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 18 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 447 493 563
Rank change year-on-year +46 +70 +27
Contract jobs citing Backlog Refinement 76 86 139
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.26% 0.20% 0.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.28% 0.23% 0.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 50 100
10th Percentile £407 £400 £406
25th Percentile £440 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.02% -2.24% -0.94%
75th Percentile £584 £584 £618
90th Percentile £700 £626 £676
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £448 £450
% change year-on-year +14.40% -0.44% -14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 3
10th Percentile £51.42 - £56.00
25th Percentile £54.10 - £57.50
Median hourly rate £61.81 - £60.00
75th Percentile £68.77 - £67.93
90th Percentile £71.01 - £72.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £61.81 - £67.93

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 26,783 36,704 51,058
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.97% 86.15% 89.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,188 23,629 35,390
10th Percentile £305 £300 £325
25th Percentile £410 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,099 2,440 1,690
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £10.63
25th Percentile £18.13 £15.99 £15.99
Median hourly rate £28.00 £36.05 £35.65
Median % change year-on-year -22.32% +1.11% +38.82%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -32.93% +7.14% +75.00%

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 18 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 18 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Backlog Refinement in the UK

Backlog Refinement
Top 16 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 18 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 +43 59 £500 -4.76% 81
UK excluding London +38 34 £513 +14.40% 48
London +36 29 £475 -13.64% 41
Work from Home +35 28 £475 -7.32% 42
North of England +26 14 £573 +10.10% 12
South East +39 10 £500 +12.30% 18
Yorkshire +18 6 £450 -24.69% 7
North West +15 6 £660 +59.81% 2
Scotland -1 4 £458 -3.58% 1
Midlands +17 3 £525 +27.12% 7
East Midlands +13 2 - - 3
North East -5 2 - - 3
South West +37 1 £500 - 4
West Midlands +4 1 £525 - 4
Wales - 1 - - 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 15 (19.74%) Confluence
2 3 (3.95%) CMS
3 1 (1.32%) Apache
3 1 (1.32%) Apache Spark
3 1 (1.32%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (6.58%) Trello
2 2 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (2.63%) MS Visio
3 1 (1.32%) Adobe XD
3 1 (1.32%) Chatbot
3 1 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.32%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 2 (2.63%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (2.63%) iTrent
2 1 (1.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 23 (30.26%) Azure
2 12 (15.79%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (9.21%) AWS
3 7 (9.21%) Power Platform
4 4 (5.26%) Dynamics 365
5 3 (3.95%) GCP
5 3 (3.95%) SaaS
6 2 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (2.63%) Miro
7 1 (1.32%) Entra ID
7 1 (1.32%) Figma
7 1 (1.32%) GitHub
7 1 (1.32%) Google Analytics
7 1 (1.32%) Microsoft Purview
7 1 (1.32%) PaaS
7 1 (1.32%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 5 (6.58%) Firewall
2 4 (5.26%) DHCP
2 4 (5.26%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (6.58%) Power BI
2 2 (2.63%) Star Schema
3 1 (1.32%) Big Data
3 1 (1.32%) Data Mart
3 1 (1.32%) Data Mining
3 1 (1.32%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.32%) Delta Lake
3 1 (1.32%) NoSQL
3 1 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.32%) Relational Database
3 1 (1.32%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 22 (28.95%) JIRA
2 5 (6.58%) Jenkins
2 5 (6.58%) Postman
3 4 (5.26%) GitLab
4 1 (1.32%) MLflow
