) Analytics
7 5 (13.16%) Mentoring
7 5 (13.16%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 11 (28.95%) Python
2 6 (15.79%) SQL
3 3 (7.89%) C#
3 3 (7.89%) T-SQL
4 2 (5.26%) Java
Qualifications
1 15 (39.47%) Security Cleared
2 9 (23.68%) SC Cleared
3 6 (15.79%) DV Cleared
4 3 (7.89%) Degree
4 3 (7.89%) TOGAF Certification
5 2 (5.26%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (5.26%) Master's Degree
6 1 (2.63%) AWS Certification
6 1 (2.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 1 (2.63%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (26.32%) NIST
2 8 (21.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (21.05%) NCSC
2 8 (21.05%) QA
3 2 (5.26%) GDPR
3 2 (5.26%) PMO
System Software
1 2 (5.26%) Active Directory
2 1 (2.63%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (15.79%) Kubernetes
2 2 (5.26%) Ansible
3 1 (2.63%) Terraform
Vendors
1 6 (15.79%) Databricks
2 5 (13.16%) Microsoft
3 2 (5.26%) Dell
4 1 (2.63%) Alteryx