Product Manager Contract Job Trends

Product Manager
UK

The median Product Manager daily rate in the UK is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 February 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 334 299 343
Rank change year-on-year -35 +44 0
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 298 249 256
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.73% 0.81% 0.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.80% 0.87% 0.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 227 167 187
10th Percentile £407 £390 £406
25th Percentile £462 £463 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% -4.35% -1.08%
75th Percentile £638 £690 £650
90th Percentile £714 £758 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £543
% change year-on-year - -7.96% -5.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 3
10th Percentile £80.60 - £54.25
25th Percentile £80.75 £51.25 £58.75
Median hourly rate £83.00 £52.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.10% -22.22% -
75th Percentile £84.00 £53.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £84.90 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 - -

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 37,333 28,630 41,042
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.70% 92.94% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,462 17,805 26,973
10th Percentile £305 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +0.63% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,275 814 2,320
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.50
Median hourly rate £31.18 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.31% -2.86% -9.09%
75th Percentile £63.32 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.25
% change year-on-year -7.69% -7.80% -0.48%

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 19 February 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
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 19 February 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 -24 270 £550 -4.35% 197
London -53 162 £551 -8.25% 89
Work from Home +12 103 £550 -4.35% 159
UK excluding London -4 99 £500 - 162
North of England -36 48 £500 -1.23% 26
South East -18 28 £613 +38.81% 69
North East 0 20 £456 -8.75% 2
North West -14 16 £550 -12.00% 17
Midlands -60 14 £500 +5.26% 9
Yorkshire -46 13 £513 - 7
West Midlands -53 12 £496 -5.52% 6
South West -16 5 £525 +23.53% 15
East of England -22 4 £633 -9.64% 28
East Midlands -25 2 £550 +33.33% 3

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

For the 6 months to 19 February 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.

1 163 (54.70%) Roadmaps
2 148 (49.66%) Agile
3 122 (40.94%) Product Management
4 87 (29.19%) Stakeholder Management
5 82 (27.52%) Product Roadmap
6 77 (25.84%) Product Strategy
7 67 (22.48%) Product Vision
8 53 (17.79%) Security Cleared
9 49 (16.44%) AI
10 46 (15.44%) Product Backlog
11 42 (14.09%) Decision-Making
12 41 (13.76%) Backlog Management
12 41 (13.76%) Backlog Prioritisation
12 41 (13.76%) SC Cleared
13 40 (13.42%) User Stories
14 39 (13.09%) Continuous Improvement
15 34 (11.41%) Scrum
16 31 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 31 (10.40%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
17 30 (10.07%) Strategic Roadmap
17 30 (10.07%) User Experience
17 30 (10.07%) User Research
18 29 (9.73%) Analytics
18 29 (9.73%) Problem-Solving
19 23 (7.72%) Business Case
19 23 (7.72%) Data-Driven Decision Making
20 21 (7.05%) Data Science
20 21 (7.05%) Machine Learning
20 21 (7.05%) Product Requirements
21 20 (6.71%) SaaS