4 1 (1.32%) Selenium
4 1 (1.32%) SpecFlow
4 1 (1.32%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (1.32%) Visual Studio
4 1 (1.32%) WebDriver
General
1 35 (46.05%) Social Skills
2 15 (19.74%) Finance
3 11 (14.47%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (11.84%) Public Sector
5 6 (7.89%) Banking
6 4 (5.26%) Influencing Skills
6 4 (5.26%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (3.95%) Marketing
8 2 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (2.63%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.32%) Aerospace
9 1 (1.32%) Back Office
9 1 (1.32%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 26 (34.21%) Analyst
2 17 (22.37%) Business Analyst
3 12 (15.79%) Scrum Master
4 10 (13.16%) Developer
5 9 (11.84%) Product Owner
5 9 (11.84%) Senior
6 6 (7.89%) Consultant
7 5 (6.58%) Lead
7 5 (6.58%) Technical Analyst
8 4 (5.26%) Data Analyst
8 4 (5.26%) Digital Analyst
8 4 (5.26%) Finance Business Analyst
9 3 (3.95%) Automation Developer
9 3 (3.95%) Financial Analyst
9 3 (3.95%) Financial Business Analyst
9 3 (3.95%) Financial Services Business Analyst
9 3 (3.95%) Product Analyst
9 3 (3.95%) Senior Product Owner
9 3 (3.95%) ServiceNow Developer
9 3 (3.95%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.95%) CSS
1 3 (3.95%) HTML
1 3 (3.95%) JSON
1 3 (3.95%) XML
2 2 (2.63%) Spring Boot
3 1 (1.32%) .NET
3 1 (1.32%) ADO
3 1 (1.32%) Gherkin
3 1 (1.32%) JPA
3 1 (1.32%) Lightning Web Components
3 1 (1.32%) REST
3 1 (1.32%) SAP Fiori
3 1 (1.32%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 31 (40.79%) Product Ownership
2 6 (7.89%) Onboarding
3 2 (2.63%) CMDB
3 2 (2.63%) Data Protection Act
3 2 (2.63%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (1.32%) Cloud Native
4 1 (1.32%) Data Structures
4 1 (1.32%) Equities
4 1 (1.32%) Fixed Income
4 1 (1.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 1 (1.32%) Freedom of Information
4 1 (1.32%) Freedom of Information Act
4 1 (1.32%) Hedge funds
4 1 (1.32%) Management Information System
4 1 (1.32%) Market Risk
4 1 (1.32%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 3 (3.95%) Linux
1 3 (3.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 3 (3.95%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (84.21%) Agile
2 51 (67.11%) Sprint Planning
3 41 (53.95%) Scrum
4 31 (40.79%) Sprint Retrospective
5 30 (39.47%) Continuous Improvement
6 29 (38.16%) User Stories
7 28 (36.84%) DevOps
8 26 (34.21%) Acceptance Criteria
9 21 (27.63%) Product Backlog
10 20 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
11 18 (23.68%) Kanban
11 18 (23.68%) Sprint Review
11 18 (23.68%) Stakeholder Management
12 14 (18.42%) User Experience
13 13 (17.11%) Backlog Prioritisation
13 13 (17.11%) CI/CD
14 12 (15.79%) Backlog Management
14 12 (15.79%) Product Vision
15 11 (14.47%) Data Modelling
15 11 (14.47%) UX Design
Programming Languages
1 7 (9.21%) SQL
2 5 (6.58%) Bash
2 5 (6.58%) Python
3 4 (5.26%) JavaScript
4 3 (3.95%) Java
5 2 (2.63%) Apex Code
6 1 (1.32%) C#
6 1 (1.32%) Kotlin
6 1 (1.32%) PowerShell
6 1 (1.32%) Scala
Qualifications
1 6 (7.89%) Security Cleared
2 5 (6.58%) Degree
2 5 (6.58%) SC Cleared
3 3 (3.95%) CCNA
3 3 (3.95%) CCNP
3 3 (3.95%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (13.16%) Accessibility
2 7 (9.21%) QA
3 3 (3.95%) GRC
4 1 (1.32%) PMO
4 1 (1.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 1 (1.32%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 5 (6.58%) Ansible
2 3 (3.95%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.32%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 13 (17.11%) ServiceNow
2 10 (13.16%) Microsoft
3 5 (6.58%) Fortinet
3 5 (6.58%) Infoblox
4 3 (3.95%) Salesforce
5 2 (2.63%) Google
5 2 (2.63%) Virgin Media
6 1 (1.32%) Adobe
6 1 (1.32%) Atlassian
6 1 (1.32%) CA Agile Central
6 1 (1.32%) Databricks
6 1 (1.32%) Hotjar
6 1 (1.32%) HP
6 1 (1.32%) MuleSoft
6 1 (1.32%) Oracle
6 1 (1.32%) SAP
6 1 (1.32%) Sparx