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 27 June 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 280 318 345
Rank change year-on-year +38 +27 -28
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 450 233 254
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.88% 0.77% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.96% 0.83% 0.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 268 166 190
10th Percentile £363 £360 £387
25th Percentile £462 £452 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £500 £585
Median % change year-on-year +8.95% -14.49% +6.36%
75th Percentile £603 £597 £675
90th Percentile £679 £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 47,106 27,940 40,291
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.40% 92.14% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,573 17,914 25,878
10th Percentile £325 £289 £281
25th Percentile £415 £402 £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 3,158 1,233 2,861
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.76 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.30 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.25 £26.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.21% -29.33% -14.29%
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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +36 411 £550 +7.32% 216
UK excluding London +19 199 £525 +5.00% 92
London -16 191 £550 +4.76% 156
Work from Home -5 125 £550 +9.89% 77
South East +1 70 £521 -16.60% 53
North of England -40 55 £538 +5.39% 19
South West +4 42 £550 +25.00% 2
North West -28 31 £575 +19.48% 7
Midlands -54 22 £490 +8.89% 6
West Midlands -51 21 £483 -1.03% 4
Yorkshire -25 19 £525 +5.00% 11
East of England -18 13 £575 -1.08% 7
North East -37 11 £458 -12.86% 1
East Midlands -17 1 £500 +24.38% 2

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

For the 6 months to 27 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.

1 245 (54.44%) Roadmaps
2 224 (49.78%) Agile
3 167 (37.11%) Product Management
4 132 (29.33%) Security Cleared
5 123 (27.33%) Stakeholder Management
6 113 (25.11%) Product Roadmap
7 103 (22.89%) Product Vision
8 97 (21.56%) Backlog Prioritisation
8 97 (21.56%) Product Backlog
9 85 (18.89%) Continuous Improvement
10 84 (18.67%) Product Strategy
10 84 (18.67%) SC Cleared
11 69 (15.33%) User Stories
12 68 (15.11%) AI
13 65 (14.44%) Backlog Management
14 63 (14.00%) Strategic Roadmap
15 60 (13.33%) Decision-Making
15 60 (13.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 56 (12.44%) Analytics
17 53 (11.78%) Scrum
18 51 (11.33%) Azure
19 50 (11.11%) AWS
19 50 (11.11%) Scaled Agile Framework
20 49 (10.89%) Degree
21 46 (10.22%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
22 40 (8.89%) User Experience
23 39 (8.67%) Problem-Solving
24 38 (8.44%) Business Case
24 38 (8.44%) PRINCE2
24 38 (8.44%) 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 (3.78%) 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 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.67%) 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 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
1 4 (0.89%) Sprinklr
2 3 (0.67%) 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 (11.33%) Azure
2 50 (11.11%) AWS
3 19 (4.22%) SaaS
4 11 (2.44%) GCP
5 7 (1.56%) GitHub
5 7 (1.56%) Power Platform
6 6 (1.33%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (1.11%) IaaS
7 5 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (1.11%) n8n
7 5 (1.11%) PaaS
7 5 (1.11%) Snowflake
8 4 (0.89%) Miro
9 3 (0.67%) dbt
9 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
10 2 (0.44%) Alation
10 2 (0.44%) Amazon EMR
10 2 (0.44%) Amazon S3
10 2 (0.44%) Collibra
10 2 (0.44%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.11%) Firewall
1 5 (1.11%) SD-WAN
1 5 (1.11%) WAN
2 4 (0.89%) DNS
2 4 (0.89%) 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 (1.33%) Data Lake
1 6 (1.33%) Power BI
2 4 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (0.89%) Metadata
2 4 (0.89%) Tableau
3 3 (0.67%) 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 (6.89%) Rational DOORS
2 20 (4.44%) JIRA
3 2 (0.44%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (0.22%) CircleCI
General
1 117 (26.00%) Social Skills
2 73 (16.22%) Public Sector
3 66 (14.67%) Finance
4 49 (10.89%) Marketing
5 47 (10.44%) Analytical Skills
6 39 (8.67%) Aerospace
7 35 (7.78%) Retail
8 18 (4.00%) Banking
8 18 (4.00%) Influencing Skills
9 14 (3.11%) Aviation
10 13 (2.89%) Military
11 8 (1.78%) Legal
12 5 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.11%) Investment Banking
12 5 (1.11%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.11%) Publishing
13 4 (0.89%) Advertising
13 4 (0.89%) Billing
13 4 (0.89%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.89%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.33%) Azure Blueprints
1 6 (1.33%) RESTful
2 3 (0.67%) 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%) 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 (23.11%) Product Ownership
2 30 (6.67%) Legacy Systems
3 25 (5.56%) Data Structures
4 14 (3.11%) Marketing Technology
5 13 (2.89%) Onboarding
6 12 (2.67%) Data Protection Act
7 10 (2.22%) Mobile App
8 8 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (1.78%) Cloud Native
8 8 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
9 6 (1.33%) AI Agents
9 6 (1.33%) Social Media
10 4 (0.89%) FMCG
10 4 (0.89%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.89%) NHS
10 4 (0.89%) Robotics
10 4 (0.89%) Taxonomies
10 4 (0.89%) Virtual Team
11 3 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
11 3 (0.67%) Smart Home
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.89%) VMS
2 1 (0.22%) Android
2 1 (0.22%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 245 (54.44%) Roadmaps
2 224 (49.78%) Agile
3 167 (37.11%) Product Management
4 123 (27.33%) Stakeholder Management
5 113 (25.11%) Product Roadmap
6 103 (22.89%) Product Vision
7 97 (21.56%) Backlog Prioritisation
7 97 (21.56%) Product Backlog
8 85 (18.89%) Continuous Improvement
9 84 (18.67%) Product Strategy
10 69 (15.33%) User Stories
11 68 (15.11%) AI
12 65 (14.44%) Backlog Management
13 63 (14.00%) Strategic Roadmap
14 60 (13.33%) Decision-Making
14 60 (13.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 56 (12.44%) Analytics
16 53 (11.78%) Scrum
17 50 (11.11%) Scaled Agile Framework
18 46 (10.22%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 12 (2.67%) SQL
2 7 (1.56%) Python
3 4 (0.89%) 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 (29.33%) Security Cleared
2 84 (18.67%) SC Cleared
3 49 (10.89%) Degree
4 24 (5.33%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (4.44%) DV Cleared
6 3 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.67%) CSPO
6 3 (0.67%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.22%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (4.00%) Data Quality
2 13 (2.89%) Accessibility
3 8 (1.78%) QA
4 5 (1.11%) SLA
5 4 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (0.89%) NIST
6 3 (0.67%) GDPR
6 3 (0.67%) 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 (0.89%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (2.00%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.67%) Ansible
2 3 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.22%) Grafana
3 1 (0.22%) Kibana
3 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 26 (5.78%) IBM
2 11 (2.44%) Google
2 11 (2.44%) Microsoft
3 8 (1.78%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.33%) Apple
5 5 (1.11%) Oracle
5 5 (1.11%) SAP
6 4 (0.89%) Databricks
6 4 (0.89%) Pinterest
6 4 (0.89%) Snapchat
6 4 (0.89%) TikTok
6 4 (0.89%) Workday
7 3 (0.67%) Remedy
7 3 (0.67%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.44%) BMC
8 2 (0.44%) JDA
8 2 (0.44%) Klarna
8 2 (0.44%) PayPal
8 2 (0.44%) RedPrairie
8 2 (0.44%) Virgin Media