Product Backlog Contracts

Product Backlogs
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Product Backlog skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Product Backlog 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 357 368 388
Rank change year-on-year +11 +20 -41
Contract jobs citing Product Backlog 169 217 359
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.58% 0.50% 0.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.64% 0.58% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 159 236
10th Percentile £405 £387 £425
25th Percentile £463 £452 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -
75th Percentile £634 £638 £650
90th Percentile £705 £688 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -13.04% +4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 10 1
10th Percentile £51.17 £31.71 -
25th Percentile £53.47 £37.56 -
Median hourly rate £59.31 £65.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.46% -6.43% +150.00%
75th Percentile £63.15 £65.75 -
90th Percentile £64.26 £65.98 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.31 £65.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -9.46% -6.43% +145.61%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

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.

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%

Product Backlog
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Product Backlog in the UK

Product Backlog
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Product Backlog in the UK

Product Backlog
Daily Rate Histogram

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

Daily rate histogram for Product Backlog in the UK

Product Backlog
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Product Backlog in the UK

Product Backlog
Hourly Rate Histogram

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

Hourly rate histogram for Product Backlog in the UK

Product Backlog
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 Product Backlog 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 0 132 £575 +4.55% 186
London +25 73 £600 +14.29% 88
UK excluding London +8 60 £500 -13.04% 118
Work from Home +15 52 £500 -12.09% 101
South East +15 24 £500 -16.67% 30
South West +53 12 £545 -7.19% 17
Scotland +8 9 £441 -23.30% 6
North of England +10 8 £500 +7.64% 36
Midlands +13 7 £545 -0.91% 20
Yorkshire +8 6 £483 +7.33% 14
West Midlands +5 4 £515 -6.36% 13
East Midlands +10 3 £800 +45.45% 6
East of England +22 1 - - 10
North West +12 1 £660 +50.86% 19
North East -4 1 - - 3

