Product Manager Contract Job Trends

Product Manager
UK

The median Product Manager daily rate in the UK is £539, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 February 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 325 295 354
Rank change year-on-year -30 +59 -16
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 306 251 255
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.74% 0.82% 0.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.80% 0.88% 0.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 226 169 180
10th Percentile £406 £372 £401
25th Percentile £463 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £539 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.09% -4.35% -2.13%
75th Percentile £638 £681 £650
90th Percentile £714 £750 £753
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 3
10th Percentile £80.68 - £54.25
25th Percentile £80.75 £51.25 £58.75
Median hourly rate £81.50 £52.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.24% -22.22% -
75th Percentile £84.00 £53.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £84.45 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 - -

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 38,045 28,496 40,781
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.80% 92.87% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,894 17,862 26,852
10th Percentile £309 £293 £275
25th Percentile £408 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,319 828 2,327
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.43 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.17 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.23% - -10.26%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.68 £75.00 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.00 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -4.62% -7.14% -2.78%

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 26 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 26 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 -44 277 £550 -4.35% 174
London -31 168 £550 -8.29% 76
Work from Home +21 106 £560 -2.61% 102
UK excluding London -26 100 £500 -2.44% 135
North of England -29 48 £500 -1.23% 30
South East -20 32 £613 +25.64% 52
North East -1 20 £456 -8.75% 1
North West -17 16 £550 -12.00% 21
Yorkshire -53 13 £513 - 8
Midlands -49 10 £500 +5.26% 14
West Midlands -47 8 £492 -6.29% 6
East of England -15 5 £633 -9.64% 15
South West -23 5 £525 +23.53% 15
East Midlands -28 2 £550 +33.33% 8

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

For the 6 months to 26 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.

1 165 (53.92%) Roadmaps
2 148 (48.37%) Agile
3 118 (38.56%) Product Management
4 88 (28.76%) Stakeholder Management
5 87 (28.43%) Product Roadmap
6 76 (24.84%) Product Strategy
7 69 (22.55%) Product Vision
8 59 (19.28%) Security Cleared
9 50 (16.34%) AI
10 47 (15.36%) Product Backlog
11 46 (15.03%) SC Cleared
12 43 (14.05%) Backlog Management
13 42 (13.73%) Backlog Prioritisation
13 42 (13.73%) Decision-Making
13 42 (13.73%) User Stories
14 39 (12.75%) Continuous Improvement
15 35 (11.44%) Scrum
16 32 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 32 (10.46%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
17 31 (10.13%) Problem-Solving
17 31 (10.13%) User Experience
18 30 (9.80%) User Research
19 29 (9.48%) Analytics
20 28 (9.15%) Strategic Roadmap
21 24 (7.84%) Business Case
22 23 (7.52%) Data-Driven Decision Making
23 22 (7.19%) SaaS
24 21 (6.86%) Data Science
24 21 (6.86%) Machine Learning
24 21 (6.86%) Product Requirements

