Product Backlog Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Product Backlogs
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Product Backlog skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 124 96 126
Rank change year-on-year -28 +30 +18
Contract jobs citing Product Backlog 12 28 18
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.57% 1.40% 0.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.66% 1.57% 0.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 18 12
10th Percentile £385 £566 £513
25th Percentile £400 £576 £541
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £625 £600
Median % change year-on-year -16.00% +4.17% +14.29%
75th Percentile £565 £650 £647
90th Percentile £593 £657 £675
South East median daily rate £455 £625 £565
% change year-on-year -27.20% +10.62% +7.62%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

Product Backlog falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,830 1,780 2,267
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 87.48% 89.04% 91.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,199 1,046 1,460
10th Percentile £266 £276 £213
25th Percentile £400 £409 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £613
90th Percentile £650 £686 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £523
% change year-on-year -2.44% -1.91% +1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 51 103
10th Percentile £15.23 £19.30 £18.95
25th Percentile £18.00 £30.50 £25.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £49.73
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% +14.11% +136.81%
75th Percentile £58.00 £63.00 £63.90
90th Percentile £89.63 £67.00 £72.33
South East median hourly rate £22.50 £47.78 £53.50
% change year-on-year -52.91% -10.69% +42.67%

Product Backlog
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Product Backlog relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Product Backlog job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Product Backlog
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Product Backlog.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Product Backlog

Product Backlog
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Product Backlog in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Product Backlog in the Thames Valley

Product Backlog
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Product Backlog within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 19 December 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Berkshire -29 11 £525 -16.00% 7
Oxfordshire - 1 £588 - 3
Product Backlog
South East

Product Backlog
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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:

Applications
1 1 (8.33%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (16.67%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 6 (50.00%) Dynamics 365
2 4 (33.33%) Azure
3 3 (25.00%) Microsoft 365
3 3 (25.00%) Power Platform
4 2 (16.67%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (8.33%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (16.67%) Power BI
2 1 (8.33%) Data Mart
2 1 (8.33%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (8.33%) Postman
General
1 4 (33.33%) Finance
2 2 (16.67%) Automotive
2 2 (16.67%) Billing
2 2 (16.67%) Legal
2 2 (16.67%) Marketing
2 2 (16.67%) Telecoms
3 1 (8.33%) Public Sector
3 1 (8.33%) Retail
Job Titles
1 4 (33.33%) Consultant
1 4 (33.33%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
1 4 (33.33%) Functional Consultant
1 4 (33.33%) Product Owner
2 2 (16.67%) Product Manager
3 1 (8.33%) Architect
3 1 (8.33%) Product Architect
3 1 (8.33%) Scrum Master
3 1 (8.33%) Senior
3 1 (8.33%) Senior Product Owner
Miscellaneous
1 6 (50.00%) Product Ownership
2 2 (16.67%) IoT
3 1 (8.33%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (8.33%) Onboarding
3 1 (8.33%) Private Cloud
3 1 (8.33%) Virtual Team
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (91.67%) Agile
2 9 (75.00%) User Stories
3 6 (50.00%) Roadmaps
4 5 (41.67%) Acceptance Criteria
4 5 (41.67%) Workshop Facilitation
5 4 (33.33%) Backlog Management
5 4 (33.33%) End-to-End Testing
5 4 (33.33%) ERP
5 4 (33.33%) Product Vision
5 4 (33.33%) Scrum
6 3 (25.00%) Backlog Refinement
6 3 (25.00%) Epics
6 3 (25.00%) Functional Testing
6 3 (25.00%) Sprint Planning
6 3 (25.00%) Sprint Retrospective
7 2 (16.67%) Business Case
7 2 (16.67%) CRM
7 2 (16.67%) Product Roadmap
7 2 (16.67%) Prototyping
7 2 (16.67%) Sprint Review
Programming Languages
1 1 (8.33%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (8.33%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (8.33%) QA
Vendors
1 5 (41.67%) Microsoft
2 1 (8.33%) Fortinet
2 1 (8.33%) HubSpot
2 1 (8.33%) Juniper
2 1 (8.33%) Salesforce