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 8 November 2025.

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

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 616 640 641
Rank change year-on-year +24 +1 +201
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Architect 49 106 93
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.096% 0.16% 0.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.11% 0.16% 0.18%
Number of salaries quoted 43 60 50
10th Percentile £75,270 £50,000 £63,980
25th Percentile £77,270 £69,938 £93,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £85,000 £75,000 £110,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% -31.82% +22.22%
75th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £120,000
90th Percentile £115,000 £120,125 -
UK excluding London median annual salary £100,000 £70,000 £105,000
% change year-on-year +42.86% -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 46,066 64,284 51,077
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.12% 95.03% 95.51%
Number of salaries quoted 28,668 36,353 39,628
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £31,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,238 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,000 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -8.00% -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 8 November 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 8 November 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 +58 42 £97,500 +30.00% 44
UK excluding London +26 34 £100,000 +42.86% 58
Work from Home +52 22 £82,801 +0.36% 20
Midlands +58 11 £100,000 +42.86% 4
North of England +3 10 £82,801 +65.60% 6
South West +29 8 £100,000 +11.11% 5
London +68 7 £103,750 -8.79% 12
East Midlands +11 7 £100,000 +42.86% 3
Yorkshire +2 5 £79,000 +58.00% 4
North West +11 4 £83,401 +3.60%
West Midlands - 3 £116,401 -
Wales +7 2 £81,764 - 1
Scotland -18 2 £95,882 -4.12% 30
North East +12 1 £81,764 - 2
Northern Ireland +1 1 £82,801 -

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

For the 6 months to 8 November 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 16 (32.65%) Azure
1 16 (32.65%) Security Cleared
2 13 (26.53%) AI
2 13 (26.53%) Architectural Patterns
3 12 (24.49%) AWS
3 12 (24.49%) TOGAF
4 11 (22.45%) Decision-Making
4 11 (22.45%) Enterprise Architecture
4 11 (22.45%) Machine Learning
4 11 (22.45%) Python
4 11 (22.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 10 (20.41%) NIST
5 10 (20.41%) Risk Assessment
5 10 (20.41%) Risk Management
5 10 (20.41%) SC Cleared
5 10 (20.41%) Security Architecture
6 8 (16.33%) Analytics
6 8 (16.33%) Cybersecurity
6 8 (16.33%) Information Assurance
6 8 (16.33%) Information Security
6 8 (16.33%) Information Security Management
6 8 (16.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (16.33%) Microsoft
6 8 (16.33%) NCSC
6 8 (16.33%) Network Security
6 8 (16.33%) Penetration Testing
6 8 (16.33%) QA
6 8 (16.33%) Risk Analysis
6 8 (16.33%) Roadmaps
6 8 (16.33%) SABSA

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 (4.08%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 16 (32.65%) Azure
2 12 (24.49%) AWS
3 7 (14.29%) GCP
3 7 (14.29%) SaaS
4 4 (8.16%) Snowflake
5 3 (6.12%) Azure Data Factory
5 3 (6.12%) Microsoft Purview
6 2 (4.08%) Kong
6 2 (4.08%) OpenShift
7 1 (2.04%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (2.04%) Amazon S3
7 1 (2.04%) Amazon SQS
7 1 (2.04%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (2.04%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (2.04%) Power Platform
7 1 (2.04%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (16.33%) Network Security
2 1 (2.04%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (10.20%) Metadata
2 3 (6.12%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (6.12%) NoSQL
3 2 (4.08%) Apache Hive
3 2 (4.08%) Big Data
3 2 (4.08%) Hadoop
4 1 (2.04%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (2.04%) Data Lake
4 1 (2.04%) DynamoDB
4 1 (2.04%) Power BI
4 1 (2.04%) Tableau
General
1 15 (30.61%) Social Skills
2 11 (22.45%) Finance
3 10 (20.41%) Influencing Skills
3 10 (20.41%) Legal
4 9 (18.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 5 (10.20%) Public Sector
6 2 (4.08%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (4.08%) Banking
6 2 (4.08%) Law
6 2 (4.08%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (10.20%) .NET
1 5 (10.20%) Kafka
2 3 (6.12%) PySpark
3 2 (4.08%) Apollo GraphQL
3 2 (4.08%) GraphQL
3 2 (4.08%) JDBC
3 2 (4.08%) LDAP
3 2 (4.08%) Node.js
3 2 (4.08%) OAuth
3 2 (4.08%) OAuth2
3 2 (4.08%) ODBC
3 2 (4.08%) React
4 1 (2.04%) .NET Core
4 1 (2.04%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 3 (6.12%) Cloud Native
1 3 (6.12%) Distributed Systems
2 2 (4.08%) Data Protection Act
2 2 (4.08%) e-Learning
2 2 (4.08%) Management Information System
2 2 (4.08%) NHS
2 2 (4.08%) Video Conferencing
3 1 (2.04%) Distributed Architecture
3 1 (2.04%) IoT
3 1 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 2 (4.08%) Linux
1 2 (4.08%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (26.53%) AI
1 13 (26.53%) Architectural Patterns
2 12 (24.49%) TOGAF
3 11 (22.45%) Decision-Making
3 11 (22.45%) Enterprise Architecture
3 11 (22.45%) Machine Learning
3 11 (22.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 10 (20.41%) Risk Assessment
4 10 (20.41%) Risk Management
4 10 (20.41%) Security Architecture
5 8 (16.33%) Analytics
5 8 (16.33%) Cybersecurity
5 8 (16.33%) Information Assurance
5 8 (16.33%) Information Security
5 8 (16.33%) Information Security Management
5 8 (16.33%) Penetration Testing
5 8 (16.33%) Risk Analysis
5 8 (16.33%) Roadmaps
5 8 (16.33%) SABSA
5 8 (16.33%) Security Management
Programming Languages
1 11 (22.45%) Python
2 6 (12.24%) SQL
3 4 (8.16%) Java
4 3 (6.12%) C#
4 3 (6.12%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 16 (32.65%) Security Cleared
2 10 (20.41%) SC Cleared
3 6 (12.24%) DV Cleared
4 2 (4.08%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (4.08%) Degree
4 2 (4.08%) Master's Degree
4 2 (4.08%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (20.41%) NIST
2 8 (16.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (16.33%) NCSC
2 8 (16.33%) QA
3 5 (10.20%) GDPR
4 2 (4.08%) PMO
System Software
1 2 (4.08%) Active Directory
2 1 (2.04%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (12.24%) Kubernetes
2 3 (6.12%) Terraform
3 2 (4.08%) Ansible
Vendors
1 8 (16.33%) Microsoft
2 6 (12.24%) Databricks
3 2 (4.08%) Adobe
3 2 (4.08%) Dell
3 2 (4.08%) Informatica
3 2 (4.08%) MuleSoft
3 2 (4.08%) Salesforce
3 2 (4.08%) SAP
4 1 (2.04%) Alteryx