Product Backlog Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Product Backlogs
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Product Backlog skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 299 275 308
Rank change year-on-year -24 +33 +37
Contract jobs citing Product Backlog 95 64 95
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.52% 0.46% 0.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.61% 0.53% 0.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 63 40 70
10th Percentile £351 £409 £462
25th Percentile £409 £455 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £585 £563
Median % change year-on-year -18.80% +3.91% +7.24%
75th Percentile £538 £638 £605
90th Percentile £598 £651 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £583 £565
% change year-on-year -14.20% +3.14% +2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 2
10th Percentile - - £52.23
25th Percentile £48.86 - £53.69
Median hourly rate £56.69 - £57.25
75th Percentile £60.85 - £60.69
90th Percentile £64.15 - £62.08
UK median hourly rate £52.78 - £52.50
% change year-on-year - - -25.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 15,617 12,154 16,854
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 85.23% 88.03% 87.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,576 7,108 10,751
10th Percentile £223 £235 £250
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,689 687 1,278
10th Percentile £14.37 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.23 £20.00 £16.94
Median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £43.83
Median % change year-on-year -21.76% -30.52% +51.12%
75th Percentile £55.00 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.02 £73.85 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +15.71%

Product Backlog
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Product Backlog job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Product Backlog
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Product Backlog.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Product Backlog

Product Backlog
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Product Backlog in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Product Backlog in the UK excluding London

Product Backlog
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Product Backlog.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Product Backlog

Product Backlog
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Product Backlog in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Product Backlog in the UK excluding London

Product Backlog
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 Product Backlog within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 14 January 2026. 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 -17 44 £475 +1.88% 12
Yorkshire -25 25 £480 -9.53% 3
South East -25 24 £485 -22.40% 26
Midlands -28 20 £471 -10.29% 14
North West -11 17 £404 +19.56% 5
West Midlands -29 11 £475 - 8
East Midlands -16 9 £425 -37.04% 6
South West -23 4 £563 -6.25% 7
Scotland -8 3 £750 +70.07% 1
North East -9 3 £480 +14.29% 4
Product Backlog
UK

