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 21 August 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 282 335 345
Rank change year-on-year +53 +10 -14
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 477 230 235
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.89% 0.70% 0.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.96% 0.77% 0.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 303 162 172
10th Percentile £390 £368 £358
25th Percentile £450 £460 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £513 £561
Median % change year-on-year +4.88% -8.69% +2.05%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £700
90th Percentile £688 £700 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £518 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 3 0
10th Percentile £72.50 £35.30 -
25th Percentile £80.63 £39.88 -
Median hourly rate £88.00 £49.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +79.59% - -
75th Percentile - £61.50 -
90th Percentile - £68.10 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £52.25 -
% change year-on-year +68.42% - -

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 49,522 29,914 36,178
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.26% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,686 18,901 23,122
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 £620 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,509 1,556 1,977
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.30 £19.59
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.38%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +14.67%

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 21 August 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 21 August 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 21 August 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 +49 438 £530 +0.95% 261
UK excluding London +47 216 £518 +3.50% 156
London -22 200 £550 - 145
Work from Home -17 115 £525 +2.44% 143
South East -2 71 £544 +35.26% 50
North of England -38 60 £525 +2.44% 43
South West -10 42 £550 - 26
North West -18 35 £600 +24.68% 24
East of England +7 23 £494 +6.76% 5
West Midlands -41 21 £414 -28.00% 15
Midlands -49 21 £414 -2.87% 17
Yorkshire -24 20 £506 +1.25% 15
North East -33 11 £454 -13.57% 4
Scotland -19 2 £475 -5.47% 9

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

For the 6 months to 21 August 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.

