Backlog Refinement Contracts

Backlog Refinement (Backlog Grooming)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies 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 445 492 555
Rank change year-on-year +47 +63 +44
Contract jobs citing Backlog Refinement 75 90 163
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.26% 0.21% 0.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.28% 0.24% 0.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 48 52 118
10th Percentile £408 £400 £404
25th Percentile £440 £445 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.45% -5.45% +4.76%
75th Percentile £584 £591 £625
90th Percentile £698 £636 £679
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £446 £450
% change year-on-year +15.04% -1.00% -14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 2
10th Percentile £52.70 - £55.50
25th Percentile £57.32 - £56.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £57.50
75th Percentile £68.75 - £58.75
90th Percentile £71.00 - £59.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £61.81 - £60.00

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

Backlog Refinement
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Backlog Refinement as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Backlog Refinement in the UK

Backlog Refinement
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Backlog Refinement.

Daily rate trend for Backlog Refinement in the UK

Backlog Refinement
Daily Rate Histogram

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

Daily rate histogram for Backlog Refinement in the UK

Backlog Refinement
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Backlog Refinement.

Hourly rate trend for Backlog Refinement in the UK

Backlog Refinement
Hourly Rate Histogram

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

Hourly rate histogram for Backlog Refinement in the UK

Backlog Refinement
Top 15 Contract Locations

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 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
England +40 58 £500 -4.76% 68
UK excluding London +59 32 £513 +15.04% 37
Work from Home +30 27 £475 -7.32% 35
London +22 27 £475 -13.64% 38
North of England +20 14 £573 +17.56% 7
South East +45 9 £500 +12.23% 12
North West +18 6 £660 +59.81% 2
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
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:

