Product Manager Contract Job Trends

Product Manager
UK

The median Product Manager daily rate in the UK is £545, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 June 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 280 312 341
Rank change year-on-year +32 +29 -15
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 454 235 255
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.88% 0.77% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.96% 0.83% 0.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 272 168 189
10th Percentile £363 £360 £386
25th Percentile £459 £455 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £505 £585
Median % change year-on-year +7.87% -13.63% +6.36%
75th Percentile £603 £600 £675
90th Percentile £675 £681 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £575
% change year-on-year +5.00% -13.04% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 3 2
10th Percentile £72.50 £48.25 -
25th Percentile £80.75 £49.38 £66.25
Median hourly rate £85.00 £52.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.90% -22.22% +45.87%
75th Percentile £88.00 £63.13 £68.75
90th Percentile - £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £70.00 -
% change year-on-year +21.43% - -

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 47,423 28,164 40,143
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 92.05% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,738 18,025 25,769
10th Percentile £325 £288 £283
25th Percentile £415 £401 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,196 1,261 2,867
10th Percentile £15.61 £13.78 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.23 £17.33 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.26% -28.00% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 +49 414 £550 +7.32% 214
UK excluding London +32 200 £525 +5.00% 86
London -27 193 £550 +4.76% 159
Work from Home +5 125 £550 +8.59% 80
South East -4 70 £521 -16.60% 53
North of England -47 55 £538 +5.39% 17
South West +11 42 £550 +25.00% 3
North West -25 31 £575 +19.48% 7
Midlands -53 22 £490 +8.89% 6
West Midlands -44 21 £483 -1.03% 4
Yorkshire -37 19 £525 +5.00% 9
East of England -16 14 £600 +3.23% 4
North East -35 11 £458 -12.86% 1
East Midlands -20 1 £500 +24.38% 2

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

For the 6 months to 30 June 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.

1 249 (54.85%) Roadmaps
2 227 (50.00%) Agile
3 170 (37.44%) Product Management
4 132 (29.07%) Security Cleared
5 126 (27.75%) Stakeholder Management
6 115 (25.33%) Product Roadmap
7 105 (23.13%) Product Vision
8 99 (21.81%) Product Backlog
9 97 (21.37%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 87 (19.16%) Continuous Improvement
11 85 (18.72%) Product Strategy
12 84 (18.50%) SC Cleared
13 70 (15.42%) User Stories
14 68 (14.98%) AI
15 66 (14.54%) Backlog Management
16 64 (14.10%) Strategic Roadmap
17 62 (13.66%) Decision-Making
18 61 (13.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 57 (12.56%) Analytics
20 55 (12.11%) Scrum
21 52 (11.45%) Scaled Agile Framework
22 51 (11.23%) Azure
23 50 (11.01%) AWS
24 49 (10.79%) Degree
25 46 (10.13%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
26 41 (9.03%) User Experience
27 39 (8.59%) Problem-Solving
28 38 (8.37%) Business Case
28 38 (8.37%) PRINCE2
28 38 (8.37%) Systems Engineering

