Product Manager Contract Job Trends

Product Manager
UK

The median Product Manager daily rate in the UK is £530, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 July 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 285 328 334
Rank change year-on-year +43 +6 -13
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 470 237 252
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.89% 0.72% 0.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.96% 0.79% 0.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 287 169 189
10th Percentile £392 £368 £375
25th Percentile £450 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £513 £575
Median % change year-on-year +3.41% -10.87% +4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £675
90th Percentile £671 £700 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% +1.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 3 1
10th Percentile £72.50 £35.30 -
25th Percentile £80.75 £39.88 £66.25
Median hourly rate £85.00 £49.00 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.47% -27.41% +45.87%
75th Percentile £88.00 £61.50 £68.75
90th Percentile - £68.10 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £52.25 -
% change year-on-year +62.68% - -

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 49,168 30,000 36,945
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 91.47% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,645 19,092 23,906
10th Percentile £331 £284 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
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 3,387 1,467 2,179
10th Percentile £15.37 £13.72 £14.05
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £19.05
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £67.86 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +8.72%

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 31 July 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 31 July 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 31 July 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 +44 431 £530 +0.95% 413
UK excluding London +59 217 £515 +3.00% 185
London -13 196 £550 +1.62% 276
Work from Home +13 123 £530 +3.41% 184
South East +3 74 £518 -19.46% 65
North of England -40 58 £513 +0.49% 44
South West -4 42 £550 +11.11% 23
North West -33 32 £550 +14.29% 18
East of England +2 23 £494 +6.76% 5
Midlands -48 22 £432 -5.83% 28
West Midlands -51 22 £432 -17.71% 22
Yorkshire -36 20 £506 +1.25% 21
North East -42 12 £458 -12.86% 6
Scotland -12 1 £475 -5.47% 13

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

For the 6 months to 31 July 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.

