Product Manager Contract Job Trends

Product Manager
UK

The median Product Manager daily rate in the UK is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 September 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 297 348 328
Rank change year-on-year +51 -20 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 452 212 235
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 0.65% 0.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.91% 0.71% 0.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 305 149 172
10th Percentile £393 £367 £364
25th Percentile £450 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £513 £563
Median % change year-on-year +4.88% -8.89% +2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £700
90th Percentile £702 £690 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £528 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.50% -4.76% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 1 0
10th Percentile £71.88 - -
25th Percentile £72.50 £32.25 -
Median hourly rate £84.29 £34.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +144.31% - -
75th Percentile £88.00 £36.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £34.50 -
% change year-on-year +146.38% - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 49,563 29,654 35,643
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.43% 91.23% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,606 18,697 22,460
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,581 1,558 1,825
10th Percentile £14.90 £13.68 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.02 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +11.13%

Product Manager
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Product Manager' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Product Manager job vacancy trend in the UK

Product Manager
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Product Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Product Manager job vacancies in the UK

Product Manager
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Product Manager over the 6 months to 3 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Product Manager in the UK

Product Manager
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Product Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Product Manager job vacancies in the UK

Product Manager
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Product Manager over the 6 months to 3 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Product Manager in the UK

Product Manager
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Product Manager within the UK over the 6 months to 3 September 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
England +42 414 £538 +2.43% 1,267
UK excluding London +43 207 £528 +5.50% 373
London -20 186 £550 +3.53% 987
Work from Home +2 112 £525 +2.44% 536
North of England -7 67 £519 +1.22% 107
South East -17 55 £575 +47.06% 62
South West 0 43 £550 - 68
North West -14 39 £600 +17.07% 61
Yorkshire -20 23 £500 - 31
East of England -1 22 £494 -26.85% 29
West Midlands -42 21 £414 -24.73% 31
Midlands -52 21 £414 -3.16% 53
North East -36 11 £454 -13.57% 15
Scotland -24 2 £475 -1.04% 31

Product Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 3 September 2026, Product Manager contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Product Manager in the job title.

1 288 (63.72%) Roadmaps
2 263 (58.19%) Agile
3 194 (42.92%) Product Management
4 172 (38.05%) Stakeholder Management
5 140 (30.97%) Product Roadmap
6 138 (30.53%) Backlog Prioritisation
7 136 (30.09%) Product Backlog
8 130 (28.76%) Product Vision
9 121 (26.77%) Security Cleared
10 112 (24.78%) Continuous Improvement
10 112 (24.78%) Product Strategy
11 88 (19.47%) Strategic Roadmap
12 85 (18.81%) SC Cleared
13 83 (18.36%) Decision-Making
14 78 (17.26%) AI
15 75 (16.59%) Analytics
15 75 (16.59%) User Stories
16 72 (15.93%) Backlog Management
17 63 (13.94%) Scrum
18 59 (13.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 56 (12.39%) Azure
20 55 (12.17%) User Experience
21 53 (11.73%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
22 49 (10.84%) Scaled Agile Framework
23 48 (10.62%) AWS
23 48 (10.62%) Business Case
24 46 (10.18%) Backlog Refinement
25 45 (9.96%) Problem-Solving
26 42 (9.29%) Degree
27 41 (9.07%) Acceptance Criteria