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 17 (3.74%) Confluence
2 2 (0.44%) Apache
2 2 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.44%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.44%) CMS
3 1 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.66%) Notion
2 1 (0.22%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
1 4 (0.88%) Sprinklr
2 3 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.44%) Exchequer
3 2 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.22%) SAP Retail
4 1 (0.22%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 51 (11.23%) Azure
2 50 (11.01%) AWS
3 19 (4.19%) SaaS
4 11 (2.42%) GCP
5 7 (1.54%) GitHub
5 7 (1.54%) Power Platform
6 6 (1.32%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (1.10%) IaaS
7 5 (1.10%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (1.10%) n8n
7 5 (1.10%) PaaS
7 5 (1.10%) Snowflake
8 4 (0.88%) Miro
9 3 (0.66%) dbt
9 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Purview
10 2 (0.44%) Alation
10 2 (0.44%) Amazon EMR
10 2 (0.44%) Apple Pay
10 2 (0.44%) Collibra
10 2 (0.44%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.10%) Firewall
1 5 (1.10%) SD-WAN
1 5 (1.10%) WAN
2 4 (0.88%) DNS
2 4 (0.88%) LAN
3 2 (0.44%) Unified Communications
4 1 (0.22%) 5G
4 1 (0.22%) Internet
4 1 (0.22%) Intranet
4 1 (0.22%) NFC
4 1 (0.22%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.22%) SMS
4 1 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.32%) Data Lake
1 6 (1.32%) Power BI
2 4 (0.88%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (0.88%) Metadata
2 4 (0.88%) Tableau
3 3 (0.66%) Semantic Layer
4 2 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
4 2 (0.44%) Big Data
4 2 (0.44%) BigQuery
4 2 (0.44%) Looker
5 1 (0.22%) Delta Lake
5 1 (0.22%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.22%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 31 (6.83%) Rational DOORS
2 20 (4.41%) JIRA
3 2 (0.44%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (0.22%) CircleCI
General
1 118 (25.99%) Social Skills
2 74 (16.30%) Public Sector
3 67 (14.76%) Finance
4 49 (10.79%) Marketing
5 48 (10.57%) Analytical Skills
6 39 (8.59%) Aerospace
7 37 (8.15%) Retail
8 19 (4.19%) Influencing Skills
9 18 (3.96%) Banking
10 14 (3.08%) Aviation
11 13 (2.86%) Military
12 8 (1.76%) Legal
13 5 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (1.10%) Investment Banking
13 5 (1.10%) Manufacturing
13 5 (1.10%) Publishing
14 4 (0.88%) Advertising
14 4 (0.88%) Corporate Banking
14 4 (0.88%) Documentation Skills
14 4 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.32%) Azure Blueprints
1 6 (1.32%) RESTful
2 3 (0.66%) PySpark
3 2 (0.44%) Gherkin
3 2 (0.44%) JSON
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%) OAuth
4 1 (0.22%) Spring
4 1 (0.22%) Spring Boot
4 1 (0.22%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 104 (22.91%) Product Ownership
2 30 (6.61%) Legacy Systems
3 25 (5.51%) Data Structures
4 14 (3.08%) Marketing Technology
4 14 (3.08%) Onboarding
5 12 (2.64%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (2.42%) Mobile App
7 8 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
7 8 (1.76%) Cloud Native
7 8 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.32%) AI Agents
8 6 (1.32%) Social Media
9 4 (0.88%) FMCG
9 4 (0.88%) Management Information System
9 4 (0.88%) NHS
9 4 (0.88%) Robotics
9 4 (0.88%) Taxonomies
9 4 (0.88%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.66%) IoT
10 3 (0.66%) Smart Home
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.88%) VMS
2 2 (0.44%) Android
2 2 (0.44%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (54.85%) Roadmaps
2 227 (50.00%) Agile
3 170 (37.44%) Product Management
4 126 (27.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 115 (25.33%) Product Roadmap
6 105 (23.13%) Product Vision
7 99 (21.81%) Product Backlog
8 97 (21.37%) Backlog Prioritisation
9 87 (19.16%) Continuous Improvement
10 85 (18.72%) Product Strategy
11 70 (15.42%) User Stories
12 68 (14.98%) AI
13 66 (14.54%) Backlog Management
14 64 (14.10%) Strategic Roadmap
15 62 (13.66%) Decision-Making
16 61 (13.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 57 (12.56%) Analytics
18 55 (12.11%) Scrum
19 52 (11.45%) Scaled Agile Framework
20 46 (10.13%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 12 (2.64%) SQL
2 7 (1.54%) Python
3 4 (0.88%) Java
4 1 (0.22%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.22%) PL/SQL
4 1 (0.22%) Ruby
4 1 (0.22%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 132 (29.07%) Security Cleared
2 84 (18.50%) SC Cleared
3 49 (10.79%) Degree
4 24 (5.29%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (4.41%) DV Cleared
6 3 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.66%) CSPO
6 3 (0.66%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.22%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.96%) Data Quality
2 13 (2.86%) Accessibility
3 8 (1.76%) QA
4 5 (1.10%) SLA
5 4 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (0.88%) NIST
6 3 (0.66%) GDPR
6 3 (0.66%) PSD2
7 2 (0.44%) DO-254
7 2 (0.44%) IEC 61508
7 2 (0.44%) ISO 26262
7 2 (0.44%) NCSC
7 2 (0.44%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.44%) WCAG
8 1 (0.22%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.22%) PMO
System Software
1 4 (0.88%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (1.98%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.66%) Ansible
2 3 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.22%) Grafana
3 1 (0.22%) Kibana
3 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 26 (5.73%) IBM
2 11 (2.42%) Google
2 11 (2.42%) Microsoft
3 8 (1.76%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.32%) Apple
4 6 (1.32%) Oracle
5 5 (1.10%) SAP
6 4 (0.88%) Databricks
6 4 (0.88%) Pinterest
6 4 (0.88%) Snapchat
6 4 (0.88%) TikTok
6 4 (0.88%) Workday
7 3 (0.66%) JDA
7 3 (0.66%) RedPrairie
7 3 (0.66%) Remedy
7 3 (0.66%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.44%) BMC
8 2 (0.44%) Klarna
8 2 (0.44%) PayPal
8 2 (0.44%) Virgin Media