Backlog Refinement Contracts

Backlog Refinement (Backlog Grooming)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Backlog Refinement skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Backlog Refinement over the 6 months to 27 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
27 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 503 581 607
Rank change year-on-year +78 +26 +10
Contract jobs citing Backlog Refinement 83 126 254
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.19% 0.22% 0.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.23% 0.25% 0.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 48 88 167
10th Percentile £379 £406 £395
25th Percentile £425 £450 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £530
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +1.42% +9.28%
75th Percentile £588 £615 £631
90th Percentile £629 £688 £663
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £450 £530
% change year-on-year +2.78% -15.09% +24.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 0
Median hourly rate - £67.93 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £67.93 -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Backlog Refinement is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,645 50,890 79,933
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.73% 89.71% 90.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,625 35,239 56,102
10th Percentile £300 £325 £344
25th Percentile £413 £438 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +2.33% +7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £640
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £485
% change year-on-year - +3.09% +8.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,484 1,674 1,897
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.63 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £15.75 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.02 £36.40 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year -1.02% +41.73% +9.28%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.50
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.75 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +7.86% +75.00% -4.99%

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 27 May 2024.

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
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 27 May 2024. 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 +55 69 £517 -1.52% 37
UK excluding London +36 43 £463 +2.78% 25
London +67 34 £563 -6.25% 17
Work from Home +96 31 £498 -13.48% 18
South East +2 12 £445 -12.27% 12
Scotland +45 10 £475 +2.70% 1
North of England +38 10 £520 +13.97% 3
Yorkshire +20 5 £598 +38.55%
East of England +10 5 £500 +25.00%
North West +31 3 £413 -13.05% 2
Midlands +25 3 £413 -8.22% 6
South West +10 3 - - 3
West Midlands +16 2 - - 5
North East +14 2 - - 1
East Midlands - 1 £413 - 1

