Backlog Refinement Contracts in the UK excluding London

Backlog Refinement (Backlog Grooming)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Backlog Refinement skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Backlog Refinement over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 304 363 402
Rank change year-on-year +59 +39 +9
Contract jobs citing Backlog Refinement 32 36 60
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.25% 0.17% 0.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.28% 0.20% 0.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 17 41
10th Percentile £426 £398 £363
25th Percentile £448 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £446 £450
Median % change year-on-year +15.04% -1.00% -14.29%
75th Percentile £587 £513 £538
90th Percentile £685 £565 £638
UK median daily rate £481 £520 £550
% change year-on-year -7.45% -5.45% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 1
10th Percentile £51.42 - -
25th Percentile £54.10 - -
Median hourly rate £61.81 - £60.00
75th Percentile £68.77 - -
90th Percentile £71.01 - -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 - £57.50

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Backlog Refinement 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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,543 17,602 21,544
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.42% 84.74% 89.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,249 10,520 14,947
10th Percentile £235 £250 £255
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £662 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 825 2,048 1,307
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.33 £11.00
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.28 £16.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%
75th Percentile £64.50 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £72.98
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

Backlog Refinement
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Backlog Refinement as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Backlog Refinement in the UK excluding London

Backlog Refinement
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Backlog Refinement in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Backlog Refinement in the UK excluding London

Backlog Refinement
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Backlog Refinement in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Backlog Refinement in the UK excluding London

Backlog Refinement
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Backlog Refinement in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Backlog Refinement in the UK excluding London

Backlog Refinement
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Backlog Refinement in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Backlog Refinement in the UK excluding London

Backlog Refinement
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Backlog Refinement within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
North of England +20 14 £573 +17.56% 8
South East +45 9 £500 +12.23% 12
North West +18 6 £660 +59.81% 3
Yorkshire +9 6 £450 -24.69% 4
Scotland +11 4 £458 +14.50%
Midlands +22 3 £525 +27.12% 7
East Midlands +11 2 - - 5
North East -1 2 - - 1
South West +44 1 £500 - 5
West Midlands +13 1 £525 - 2
Northern Ireland - 1 £625 - 2
Backlog Refinement
UK

Backlog Refinement
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 5 (15.63%) Confluence
2 1 (3.13%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (3.13%) Adobe XD
1 1 (3.13%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (3.13%) MS Visio
1 1 (3.13%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 2 (6.25%) iTrent
2 1 (3.13%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 9 (28.13%) Azure
2 4 (12.50%) Azure DevOps
2 4 (12.50%) Power Platform
3 3 (9.38%) AWS
3 3 (9.38%) Dynamics 365
4 2 (6.25%) GCP
4 2 (6.25%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (3.13%) Entra ID
5 1 (3.13%) Figma
5 1 (3.13%) Google Analytics
5 1 (3.13%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 4 (12.50%) Firewall
2 1 (3.13%) DHCP
2 1 (3.13%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (6.25%) Power BI
2 1 (3.13%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (28.13%) JIRA
2 3 (9.38%) GitLab
3 2 (6.25%) Jenkins
3 2 (6.25%) Postman
4 1 (3.13%) Selenium
4 1 (3.13%) SpecFlow
4 1 (3.13%) Visual Studio
4 1 (3.13%) WebDriver
General
1 18 (56.25%) Social Skills
2 9 (28.13%) Finance
3 7 (21.88%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (6.25%) Banking
4 2 (6.25%) Influencing Skills
4 2 (6.25%) Public Sector
5 1 (3.13%) Aerospace
5 1 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (3.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (3.13%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (28.13%) Analyst
2 8 (25.00%) Business Analyst
3 6 (18.75%) Developer
4 4 (12.50%) Lead
4 4 (12.50%) Product Owner
4 4 (12.50%) Senior
5 3 (9.38%) Consultant
5 3 (9.38%) ServiceNow Developer
6 2 (6.25%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
6 2 (6.25%) Finance Business Analyst
6 2 (6.25%) Financial Analyst
6 2 (6.25%) Financial Business Analyst
6 2 (6.25%) Financial Services Business Analyst
6 2 (6.25%) Scrum Master
6 2 (6.25%) Senior Product Owner
6 2 (6.25%) Service Analyst
6 2 (6.25%) Technical Analyst
6 2 (6.25%) Technical Business Analyst
6 2 (6.25%) Test Leader
6 2 (6.25%) Transformation Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (9.38%) CSS
1 3 (9.38%) HTML
1 3 (9.38%) JSON
1 3 (9.38%) XML
2 1 (3.13%) .NET
2 1 (3.13%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 10 (31.25%) Product Ownership
2 5 (15.63%) Onboarding
3 1 (3.13%) CMDB
3 1 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (3.13%) Mobile App
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (93.75%) Agile
2 19 (59.38%) Sprint Planning
3 13 (40.63%) Scrum
4 12 (37.50%) Continuous Improvement
5 11 (34.38%) DevOps
5 11 (34.38%) User Stories
6 10 (31.25%) Problem-Solving
7 8 (25.00%) Product Backlog
7 8 (25.00%) Sprint Review
8 7 (21.88%) CI/CD
8 7 (21.88%) Stakeholder Management
9 6 (18.75%) Test Automation
10 5 (15.63%) Acceptance Criteria
10 5 (15.63%) Backlog Management
10 5 (15.63%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 5 (15.63%) Roadmaps
10 5 (15.63%) Sprint Retrospective
11 4 (12.50%) Data Ingestion
11 4 (12.50%) Decision-Making
11 4 (12.50%) Regulatory Compliance
Programming Languages
1 4 (12.50%) Bash
1 4 (12.50%) JavaScript
1 4 (12.50%) Python
2 3 (9.38%) SQL
3 1 (3.13%) C#
3 1 (3.13%) Java
3 1 (3.13%) Kotlin
3 1 (3.13%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 2 (6.25%) CCNA
1 2 (6.25%) CCNP
1 2 (6.25%) Cisco Certification
1 2 (6.25%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (12.50%) Accessibility
2 3 (9.38%) GRC
2 3 (9.38%) QA
3 1 (3.13%) PMO
3 1 (3.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 1 (3.13%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (12.50%) Ansible
2 2 (6.25%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 8 (25.00%) ServiceNow
2 6 (18.75%) Microsoft
3 4 (12.50%) Fortinet
3 4 (12.50%) Infoblox
4 2 (6.25%) Google
4 2 (6.25%) Virgin Media
5 1 (3.13%) Adobe
5 1 (3.13%) Atlassian
5 1 (3.13%) Hotjar
5 1 (3.13%) MuleSoft
5 1 (3.13%) Oracle
5 1 (3.13%) Salesforce