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 (3.92%) Confluence
2 3 (0.98%) CMS
3 2 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.33%) PowerFactory
Applications
1 5 (1.63%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.65%) Exchequer
1 2 (0.65%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.33%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.33%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 22 (7.19%) SaaS
2 13 (4.25%) Azure
3 9 (2.94%) AWS
4 7 (2.29%) GCP
5 6 (1.96%) IaaS
5 6 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
5 6 (1.96%) PaaS
6 3 (0.98%) Figma
6 3 (0.98%) Microsoft Copilot
6 3 (0.98%) Power Platform
7 2 (0.65%) Alation
7 2 (0.65%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (0.65%) dbt
7 2 (0.65%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.65%) Fivetran
7 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
7 2 (0.65%) Miro
7 2 (0.65%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.33%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (0.33%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.96%) Firewall
2 4 (1.31%) SD-WAN
2 4 (1.31%) WAN
3 2 (0.65%) DNS
3 2 (0.65%) ISDN
3 2 (0.65%) LAN
3 2 (0.65%) OpenScape
4 1 (0.33%) 5G
4 1 (0.33%) Internet
4 1 (0.33%) Intranet
4 1 (0.33%) Network Security
4 1 (0.33%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.33%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.98%) BigQuery
1 3 (0.98%) Data Lake
1 3 (0.98%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (0.65%) Power BI
2 2 (0.65%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.65%) Tableau
3 1 (0.33%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (0.33%) Looker
3 1 (0.33%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 13 (4.25%) JIRA
2 3 (0.98%) Rational DOORS
General
1 109 (35.62%) Social Skills
2 70 (22.88%) Finance
3 67 (21.90%) Public Sector
4 43 (14.05%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (7.84%) Marketing
6 20 (6.54%) Banking
7 19 (6.21%) Influencing Skills
8 18 (5.88%) Retail
9 13 (4.25%) Legal
10 10 (3.27%) Aviation
11 9 (2.94%) Aerospace
12 8 (2.61%) Military
13 6 (1.96%) Investment Banking
14 5 (1.63%) Digital Health
14 5 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (1.31%) Local Government
15 4 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
15 4 (1.31%) Publishing
16 3 (0.98%) Automotive
17 2 (0.65%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (0.98%) Azure Blueprints
2 1 (0.33%) React
2 1 (0.33%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 55 (17.97%) Product Ownership
2 12 (3.92%) Onboarding
3 10 (3.27%) Mobile App
4 9 (2.94%) Derivative
5 8 (2.61%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (1.96%) IoT
6 6 (1.96%) Virtual Team
7 5 (1.63%) AI Agents
7 5 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.98%) Blockchain
9 3 (0.98%) Data Structures
9 3 (0.98%) Digital Media
9 3 (0.98%) Educational Technology
9 3 (0.98%) Marketing Technology
9 3 (0.98%) Media Streaming
9 3 (0.98%) NHS
9 3 (0.98%) Robotics
10 2 (0.65%) Management Information System
10 2 (0.65%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 2 (0.65%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 165 (53.92%) Roadmaps
2 148 (48.37%) Agile
3 118 (38.56%) Product Management
4 88 (28.76%) Stakeholder Management
5 87 (28.43%) Product Roadmap
6 76 (24.84%) Product Strategy
7 69 (22.55%) Product Vision
8 50 (16.34%) AI
9 47 (15.36%) Product Backlog
10 43 (14.05%) Backlog Management
11 42 (13.73%) Backlog Prioritisation
11 42 (13.73%) Decision-Making
11 42 (13.73%) User Stories
12 39 (12.75%) Continuous Improvement
13 35 (11.44%) Scrum
14 32 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 32 (10.46%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 31 (10.13%) Problem-Solving
15 31 (10.13%) User Experience
16 30 (9.80%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 8 (2.61%) SQL
2 1 (0.33%) Java
2 1 (0.33%) Korn
2 1 (0.33%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 59 (19.28%) Security Cleared
2 46 (15.03%) SC Cleared
3 17 (5.56%) Degree
4 13 (4.25%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (3.27%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.31%) CSPO
6 4 (1.31%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.98%) MBA
8 1 (0.33%) APMP
8 1 (0.33%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.33%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.92%) QA
2 10 (3.27%) Accessibility
3 6 (1.96%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.31%) NCSC
4 4 (1.31%) SLA
5 2 (0.65%) DO-254
5 2 (0.65%) GDPR
5 2 (0.65%) GRC
5 2 (0.65%) IEC 61508
5 2 (0.65%) ISO 26262
5 2 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.65%) NIST
6 1 (0.33%) EU AI Act
6 1 (0.33%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.33%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1 (0.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (0.33%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 13 (4.25%) Microsoft
2 10 (3.27%) Salesforce
3 4 (1.31%) Palo Alto
3 4 (1.31%) ServiceNow
4 3 (0.98%) Fortinet
5 2 (0.65%) Atlassian
5 2 (0.65%) Avature
5 2 (0.65%) Databricks
5 2 (0.65%) Google
5 2 (0.65%) Mitel
5 2 (0.65%) Oracle
5 2 (0.65%) SAP
5 2 (0.65%) Virgin Media
5 2 (0.65%) Zscaler
6 1 (0.33%) DIgSILENT
6 1 (0.33%) FXall
6 1 (0.33%) OpenAI
6 1 (0.33%) Pinterest
6 1 (0.33%) Snapchat
6 1 (0.33%) TikTok