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 19 September 2025.

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

6 months to
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 635 639 691
Rank change year-on-year +4 +52 +130
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Architect 39 153 89
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.079% 0.20% 0.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.088% 0.21% 0.16%
Number of salaries quoted 37 52 60
10th Percentile £73,460 £50,000 £67,151
25th Percentile £77,270 £68,625 £87,813
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £85,000 £70,250 £110,000
Median % change year-on-year +21.00% -36.14% +25.71%
75th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £120,000
90th Percentile £117,500 £100,000 -
UK excluding London median annual salary £82,801 £70,000 £105,000
% change year-on-year +18.29% -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 44,309 74,419 56,988
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.65% 95.24% 94.21%
Number of salaries quoted 26,050 44,613 44,179
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £73,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £92,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -

Principal Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Principal Architect 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 19 September 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Architect in the UK

Principal Architect
Top 14 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 19 September 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 +49 36 £85,000 +21.43% 73
UK excluding London -2 26 £82,801 +18.29% 72
Work from Home +76 23 £82,801 +2.86% 73
South West +73 9 £100,000 +11.11% 11
Midlands +41 8 £82,801 +18.29% 16
London +68 7 £115,000 +4.55% 13
North of England +5 6 £83,401 +66.80% 14
East Midlands +17 5 £100,000 +42.86% 6
North West -2 5 £84,000 +4.35% 6
West Midlands +47 3 £73,901 - 9
North East +17 1 £81,764 - 2
Wales +13 1 £81,764 - 3
Northern Ireland +13 1 £82,801 - 2
Scotland +7 1 £81,764 +12.78% 7

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

For the 6 months to 19 September 2025, Principal Architect 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 Architect in the job title.

1 18 (46.15%) Security Cleared
2 17 (43.59%) TOGAF
3 14 (35.90%) Azure
4 12 (30.77%) Decision-Making
5 11 (28.21%) Security Architecture
5 11 (28.21%) SC Cleared
5 11 (28.21%) Social Skills
6 10 (25.64%) NIST
6 10 (25.64%) Influencing Skills
6 10 (25.64%) Risk Management
6 10 (25.64%) Risk Assessment
6 10 (25.64%) Legal
6 10 (25.64%) AWS
7 9 (23.08%) Finance
7 9 (23.08%) Cybersecurity
7 9 (23.08%) Roadmaps
7 9 (23.08%) Architectural Patterns
8 8 (20.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (20.51%) NCSC
8 8 (20.51%) SABSA
8 8 (20.51%) Machine Learning
8 8 (20.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 8 (20.51%) Information Security Management
8 8 (20.51%) Security Management
8 8 (20.51%) Information Security
8 8 (20.51%) Information Assurance
8 8 (20.51%) Penetration Testing
8 8 (20.51%) Artificial Intelligence
8 8 (20.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 8 (20.51%) QA

Principal Architect 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:

Cloud Services
1 14 (35.90%) Azure
2 10 (25.64%) AWS
3 6 (15.38%) SaaS
4 4 (10.26%) GCP
5 1 (2.56%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (2.56%) Amazon S3
5 1 (2.56%) Amazon SQS
5 1 (2.56%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (2.56%) Entra ID
5 1 (2.56%) Power Platform
5 1 (2.56%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (20.51%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.13%) Metadata
2 1 (2.56%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (2.56%) DynamoDB
2 1 (2.56%) NoSQL
2 1 (2.56%) Power BI
2 1 (2.56%) Tableau
General
1 11 (28.21%) Social Skills
2 10 (25.64%) Influencing Skills
2 10 (25.64%) Legal
3 9 (23.08%) Finance
4 8 (20.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (7.69%) Retail
6 2 (5.13%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (5.13%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (12.82%) .NET
2 3 (7.69%) RESTful
3 1 (2.56%) .NET Core
3 1 (2.56%) ASP.NET
3 1 (2.56%) HTML
3 1 (2.56%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 2 (5.13%) Management Information System
1 2 (5.13%) NHS
1 2 (5.13%) Taxonomies
2 1 (2.56%) Cloud Native
2 1 (2.56%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
2 1 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.56%) Linux
1 1 (2.56%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (43.59%) TOGAF
2 12 (30.77%) Decision-Making
3 11 (28.21%) Security Architecture
4 10 (25.64%) Risk Assessment
4 10 (25.64%) Risk Management
5 9 (23.08%) Architectural Patterns
5 9 (23.08%) Cybersecurity
5 9 (23.08%) Roadmaps
6 8 (20.51%) Artificial Intelligence
6 8 (20.51%) Information Assurance
6 8 (20.51%) Information Security
6 8 (20.51%) Information Security Management
6 8 (20.51%) Machine Learning
6 8 (20.51%) Penetration Testing
6 8 (20.51%) Risk Analysis
6 8 (20.51%) SABSA
6 8 (20.51%) Security Management
6 8 (20.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 7 (17.95%) Agile
7 7 (17.95%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 7 (17.95%) Python
2 4 (10.26%) SQL
3 3 (7.69%) C#
4 1 (2.56%) Bash
4 1 (2.56%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.56%) R
4 1 (2.56%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 18 (46.15%) Security Cleared
2 11 (28.21%) SC Cleared
3 6 (15.38%) Degree
3 6 (15.38%) DV Cleared
4 5 (12.82%) TOGAF Certification
5 3 (7.69%) AWS Certification
5 3 (7.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 3 (7.69%) Azure Certification
5 3 (7.69%) Master's Degree
6 2 (5.13%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (2.56%) MBA
7 1 (2.56%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (25.64%) NIST
2 8 (20.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (20.51%) NCSC
2 8 (20.51%) QA
3 2 (5.13%) GDPR
3 2 (5.13%) PMO
System Software
1 1 (2.56%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (2.56%) Kubernetes
1 1 (2.56%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (7.69%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.56%) Alteryx
2 1 (2.56%) Databricks