Product Backlog
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 27 (15.98%) Confluence
2 2 (1.18%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.59%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.59%) CMS
Applications
1 11 (6.51%) Trello
2 3 (1.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 3 (1.78%) MS Visio
3 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.59%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.59%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 4 (2.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.18%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.59%) Endur
3 1 (0.59%) Primavera
3 1 (0.59%) Shopify
3 1 (0.59%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.59%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 51 (30.18%) Azure
2 27 (15.98%) Azure DevOps
3 12 (7.10%) Power Platform
4 11 (6.51%) SaaS
5 7 (4.14%) Dynamics 365
5 7 (4.14%) Serverless
6 6 (3.55%) AWS
6 6 (3.55%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 6 (3.55%) Azure Data Factory
6 6 (3.55%) Azure Functions
6 6 (3.55%) Azure Machine Learning
6 6 (3.55%) Azure Monitor
6 6 (3.55%) Power Automate
7 4 (2.37%) Entra ID
7 4 (2.37%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (2.37%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 3 (1.78%) GCP
8 3 (1.78%) Miro
9 2 (1.18%) Azure AKS
9 2 (1.18%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.78%) Broadband
2 1 (0.59%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.73%) Power BI
2 5 (2.96%) NoSQL
3 2 (1.18%) Big Data
3 2 (1.18%) BigQuery
3 2 (1.18%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.18%) GIS
4 1 (0.59%) Data Mining
4 1 (0.59%) Delta Lake
4 1 (0.59%) Metadata
4 1 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
4 1 (0.59%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.59%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 40 (23.67%) JIRA
2 17 (10.06%) Git
3 6 (3.55%) Selenium
4 4 (2.37%) Cypress.io
4 4 (2.37%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.37%) Visual Studio Code
5 3 (1.78%) Postman
5 3 (1.78%) SpecFlow
5 3 (1.78%) Visual Studio
6 2 (1.18%) Moq
7 1 (0.59%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.59%) MLflow
7 1 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.59%) WebDriver
General
1 69 (40.83%) Social Skills
2 39 (23.08%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (22.49%) Public Sector
4 36 (21.30%) Finance
5 10 (5.92%) Telecoms
6 8 (4.73%) Banking
6 8 (4.73%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (4.73%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (4.14%) Back Office
7 7 (4.14%) Organisational Skills
8 6 (3.55%) Marketing
9 5 (2.96%) Electronics
9 5 (2.96%) Manufacturing
10 4 (2.37%) Investment Banking
11 3 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (1.18%) Local Government
12 2 (1.18%) Military
12 2 (1.18%) Retail
13 1 (0.59%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 44 (26.04%) Product Owner
2 30 (17.75%) Product Manager
3 23 (13.61%) Analyst
4 21 (12.43%) Senior
5 19 (11.24%) Business Analyst
6 18 (10.65%) Developer
7 17 (10.06%) Scrum Master
8 14 (8.28%) Senior Product Owner
9 12 (7.10%) Lead
10 7 (4.14%) Full-Stack Developer
11 6 (3.55%) Azure Developer
11 6 (3.55%) Consultant
11 6 (3.55%) Product Lead
11 6 (3.55%) Python Developer
12 5 (2.96%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
12 5 (2.96%) Full-Stack Python Developer
12 5 (2.96%) Product Analyst
12 5 (2.96%) React Developer
12 5 (2.96%) Senior Developer
13 4 (2.37%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.92%) .NET
1 10 (5.92%) CSS
1 10 (5.92%) HTML
2 8 (4.73%) React
3 5 (2.96%) ADO
3 5 (2.96%) RESTful
4 4 (2.37%) AngularJS
4 4 (2.37%) YAML
5 3 (1.78%) JSON
5 3 (1.78%) XML
6 2 (1.18%) .NET Core
6 2 (1.18%) ASP.NET
6 2 (1.18%) Bootstrap
6 2 (1.18%) Vue
7 1 (0.59%) EDI
7 1 (0.59%) Gherkin
7 1 (0.59%) Lightning Web Components
7 1 (0.59%) SAP Fiori
7 1 (0.59%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 105 (62.13%) Product Ownership
2 8 (4.73%) Cyberattack
3 7 (4.14%) Virtual Team
4 3 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (1.78%) FMCG
4 3 (1.78%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 3 (1.78%) Mobile App
4 3 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.18%) Management Information System
5 2 (1.18%) NHS
5 2 (1.18%) Reinsurance
6 1 (0.59%) Credit Risk
6 1 (0.59%) IoT
6 1 (0.59%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (0.59%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.59%) PACS
6 1 (0.59%) PMI
6 1 (0.59%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.59%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.59%) Android
1 1 (0.59%) Apple iOS
1 1 (0.59%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (78.70%) Agile
2 74 (43.79%) User Stories
3 73 (43.20%) Backlog Management
3 73 (43.20%) Roadmaps
4 69 (40.83%) Scrum
5 45 (26.63%) DevOps
6 44 (26.04%) Stakeholder Management
7 43 (25.44%) Sprint Planning
8 41 (24.26%) Backlog Prioritisation
9 40 (23.67%) Problem-Solving
10 39 (23.08%) Product Roadmap
11 38 (22.49%) Acceptance Criteria
11 38 (22.49%) Sprint Retrospective
12 36 (21.30%) Continuous Improvement
13 33 (19.53%) Product Vision
14 29 (17.16%) Product Management
15 27 (15.98%) User Experience
16 26 (15.38%) Product Strategy
17 24 (14.20%) Coaching
18 22 (13.02%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 14 (8.28%) Python
2 13 (7.69%) JavaScript
3 12 (7.10%) SQL
4 11 (6.51%) C#
5 5 (2.96%) Java
6 4 (2.37%) TypeScript
7 2 (1.18%) Apex Code
7 2 (1.18%) Kotlin
7 2 (1.18%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.59%) Groovy
8 1 (0.59%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 20 (11.83%) Security Cleared
2 19 (11.24%) Degree
3 16 (9.47%) SC Cleared
4 5 (2.96%) CSPO
5 2 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.18%) PMI Certification
6 1 (0.59%) APMP
6 1 (0.59%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.59%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.59%) PMP
6 1 (0.59%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (9.47%) Accessibility
1 16 (9.47%) QA
2 2 (1.18%) Actionable Recommendations
2 2 (1.18%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.59%) Basel II
3 1 (0.59%) COPPA
3 1 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.59%) GDPR
3 1 (0.59%) GRC
3 1 (0.59%) ISO 20022
3 1 (0.59%) SEPA
3 1 (0.59%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (3.55%) Active Directory
2 2 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 2 (1.18%) Grafana
1 2 (1.18%) Kubernetes
1 2 (1.18%) Prometheus
2 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 23 (13.61%) Microsoft
2 12 (7.10%) Salesforce
3 7 (4.14%) SAP
4 6 (3.55%) OpenAI
5 5 (2.96%) Google
5 5 (2.96%) Oracle
5 5 (2.96%) ServiceNow
6 4 (2.37%) Atlassian
7 3 (1.78%) Databricks
7 3 (1.78%) Murex
7 3 (1.78%) Workday
8 2 (1.18%) Adobe
9 1 (0.59%) Brio
9 1 (0.59%) Calypso
9 1 (0.59%) Genesys
9 1 (0.59%) IBM
9 1 (0.59%) OpenLink
9 1 (0.59%) Siemens
9 1 (0.59%) Sitecore
9 1 (0.59%) Splunk