1 271 (57.66%) Roadmaps
2 254 (54.04%) Agile
3 182 (38.72%) Product Management
4 152 (32.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 139 (29.57%) Security Cleared
6 129 (27.45%) Product Roadmap
7 122 (25.96%) Product Backlog
8 121 (25.74%) Product Vision
9 119 (25.32%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 108 (22.98%) Continuous Improvement
11 99 (21.06%) Product Strategy
12 90 (19.15%) SC Cleared
13 81 (17.23%) AI
14 79 (16.81%) User Stories
15 78 (16.60%) Backlog Management
16 75 (15.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 75 (15.96%) Strategic Roadmap
17 73 (15.53%) Decision-Making
18 72 (15.32%) Analytics
19 58 (12.34%) Azure
19 58 (12.34%) Scaled Agile Framework
20 55 (11.70%) Scrum
21 52 (11.06%) Degree
22 49 (10.43%) AWS
23 46 (9.79%) Problem-Solving
23 46 (9.79%) User Experience
23 46 (9.79%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
24 43 (9.15%) Business Case
25 42 (8.94%) Backlog Refinement
26 40 (8.51%) 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 23 (4.89%) Confluence
2 2 (0.43%) Apache
2 2 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.43%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.21%) CMS
3 1 (0.21%) Kinematics
3 1 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (1.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.85%) Notion
3 3 (0.64%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.43%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (1.49%) Shopify
2 5 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.85%) Sprinklr
4 2 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.21%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.21%) Exchequer
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.21%) SAP Retail
5 1 (0.21%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.21%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 58 (12.34%) Azure
2 49 (10.43%) AWS
3 17 (3.62%) SaaS
4 11 (2.34%) GCP
5 9 (1.91%) Azure DevOps
5 9 (1.91%) Power Platform
6 7 (1.49%) GitHub
7 6 (1.28%) Snowflake
8 5 (1.06%) n8n
9 4 (0.85%) Google Analytics
9 4 (0.85%) IaaS
9 4 (0.85%) Miro
9 4 (0.85%) PaaS
10 3 (0.64%) dbt
10 3 (0.64%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (0.64%) Microsoft 365
10 3 (0.64%) Microsoft Purview
11 2 (0.43%) Alation
11 2 (0.43%) Apple Pay
11 2 (0.43%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.49%) SD-WAN
1 7 (1.49%) WAN
2 4 (0.85%) DNS
2 4 (0.85%) Firewall
2 4 (0.85%) LAN
3 2 (0.43%) Broadband
3 2 (0.43%) Unified Communications
4 1 (0.21%) 5G
4 1 (0.21%) NFC
4 1 (0.21%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.21%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.70%) Power BI
2 6 (1.28%) Big Data
2 6 (1.28%) Data Lake
3 4 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (0.85%) Metadata
3 4 (0.85%) Semantic Layer
3 4 (0.85%) Tableau
4 2 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
4 2 (0.43%) BigQuery
4 2 (0.43%) Looker
5 1 (0.21%) Delta Lake
5 1 (0.21%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 32 (6.81%) Rational DOORS
2 27 (5.74%) JIRA
3 2 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (0.21%) CircleCI
General
1 128 (27.23%) Social Skills
2 73 (15.53%) Finance
3 70 (14.89%) Public Sector
4 53 (11.28%) Marketing
5 48 (10.21%) Analytical Skills
6 46 (9.79%) Retail
7 43 (9.15%) Aerospace
8 21 (4.47%) Banking
9 18 (3.83%) Influencing Skills
10 16 (3.40%) Legal
11 11 (2.34%) Aviation
12 10 (2.13%) Military
13 8 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 7 (1.49%) Manufacturing
14 7 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (1.06%) Billing
15 5 (1.06%) Investment Banking
16 4 (0.85%) Corporate Banking
16 4 (0.85%) Local Government
16 4 (0.85%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.28%) Azure Blueprints
1 6 (1.28%) RESTful
2 3 (0.64%) PySpark
3 2 (0.43%) Gherkin
3 2 (0.43%) JSON
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%) Model Context Protocol
4 1 (0.21%) OAuth
4 1 (0.21%) REST
4 1 (0.21%) Spring
4 1 (0.21%) Spring Boot
4 1 (0.21%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 119 (25.32%) Product Ownership
2 28 (5.96%) Legacy Systems
3 25 (5.32%) Data Structures
4 15 (3.19%) Mobile App
4 15 (3.19%) Onboarding
5 13 (2.77%) Data Protection Act
5 13 (2.77%) Marketing Technology
6 11 (2.34%) Analytical Mindset
6 11 (2.34%) Cloud Native
7 9 (1.91%) Virtual Team
8 8 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
9 7 (1.49%) AI Agents
9 7 (1.49%) Social Media
10 5 (1.06%) Management Information System
10 5 (1.06%) NHS
10 5 (1.06%) Robotics
11 4 (0.85%) FMCG
11 4 (0.85%) Taxonomies
12 3 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
12 3 (0.64%) Smart Home
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.85%) VMS
2 3 (0.64%) Android
2 3 (0.64%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 271 (57.66%) Roadmaps
2 254 (54.04%) Agile
3 182 (38.72%) Product Management
4 152 (32.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 129 (27.45%) Product Roadmap
6 122 (25.96%) Product Backlog
7 121 (25.74%) Product Vision
8 119 (25.32%) Backlog Prioritisation
9 108 (22.98%) Continuous Improvement
10 99 (21.06%) Product Strategy
11 81 (17.23%) AI
12 79 (16.81%) User Stories
13 78 (16.60%) Backlog Management
14 75 (15.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 75 (15.96%) Strategic Roadmap
15 73 (15.53%) Decision-Making
16 72 (15.32%) Analytics
17 58 (12.34%) Scaled Agile Framework
18 55 (11.70%) Scrum
19 46 (9.79%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 11 (2.34%) SQL
2 8 (1.70%) Python
3 4 (0.85%) Java
4 2 (0.43%) 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 (29.57%) Security Cleared
2 90 (19.15%) SC Cleared
3 52 (11.06%) Degree
4 28 (5.96%) BPSS Clearance
5 21 (4.47%) DV Cleared
6 4 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.85%) CSPO
7 3 (0.64%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.21%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.62%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.40%) Accessibility
3 11 (2.34%) QA
4 7 (1.49%) GDPR
5 6 (1.28%) WCAG
6 4 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.85%) NIST
7 3 (0.64%) DO-254
7 3 (0.64%) IEC 61508
7 3 (0.64%) ISO 26262
7 3 (0.64%) PSD2
8 2 (0.43%) GRC
8 2 (0.43%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.43%) PMO
8 2 (0.43%) SLA
9 1 (0.21%) ARP4761
9 1 (0.21%) Basel III
9 1 (0.21%) DO-160
9 1 (0.21%) IFRS
9 1 (0.21%) NCSC
System Software
1 3 (0.64%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (1.70%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.64%) Ansible
2 3 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.21%) Grafana
3 1 (0.21%) Kibana
3 1 (0.21%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 27 (5.74%) IBM
2 16 (3.40%) Google
3 15 (3.19%) Microsoft
4 6 (1.28%) Salesforce
5 5 (1.06%) Apple
5 5 (1.06%) Databricks
5 5 (1.06%) Oracle
5 5 (1.06%) SAP
5 5 (1.06%) Workday
6 4 (0.85%) JDA
6 4 (0.85%) Pinterest
6 4 (0.85%) RedPrairie
6 4 (0.85%) Remedy
6 4 (0.85%) Snapchat
6 4 (0.85%) Splunk
6 4 (0.85%) TikTok
7 3 (0.64%) BMC
8 2 (0.43%) MicroStrategy
8 2 (0.43%) PayPal
8 2 (0.43%) ServiceNow