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 12 (4.03%) Confluence
2 3 (1.01%) CMS
2 3 (1.01%) PowerFactory
3 2 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 5 (1.68%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.67%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.34%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.34%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 20 (6.71%) SaaS
2 12 (4.03%) Azure
3 8 (2.68%) AWS
4 6 (2.01%) GCP
5 5 (1.68%) IaaS
5 5 (1.68%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (1.68%) PaaS
6 3 (1.01%) Figma
6 3 (1.01%) Microsoft Copilot
6 3 (1.01%) Power Platform
7 2 (0.67%) Alation
7 2 (0.67%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (0.67%) dbt
7 2 (0.67%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.67%) Fivetran
7 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
7 2 (0.67%) Miro
7 2 (0.67%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.34%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (0.34%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.68%) Firewall
2 3 (1.01%) SD-WAN
2 3 (1.01%) WAN
3 2 (0.67%) ISDN
3 2 (0.67%) OpenScape
4 1 (0.34%) 5G
4 1 (0.34%) DNS
4 1 (0.34%) Internet
4 1 (0.34%) Intranet
4 1 (0.34%) LAN
4 1 (0.34%) Network Security
4 1 (0.34%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.34%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (1.01%) BigQuery
2 3 (1.01%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.67%) Power BI
3 2 (0.67%) Relational Database
3 2 (0.67%) Tableau
4 1 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.34%) Looker
4 1 (0.34%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 13 (4.36%) JIRA
2 1 (0.34%) Rational DOORS
General
1 107 (35.91%) Social Skills
2 71 (23.83%) Finance
3 67 (22.48%) Public Sector
4 42 (14.09%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (7.38%) Marketing
6 20 (6.71%) Banking
7 19 (6.38%) Retail
8 18 (6.04%) Influencing Skills
9 14 (4.70%) Legal
10 7 (2.35%) Aviation
10 7 (2.35%) Military
11 6 (2.01%) Aerospace
11 6 (2.01%) Investment Banking
12 5 (1.68%) Digital Health
13 4 (1.34%) Local Government
13 4 (1.34%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (1.01%) Automotive
14 3 (1.01%) Front Office
14 3 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (1.01%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.01%) Azure Blueprints
2 2 (0.67%) React
3 1 (0.34%) HTML
3 1 (0.34%) HTML5
3 1 (0.34%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 53 (17.79%) Product Ownership
2 11 (3.69%) Onboarding
3 10 (3.36%) Mobile App
4 9 (3.02%) Derivative
5 8 (2.68%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (2.01%) IoT
6 6 (2.01%) Virtual Team
7 5 (1.68%) AI Agents
7 5 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.01%) Blockchain
9 3 (1.01%) Data Structures
9 3 (1.01%) Digital Media
9 3 (1.01%) Educational Technology
9 3 (1.01%) Media Streaming
9 3 (1.01%) NHS
10 2 (0.67%) Handset
10 2 (0.67%) Life Science
10 2 (0.67%) Management Information System
10 2 (0.67%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.34%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (54.70%) Roadmaps
2 148 (49.66%) Agile
3 122 (40.94%) Product Management
4 87 (29.19%) Stakeholder Management
5 82 (27.52%) Product Roadmap
6 77 (25.84%) Product Strategy
7 67 (22.48%) Product Vision
8 49 (16.44%) AI
9 46 (15.44%) Product Backlog
10 42 (14.09%) Decision-Making
11 41 (13.76%) Backlog Management
11 41 (13.76%) Backlog Prioritisation
12 40 (13.42%) User Stories
13 39 (13.09%) Continuous Improvement
14 34 (11.41%) Scrum
15 31 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 31 (10.40%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 30 (10.07%) Strategic Roadmap
16 30 (10.07%) User Experience
16 30 (10.07%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 8 (2.68%) SQL
2 1 (0.34%) Java
2 1 (0.34%) JavaScript
2 1 (0.34%) Korn
2 1 (0.34%) MATLAB
2 1 (0.34%) Python
Qualifications
1 53 (17.79%) Security Cleared
2 41 (13.76%) SC Cleared
3 15 (5.03%) Degree
4 12 (4.03%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (3.02%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.34%) CSPO
6 4 (1.34%) Master's Degree
7 3 (1.01%) MBA
8 1 (0.34%) APMP
8 1 (0.34%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.34%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.03%) QA
2 10 (3.36%) Accessibility
3 6 (2.01%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.34%) NCSC
5 3 (1.01%) GDPR
5 3 (1.01%) SLA
6 2 (0.67%) GRC
6 2 (0.67%) NIST
7 1 (0.34%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.34%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1 (0.34%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (0.34%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 12 (4.03%) Microsoft
2 11 (3.69%) Salesforce
3 4 (1.34%) Palo Alto
3 4 (1.34%) ServiceNow
4 3 (1.01%) Fortinet
4 3 (1.01%) Google
5 2 (0.67%) Atlassian
5 2 (0.67%) Avature
5 2 (0.67%) Databricks
5 2 (0.67%) DIgSILENT
5 2 (0.67%) Mitel
5 2 (0.67%) Oracle
5 2 (0.67%) SAP
5 2 (0.67%) Virgin Media
5 2 (0.67%) Zscaler
6 1 (0.34%) Adobe
6 1 (0.34%) Cisco
6 1 (0.34%) IBM
6 1 (0.34%) OneTrust
6 1 (0.34%) OpenAI