Product Manager Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 31 (6.86%) Confluence
2 4 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.44%) Apache
3 2 (0.44%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.22%) Kinematics
4 1 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (1.11%) Notion
2 3 (0.66%) Chatbot
2 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.22%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (1.55%) Shopify
2 5 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.88%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.44%) Sprinklr
5 1 (0.22%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.22%) SAP EHS
5 1 (0.22%) SAP Retail
5 1 (0.22%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.22%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 56 (12.39%) Azure
2 48 (10.62%) AWS
3 15 (3.32%) SaaS
4 13 (2.88%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (2.21%) Power Platform
6 9 (1.99%) GCP
7 8 (1.77%) GitHub
8 7 (1.55%) Snowflake
9 6 (1.33%) Miro
10 5 (1.11%) dbt
10 5 (1.11%) n8n
11 4 (0.88%) Google Analytics
12 3 (0.66%) Dynamics 365
12 3 (0.66%) GitHub Actions
12 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Purview
13 2 (0.44%) Amazon EMR
13 2 (0.44%) Apple Pay
13 2 (0.44%) Google Pay
13 2 (0.44%) Microsoft 365
13 2 (0.44%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.66%) SD-WAN
1 3 (0.66%) WAN
2 2 (0.44%) Broadband
2 2 (0.44%) SMS
3 1 (0.22%) DNS
3 1 (0.22%) Firewall
3 1 (0.22%) LAN
3 1 (0.22%) NFC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.77%) Data Lake
1 8 (1.77%) Power BI
2 7 (1.55%) Metadata
3 6 (1.33%) Big Data
3 6 (1.33%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (0.88%) Tableau
5 3 (0.66%) Delta Lake
5 3 (0.66%) Semantic Layer
6 2 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (0.44%) BigQuery
6 2 (0.44%) Looker
7 1 (0.22%) Electronic Patient Records
7 1 (0.22%) Mixpanel
7 1 (0.22%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.22%) Redis
7 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 37 (8.19%) JIRA
2 13 (2.88%) Rational DOORS
3 2 (0.44%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (0.22%) CircleCI
General
1 125 (27.65%) Social Skills
2 81 (17.92%) Public Sector
3 75 (16.59%) Finance
4 51 (11.28%) Marketing
4 51 (11.28%) Retail
5 48 (10.62%) Analytical Skills
6 30 (6.64%) Aerospace
7 25 (5.53%) Banking
8 22 (4.87%) Influencing Skills
9 17 (3.76%) Legal
10 10 (2.21%) Aviation
11 9 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.99%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.77%) Military
13 6 (1.33%) Local Government
13 6 (1.33%) Retail Banking
14 5 (1.11%) Billing
14 5 (1.11%) Investment Banking
14 5 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.88%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.33%) RESTful
2 3 (0.66%) Azure Blueprints
3 2 (0.44%) Gherkin
3 2 (0.44%) JSON
3 2 (0.44%) OAuth
3 2 (0.44%) PySpark
3 2 (0.44%) Terraform
4 1 (0.22%) Django
4 1 (0.22%) FastAPI
4 1 (0.22%) Flutter
4 1 (0.22%) JSON Schema
4 1 (0.22%) MACH
4 1 (0.22%) Model Context Protocol
4 1 (0.22%) REST
4 1 (0.22%) Spring
4 1 (0.22%) Spring Boot
4 1 (0.22%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 108 (23.89%) Product Ownership
2 27 (5.97%) Legacy Systems
3 14 (3.10%) Data Protection Act
3 14 (3.10%) Mobile App
4 13 (2.88%) Data Structures
4 13 (2.88%) Onboarding
5 11 (2.43%) Cloud Native
5 11 (2.43%) Virtual Team
6 10 (2.21%) Analytical Mindset
7 8 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
7 8 (1.77%) Marketing Technology
8 7 (1.55%) NHS
9 6 (1.33%) AI Agents
10 5 (1.11%) Credit Risk
10 5 (1.11%) Management Information System
10 5 (1.11%) Social Media
11 4 (0.88%) FMCG
11 4 (0.88%) Robotics
12 3 (0.66%) Educational Technology
12 3 (0.66%) Smart Home
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.66%) Android
1 3 (0.66%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.22%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 288 (63.72%) Roadmaps
2 263 (58.19%) Agile
3 194 (42.92%) Product Management
4 172 (38.05%) Stakeholder Management
5 140 (30.97%) Product Roadmap
6 138 (30.53%) Backlog Prioritisation
7 136 (30.09%) Product Backlog
8 130 (28.76%) Product Vision
9 112 (24.78%) Continuous Improvement
9 112 (24.78%) Product Strategy
10 88 (19.47%) Strategic Roadmap
11 83 (18.36%) Decision-Making
12 78 (17.26%) AI
13 75 (16.59%) Analytics
13 75 (16.59%) User Stories
14 72 (15.93%) Backlog Management
15 63 (13.94%) Scrum
16 59 (13.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 55 (12.17%) User Experience
18 53 (11.73%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 12 (2.65%) SQL
2 9 (1.99%) Python
3 3 (0.66%) Java
4 2 (0.44%) Bash
4 2 (0.44%) Korn
5 1 (0.22%) JavaScript
5 1 (0.22%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.22%) Ruby
5 1 (0.22%) SPARQL
5 1 (0.22%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 121 (26.77%) Security Cleared
2 85 (18.81%) SC Cleared
3 42 (9.29%) Degree
4 27 (5.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.65%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.11%) CSPO
7 3 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.66%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.66%) PRINCE2 Certification
8 1 (0.22%) APMG
8 1 (0.22%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.98%) Accessibility
2 16 (3.54%) Data Quality
3 12 (2.65%) QA
4 8 (1.77%) WCAG
5 6 (1.33%) GDPR
6 3 (0.66%) PSD2
7 2 (0.44%) GRC
7 2 (0.44%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.44%) PMO
8 1 (0.22%) ARP4761
8 1 (0.22%) Basel III
8 1 (0.22%) DICOM
8 1 (0.22%) DO-160
8 1 (0.22%) DO-254
8 1 (0.22%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.22%) IFRS
8 1 (0.22%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.22%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.22%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.22%) NIST
System Software
1 3 (0.66%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (1.77%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.66%) Ansible
2 3 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (0.44%) MOM
4 1 (0.22%) Grafana
4 1 (0.22%) Kibana
4 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 15 (3.32%) Microsoft
2 14 (3.10%) Google
3 12 (2.65%) IBM
4 9 (1.99%) Salesforce
5 7 (1.55%) SAP
6 5 (1.11%) Databricks
6 5 (1.11%) Oracle
7 4 (0.88%) Apple
7 4 (0.88%) JDA
7 4 (0.88%) RedPrairie
7 4 (0.88%) Remedy
7 4 (0.88%) Splunk
8 3 (0.66%) BMC
8 3 (0.66%) ServiceNow
9 2 (0.44%) Klarna
9 2 (0.44%) OneLogin
9 2 (0.44%) PayPal
9 2 (0.44%) Pinterest
9 2 (0.44%) Snapchat
9 2 (0.44%) Workday