Product Backlog
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 11 (11.58%) Confluence
2 2 (2.11%) OpenStack
3 1 (1.05%) CMS
3 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (1.05%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.05%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (1.05%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (3.16%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (2.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (1.05%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 14 (14.74%) Azure
2 8 (8.42%) Dynamics 365
3 7 (7.37%) GCP
4 6 (6.32%) AWS
5 4 (4.21%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (4.21%) OpenShift
6 3 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (3.16%) Power Platform
7 2 (2.11%) Figma
7 2 (2.11%) GitHub
7 2 (2.11%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (2.11%) PowerApps
8 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (1.05%) Miro
8 1 (1.05%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.05%) Network Security
1 1 (1.05%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.11%) Power BI
1 2 (2.11%) SAP HANA
1 2 (2.11%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.05%) BigQuery
2 1 (1.05%) Data Mart
Development Applications
1 17 (17.89%) JIRA
2 3 (3.16%) Jenkins
3 2 (2.11%) CircleCI
3 2 (2.11%) GitLab
4 1 (1.05%) Postman
4 1 (1.05%) Selenium
4 1 (1.05%) SoapUI
4 1 (1.05%) Zephyr
General
1 28 (29.47%) Finance
1 28 (29.47%) Social Skills
2 13 (13.68%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (11.58%) Banking
4 9 (9.47%) Legal
5 8 (8.42%) Public Sector
6 6 (6.32%) Telecoms
7 5 (5.26%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (3.16%) Aerospace
8 3 (3.16%) Digital Health
8 3 (3.16%) Marketing
8 3 (3.16%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (3.16%) Retail
9 2 (2.11%) Automotive
9 2 (2.11%) Billing
9 2 (2.11%) Financial Institution
9 2 (2.11%) Games
10 1 (1.05%) Law
10 1 (1.05%) Manufacturing
10 1 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 50 (52.63%) Product Owner
2 11 (11.58%) Analyst
3 10 (10.53%) Business Analyst
3 10 (10.53%) Product Manager
4 9 (9.47%) Lead
5 7 (7.37%) Senior
6 6 (6.32%) Consultant
7 4 (4.21%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
7 4 (4.21%) Functional Consultant
8 3 (3.16%) Product Analyst
8 3 (3.16%) Scrum Master
8 3 (3.16%) Senior Analyst
9 2 (2.11%) Banking Analyst
9 2 (2.11%) Banking Business Analyst
9 2 (2.11%) Digital Business Analyst
9 2 (2.11%) Engineering Specialist
9 2 (2.11%) Product Business Analyst
9 2 (2.11%) Senior Business Analyst
9 2 (2.11%) Senior Manager
9 2 (2.11%) Technical Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.26%) Kafka
2 2 (2.11%) Elastic Stack
2 2 (2.11%) RabbitMQ
3 1 (1.05%) JSON
3 1 (1.05%) JSON Schema
3 1 (1.05%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 72 (75.79%) Product Ownership
2 13 (13.68%) Onboarding
3 5 (5.26%) Data Protection Act
4 4 (4.21%) Cloud Native
4 4 (4.21%) Hybrid Cloud
4 4 (4.21%) Mobile App
5 3 (3.16%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (2.11%) IoT
6 2 (2.11%) Virtual Team
7 1 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.05%) FMCG
7 1 (1.05%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (1.05%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (1.05%) Mobile Banking
7 1 (1.05%) Private Cloud
7 1 (1.05%) Public Cloud
7 1 (1.05%) Raspberry Pi
7 1 (1.05%) Social Media
7 1 (1.05%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 1 (1.05%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 4 (4.21%) Windows
2 3 (3.16%) Linux
3 1 (1.05%) Android
3 1 (1.05%) Apple iOS
3 1 (1.05%) Unix
3 1 (1.05%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 76 (80.00%) Agile
2 50 (52.63%) User Stories
3 49 (51.58%) Roadmaps
4 39 (41.05%) Backlog Management
5 36 (37.89%) Product Vision
6 35 (36.84%) Backlog Prioritisation
7 33 (34.74%) Scrum
8 31 (32.63%) Acceptance Criteria
8 31 (32.63%) Stakeholder Management
9 22 (23.16%) Continuous Improvement
10 20 (21.05%) Product Roadmap
11 19 (20.00%) Sprint Planning
12 18 (18.95%) Problem-Solving
13 17 (17.89%) Business Case
13 17 (17.89%) Decision-Making
14 16 (16.84%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 15 (15.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 12 (12.63%) DevOps
16 12 (12.63%) SDLC
16 12 (12.63%) Sprint Retrospective
Programming Languages
1 5 (5.26%) SQL
2 3 (3.16%) Go
3 2 (2.11%) Java
3 2 (2.11%) JavaScript
3 2 (2.11%) Python
Qualifications
1 14 (14.74%) Security Cleared
2 8 (8.42%) CSPO
2 8 (8.42%) SC Cleared
3 7 (7.37%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (3.16%) Degree
4 3 (3.16%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.11%) CBAP
6 1 (1.05%) ISEB
6 1 (1.05%) OCP
6 1 (1.05%) Oracle Certification
6 1 (1.05%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (6.32%) SLA
2 5 (5.26%) GDPR
2 5 (5.26%) QA
3 4 (4.21%) PCI DSS
3 4 (4.21%) PSD2
4 3 (3.16%) Data Quality
5 2 (2.11%) ISO 20022
6 1 (1.05%) Accessibility
6 1 (1.05%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (1.05%) SEPA
System Software
1 4 (4.21%) Docker
2 1 (1.05%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 8 (8.42%) Kubernetes
2 2 (2.11%) Ansible
2 2 (2.11%) Argo
2 2 (2.11%) Grafana
2 2 (2.11%) Terraform
Vendors
1 17 (17.89%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.32%) SAP
3 3 (3.16%) IBM
4 2 (2.11%) IBM Sterling
5 1 (1.05%) Atlassian
5 1 (1.05%) Fortinet
5 1 (1.05%) Google
5 1 (1.05%) HubSpot
5 1 (1.05%) Juniper
5 1 (1.05%) Oracle
5 1 (1.05%) Salesforce