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 16 (19.28%) Confluence
2 4 (4.82%) Appian
3 3 (3.61%) CMS
3 3 (3.61%) SharePoint
4 2 (2.41%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 2 (2.41%) Trello
2 1 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.20%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (3.61%) Workfront
2 2 (2.41%) SAP CO
2 2 (2.41%) SAP FI
2 2 (2.41%) SAP FI/CO
2 2 (2.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (2.41%) SAP SD
2 2 (2.41%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 24 (28.92%) Azure
2 15 (18.07%) AWS
2 15 (18.07%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (7.23%) GCP
4 4 (4.82%) Unqork
5 3 (3.61%) Amazon EC2
5 3 (3.61%) Amazon EKS
5 3 (3.61%) Amazon S3
5 3 (3.61%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (3.61%) Serverless
6 2 (2.41%) Amazon SQS
6 2 (2.41%) Azure API Management
6 2 (2.41%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (2.41%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (2.41%) Azure Service Bus
6 2 (2.41%) NuGet
6 2 (2.41%) PaaS
6 2 (2.41%) Veeva
7 1 (1.20%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.20%) Network Security
1 1 (1.20%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.61%) DynamoDB
2 2 (2.41%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (2.41%) MongoDB
2 2 (2.41%) NoSQL
2 2 (2.41%) Relational Database
2 2 (2.41%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 1 (1.20%) Big Data
3 1 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.20%) GIS
3 1 (1.20%) Oracle Database
3 1 (1.20%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 23 (27.71%) JIRA
2 4 (4.82%) Git
3 2 (2.41%) Cucumber
3 2 (2.41%) Cypress.io
3 2 (2.41%) GitLab
3 2 (2.41%) Gradle
3 2 (2.41%) Jenkins
3 2 (2.41%) JMeter
3 2 (2.41%) JUnit
3 2 (2.41%) Maven
3 2 (2.41%) Mocha
3 2 (2.41%) REST Assured
3 2 (2.41%) Selenium
3 2 (2.41%) SoapUI
3 2 (2.41%) TestNG
3 2 (2.41%) WebDriver
4 1 (1.20%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 20 (24.10%) Social Skills
2 14 (16.87%) Finance
3 13 (15.66%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (9.64%) Banking
4 8 (9.64%) Presentation Skills
5 6 (7.23%) Public Sector
6 3 (3.61%) Retail
7 2 (2.41%) Back Office
7 2 (2.41%) Marketing
8 1 (1.20%) French Language
8 1 (1.20%) Investment Banking
8 1 (1.20%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (1.20%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 21 (25.30%) Product Owner
2 17 (20.48%) Analyst
3 16 (19.28%) Developer
4 12 (14.46%) Business Analyst
5 9 (10.84%) Java Developer
6 7 (8.43%) Senior
7 6 (7.23%) Product Analyst
7 6 (7.23%) Scrum Master
8 5 (6.02%) Backend Developer
9 4 (4.82%) Appian Architect
9 4 (4.82%) Architect
9 4 (4.82%) Digital Product Owner
9 4 (4.82%) Project Manager
10 3 (3.61%) Data Engineer
10 3 (3.61%) Product Manager
10 3 (3.61%) Senior Developer
11 2 (2.41%) CRM Project Manager
11 2 (2.41%) Integration Engineer
11 2 (2.41%) SAP Consultant
11 2 (2.41%) SAP FI/CO Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (10.84%) RESTful
2 8 (9.64%) SOAP
3 7 (8.43%) .NET
3 7 (8.43%) Kafka
3 7 (8.43%) Spring
4 6 (7.23%) Spring Boot
5 5 (6.02%) Web Services
6 4 (4.82%) Middleware
6 4 (4.82%) Node.js
6 4 (4.82%) REST
7 3 (3.61%) React
8 2 (2.41%) .NET Core
8 2 (2.41%) Chai
8 2 (2.41%) CSS
8 2 (2.41%) Express.js
8 2 (2.41%) GraphQL
8 2 (2.41%) HTML
8 2 (2.41%) JAXB
8 2 (2.41%) JAX-RS
8 2 (2.41%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 35 (42.17%) Product Ownership
2 6 (7.23%) Data Structures
2 6 (7.23%) Legacy Systems
2 6 (7.23%) Management Information System
3 5 (6.02%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (6.02%) Wiki
4 2 (2.41%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (2.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 2 (2.41%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (1.20%) Blockchain
5 1 (1.20%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (1.20%) Distributed Applications
5 1 (1.20%) Freedom of Information
5 1 (1.20%) Freedom of Information Act
5 1 (1.20%) Replication
5 1 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (80.72%) Agile
2 38 (45.78%) Scrum
3 33 (39.76%) Sprint Planning
4 32 (38.55%) User Stories
5 30 (36.14%) Product Backlog
6 26 (31.33%) Problem-Solving
7 19 (22.89%) Acceptance Criteria
8 18 (21.69%) DevOps
9 17 (20.48%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 16 (19.28%) Roadmaps
10 16 (19.28%) Workshop Facilitation
11 14 (16.87%) Translating Business Requirements
12 13 (15.66%) Sprint Retrospective
12 13 (15.66%) Sprint Review
13 12 (14.46%) Microservices
13 12 (14.46%) User Acceptance Testing
14 11 (13.25%) SDLC
15 10 (12.05%) CRM
16 9 (10.84%) Release Management
17 8 (9.64%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 14 (16.87%) Java
2 7 (8.43%) C#
3 6 (7.23%) SQL
4 4 (4.82%) JavaScript
4 4 (4.82%) Python
5 3 (3.61%) Kotlin
5 3 (3.61%) Scala
6 2 (2.41%) Bicep
6 2 (2.41%) C
6 2 (2.41%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 11 (13.25%) Degree
2 9 (10.84%) Security Cleared
3 7 (8.43%) SC Cleared
4 3 (3.61%) CSPO
4 3 (3.61%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.20%) Master's Degree
6 1 (1.20%) PgMP
6 1 (1.20%) PMI Certification
6 1 (1.20%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.41%) Accessibility
1 2 (2.41%) Data Quality
1 2 (2.41%) QA
2 1 (1.20%) PMO
System Software
1 7 (8.43%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (9.64%) Kubernetes
2 3 (3.61%) Grafana
3 2 (2.41%) Terraform
4 1 (1.20%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.20%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 6 (7.23%) Microsoft
2 4 (4.82%) IBM
2 4 (4.82%) OpenText
2 4 (4.82%) Pega
2 4 (4.82%) SAP
3 3 (3.61%) Oracle
3 3 (3.61%) Salesforce
3 3 (3.61%) Splunk
4 2 (2.41%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.20%) Databricks
5 1 (1.20%) Guidewire
5 1 (1.20%) NCR