1 280 (58.70%) Roadmaps
2 270 (56.60%) Agile
3 192 (40.25%) Product Management
4 166 (34.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 139 (29.14%) Security Cleared
6 137 (28.72%) Product Roadmap
7 132 (27.67%) Product Backlog
8 129 (27.04%) Product Vision
9 128 (26.83%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 116 (24.32%) Continuous Improvement
11 108 (22.64%) Product Strategy
12 91 (19.08%) SC Cleared
13 83 (17.40%) Strategic Roadmap
14 80 (16.77%) AI
14 80 (16.77%) User Stories
15 78 (16.35%) Decision-Making
16 73 (15.30%) Analytics
16 73 (15.30%) Backlog Management
17 72 (15.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 64 (13.42%) Scrum
19 60 (12.58%) Scaled Agile Framework
20 55 (11.53%) Azure
21 54 (11.32%) Degree
22 49 (10.27%) AWS
22 49 (10.27%) User Experience
23 48 (10.06%) Problem-Solving
23 48 (10.06%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
24 45 (9.43%) Backlog Refinement
24 45 (9.43%) Business Case
25 42 (8.81%) 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 29 (6.08%) Confluence
2 2 (0.42%) Apache
2 2 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.42%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.21%) Kinematics
3 1 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (1.05%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (1.05%) Notion
2 3 (0.63%) Chatbot
2 3 (0.63%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (1.47%) Shopify
2 5 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.63%) Sprinklr
5 2 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.21%) Dynamics GP
6 1 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.21%) SAP EHS
6 1 (0.21%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.21%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.21%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 55 (11.53%) Azure
2 49 (10.27%) AWS
3 18 (3.77%) SaaS
4 11 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (2.10%) GCP
6 9 (1.89%) Power Platform
7 6 (1.26%) GitHub
7 6 (1.26%) Snowflake
8 5 (1.05%) Miro
8 5 (1.05%) n8n
9 4 (0.84%) Google Analytics
10 3 (0.63%) dbt
10 3 (0.63%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (0.63%) IaaS
10 3 (0.63%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (0.63%) PaaS
11 2 (0.42%) Alation
11 2 (0.42%) Amazon EMR
11 2 (0.42%) Collibra
11 2 (0.42%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.05%) SD-WAN
1 5 (1.05%) WAN
2 3 (0.63%) DNS
2 3 (0.63%) Firewall
2 3 (0.63%) LAN
3 2 (0.42%) Broadband
3 2 (0.42%) SMS
3 2 (0.42%) Unified Communications
4 1 (0.21%) NFC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.68%) Power BI
2 6 (1.26%) Big Data
2 6 (1.26%) Data Lake
3 4 (0.84%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (0.84%) Metadata
3 4 (0.84%) Semantic Layer
3 4 (0.84%) Tableau
4 2 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
4 2 (0.42%) BigQuery
4 2 (0.42%) Looker
5 1 (0.21%) Delta Lake
5 1 (0.21%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.21%) Mixpanel
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 34 (7.13%) JIRA
2 30 (6.29%) Rational DOORS
3 2 (0.42%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (0.21%) CircleCI
General
1 127 (26.62%) Social Skills
2 76 (15.93%) Public Sector
3 73 (15.30%) Finance
4 54 (11.32%) Marketing
5 49 (10.27%) Retail
6 48 (10.06%) Analytical Skills
7 42 (8.81%) Aerospace
8 26 (5.45%) Banking
9 18 (3.77%) Influencing Skills
10 16 (3.35%) Legal
11 9 (1.89%) Aviation
11 9 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (1.47%) Manufacturing
12 7 (1.47%) Military
12 7 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (1.26%) Retail Banking
14 5 (1.05%) Billing
14 5 (1.05%) Investment Banking
15 4 (0.84%) Corporate Banking
15 4 (0.84%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.26%) RESTful
2 3 (0.63%) Azure Blueprints
2 3 (0.63%) PySpark
3 2 (0.42%) Gherkin
3 2 (0.42%) JSON
3 2 (0.42%) OAuth
4 1 (0.21%) Django
4 1 (0.21%) FastAPI
4 1 (0.21%) Flutter
4 1 (0.21%) JSON Schema
4 1 (0.21%) MACH
4 1 (0.21%) Model Context Protocol
4 1 (0.21%) REST
4 1 (0.21%) Spring
4 1 (0.21%) Spring Boot
4 1 (0.21%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 129 (27.04%) Product Ownership
2 27 (5.66%) Legacy Systems
3 25 (5.24%) Data Structures
4 14 (2.94%) Mobile App
4 14 (2.94%) Onboarding
5 13 (2.73%) Data Protection Act
6 12 (2.52%) Marketing Technology
7 11 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
7 11 (2.31%) Cloud Native
8 8 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (1.68%) Virtual Team
9 7 (1.47%) AI Agents
10 6 (1.26%) Social Media
11 5 (1.05%) Credit Risk
11 5 (1.05%) Management Information System
11 5 (1.05%) NHS
11 5 (1.05%) Robotics
12 4 (0.84%) FMCG
12 4 (0.84%) Taxonomies
13 3 (0.63%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.63%) Android
1 3 (0.63%) Apple iOS
1 3 (0.63%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 280 (58.70%) Roadmaps
2 270 (56.60%) Agile
3 192 (40.25%) Product Management
4 166 (34.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 137 (28.72%) Product Roadmap
6 132 (27.67%) Product Backlog
7 129 (27.04%) Product Vision
8 128 (26.83%) Backlog Prioritisation
9 116 (24.32%) Continuous Improvement
10 108 (22.64%) Product Strategy
11 83 (17.40%) Strategic Roadmap
12 80 (16.77%) AI
12 80 (16.77%) User Stories
13 78 (16.35%) Decision-Making
14 73 (15.30%) Analytics
14 73 (15.30%) Backlog Management
15 72 (15.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 64 (13.42%) Scrum
17 60 (12.58%) Scaled Agile Framework
18 49 (10.27%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 11 (2.31%) SQL
2 8 (1.68%) Python
3 4 (0.84%) Java
4 2 (0.42%) Korn
5 1 (0.21%) JavaScript
5 1 (0.21%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.21%) Ruby
5 1 (0.21%) SPARQL
5 1 (0.21%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 139 (29.14%) Security Cleared
2 91 (19.08%) SC Cleared
3 54 (11.32%) Degree
4 29 (6.08%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.14%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.05%) CSPO
7 4 (0.84%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (0.84%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.21%) APMG
8 1 (0.21%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.56%) Data Quality
2 15 (3.14%) Accessibility
3 12 (2.52%) QA
4 7 (1.47%) GDPR
4 7 (1.47%) WCAG
5 3 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.63%) NIST
5 3 (0.63%) PSD2
6 2 (0.42%) DO-254
6 2 (0.42%) GRC
6 2 (0.42%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.42%) ISO 26262
6 2 (0.42%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.42%) PMO
7 1 (0.21%) ARP4761
7 1 (0.21%) Basel III
7 1 (0.21%) DO-160
7 1 (0.21%) IFRS
7 1 (0.21%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.21%) NCSC
System Software
1 3 (0.63%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (1.68%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.63%) Ansible
2 3 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.21%) Grafana
3 1 (0.21%) Kibana
3 1 (0.21%) MOM
3 1 (0.21%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 26 (5.45%) IBM
2 16 (3.35%) Google
3 14 (2.94%) Microsoft
4 9 (1.89%) Salesforce
5 6 (1.26%) SAP
6 5 (1.05%) Apple
6 5 (1.05%) Databricks
6 5 (1.05%) Oracle
6 5 (1.05%) Workday
7 4 (0.84%) JDA
7 4 (0.84%) RedPrairie
7 4 (0.84%) Remedy
7 4 (0.84%) Splunk
8 3 (0.63%) BMC
8 3 (0.63%) Pinterest
8 3 (0.63%) ServiceNow
8 3 (0.63%) Snapchat
8 3 (0.63%) TikTok
9 2 (0.42%) Klarna
9 2 (0.42%) PayPal