Application Platforms
1 14 (18.67%) Confluence
2 3 (4.00%) CMS
3 1 (1.33%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (6.67%) Trello
2 2 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.33%) Adobe XD
3 1 (1.33%) Chatbot
3 1 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.33%) MS Visio
3 1 (1.33%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (4.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (2.67%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 24 (32.00%) Azure
2 12 (16.00%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (9.33%) Power Platform
4 6 (8.00%) AWS
5 5 (6.67%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (4.00%) GCP
6 3 (4.00%) SaaS
7 2 (2.67%) Microsoft 365
7 2 (2.67%) Miro
7 2 (2.67%) PaaS
8 1 (1.33%) Entra ID
8 1 (1.33%) Figma
8 1 (1.33%) GitHub
8 1 (1.33%) Google Analytics
8 1 (1.33%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (1.33%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 5 (6.67%) Firewall
2 4 (5.33%) DHCP
2 4 (5.33%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (6.67%) Power BI
2 3 (4.00%) Big Data
2 3 (4.00%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.33%) Data Mining
3 1 (1.33%) NoSQL
3 1 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.33%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 21 (28.00%) JIRA
2 5 (6.67%) Jenkins
2 5 (6.67%) Postman
3 4 (5.33%) GitLab
4 3 (4.00%) Team Foundation Server
5 1 (1.33%) Selenium
5 1 (1.33%) SpecFlow
5 1 (1.33%) Visual Studio
5 1 (1.33%) WebDriver
General
1 34 (45.33%) Social Skills
2 12 (16.00%) Finance
2 12 (16.00%) Public Sector
3 9 (12.00%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (6.67%) Banking
5 3 (4.00%) Marketing
6 2 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (2.67%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (2.67%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.33%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.33%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 23 (30.67%) Analyst
2 14 (18.67%) Business Analyst
3 12 (16.00%) Product Owner
4 11 (14.67%) Scrum Master
5 10 (13.33%) Developer
6 9 (12.00%) Senior
7 7 (9.33%) Consultant
8 6 (8.00%) Lead
9 5 (6.67%) Technical Analyst
10 4 (5.33%) Data Analyst
10 4 (5.33%) Digital Analyst
10 4 (5.33%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
10 4 (5.33%) Product Analyst
11 3 (4.00%) Automation Developer
11 3 (4.00%) Data Product Analyst
11 3 (4.00%) Senior Product Owner
11 3 (4.00%) ServiceNow Developer
12 2 (2.67%) Agile Business Analyst
12 2 (2.67%) Salesforce Developer
12 2 (2.67%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (4.00%) CSS
1 3 (4.00%) HTML
1 3 (4.00%) JSON
1 3 (4.00%) XML
2 2 (2.67%) Spring Boot
3 1 (1.33%) .NET
3 1 (1.33%) ADO
3 1 (1.33%) Gherkin
3 1 (1.33%) JPA
3 1 (1.33%) Lightning Web Components
3 1 (1.33%) REST
3 1 (1.33%) SAP Fiori
3 1 (1.33%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 33 (44.00%) Product Ownership
2 6 (8.00%) Onboarding
3 4 (5.33%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (4.00%) Freedom of Information
4 3 (4.00%) Freedom of Information Act
4 3 (4.00%) Management Information System
5 2 (2.67%) CMDB
5 2 (2.67%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.33%) Data Centre
6 1 (1.33%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.33%) Market Risk
6 1 (1.33%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 4 (5.33%) Linux
2 3 (4.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 3 (4.00%) Rocky
3 1 (1.33%) Unix
3 1 (1.33%) VyOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (89.33%) Agile
2 51 (68.00%) Sprint Planning
3 40 (53.33%) Scrum
4 29 (38.67%) Continuous Improvement
4 29 (38.67%) Sprint Retrospective
5 28 (37.33%) User Stories
6 27 (36.00%) DevOps
7 24 (32.00%) Acceptance Criteria
8 22 (29.33%) Problem-Solving
9 19 (25.33%) Product Backlog
10 18 (24.00%) Kanban
10 18 (24.00%) Stakeholder Management
11 16 (21.33%) Sprint Review
12 14 (18.67%) User Experience
13 13 (17.33%) Backlog Prioritisation
13 13 (17.33%) CI/CD
13 13 (17.33%) Validation
14 12 (16.00%) Product Vision
15 11 (14.67%) Analytics
15 11 (14.67%) UX Design
Programming Languages
1 6 (8.00%) Bash
2 5 (6.67%) Python
3 4 (5.33%) JavaScript
3 4 (5.33%) SQL
4 3 (4.00%) Java
5 2 (2.67%) Apex Code
6 1 (1.33%) C#
6 1 (1.33%) Kotlin
6 1 (1.33%) PowerShell
6 1 (1.33%) Scala
Qualifications
1 7 (9.33%) Security Cleared
2 5 (6.67%) Degree
2 5 (6.67%) SC Cleared
3 3 (4.00%) CCNA
3 3 (4.00%) CCNP
3 3 (4.00%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (13.33%) Accessibility
2 6 (8.00%) QA
3 3 (4.00%) GRC
4 1 (1.33%) PMO
4 1 (1.33%) WCAG
System Software
1 1 (1.33%) Active Directory
1 1 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 6 (8.00%) Ansible
2 3 (4.00%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.33%) Cloudify
3 1 (1.33%) Terraform
3 1 (1.33%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 13 (17.33%) ServiceNow
2 12 (16.00%) Microsoft
3 6 (8.00%) Infoblox
4 5 (6.67%) Fortinet
5 3 (4.00%) Salesforce
6 2 (2.67%) Google
6 2 (2.67%) Virgin Media
7 1 (1.33%) Adobe
7 1 (1.33%) Atlassian
7 1 (1.33%) CA Agile Central
7 1 (1.33%) Cisco
7 1 (1.33%) Hotjar
7 1 (1.33%) Juniper
7 1 (1.33%) MuleSoft
7 1 (1.33%) Oracle
7 1 (1.33%) SAP
7 1 (1.33%) VMware