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 1 March 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 316 288 342
Rank change year-on-year -28 +54 -13
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 316 258 265
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.76% 0.85% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.83% 0.91% 0.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 175 187
10th Percentile £400 £385 £401
25th Percentile £462 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £539 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.09% -4.35% -2.13%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £650
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £550
% change year-on-year -1.96% -7.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 3 3
10th Percentile £80.58 £48.25 £54.25
25th Percentile £80.75 £49.38 £58.75
Median hourly rate £83.29 £52.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.64% -22.22% -
75th Percentile £87.38 £63.13 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.29 £70.00 -
% change year-on-year +18.98% - -

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 38,119 28,262 41,512
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.82% 92.85% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,936 17,829 27,270
10th Percentile £310 £290 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £408
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 2,335 854 2,415
10th Percentile £14.71 £16.25 £13.05
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.06 £34.53
Median % change year-on-year -1.63% -1.38% -13.68%
75th Percentile £63.88 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.18 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% -6.67%

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 1 March 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 1 March 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 -30 286 £550 -4.35% 285
London -45 170 £550 -8.29% 149
UK excluding London -27 107 £500 -1.96% 191
Work from Home +13 105 £550 -4.35% 183
North of England -27 48 £500 -0.99% 33
South East -13 40 £613 +25.64% 80
North East 0 20 £456 -8.75% 1
North West -28 16 £550 - 21
Yorkshire -55 13 £513 - 11
Midlands -48 10 £500 -9.09% 15
West Midlands -46 8 £492 -18.00% 7
South West -23 5 £525 +23.53% 20
East of England -27 4 £615 +5.81% 29
East Midlands -24 2 £550 +33.33% 8

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

For the 6 months to 1 March 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 (52.22%) Roadmaps
2 155 (49.05%) Agile
3 117 (37.03%) Product Management
4 90 (28.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 85 (26.90%) Product Roadmap
6 76 (24.05%) Product Strategy
7 69 (21.84%) Product Vision
8 67 (21.20%) Security Cleared
9 50 (15.82%) AI
10 48 (15.19%) Product Backlog
10 48 (15.19%) SC Cleared
11 46 (14.56%) Continuous Improvement
12 44 (13.92%) Backlog Management
12 44 (13.92%) Backlog Prioritisation
13 43 (13.61%) Decision-Making
13 43 (13.61%) User Stories
14 38 (12.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 37 (11.71%) Scrum
16 33 (10.44%) Problem-Solving
16 33 (10.44%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
17 31 (9.81%) User Research
18 29 (9.18%) Analytics
18 29 (9.18%) User Experience
19 28 (8.86%) Strategic Roadmap
20 25 (7.91%) Data-Driven Decision Making
20 25 (7.91%) Scaled Agile Framework
21 24 (7.59%) Business Case
21 24 (7.59%) Degree
22 23 (7.28%) SaaS
23 21 (6.65%) 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 (3.80%) Confluence
2 3 (0.95%) CMS
3 2 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.32%) PowerFactory
Applications
1 3 (0.95%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.63%) Exchequer
1 2 (0.63%) SAP GRC
1 2 (0.63%) Sprinklr
2 1 (0.32%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 23 (7.28%) SaaS
2 13 (4.11%) Azure
3 10 (3.16%) AWS
4 7 (2.22%) GCP
5 6 (1.90%) IaaS
5 6 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
5 6 (1.90%) PaaS
6 3 (0.95%) Figma
6 3 (0.95%) Microsoft Copilot
6 3 (0.95%) Power Platform
7 2 (0.63%) Alation
7 2 (0.63%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (0.63%) dbt
7 2 (0.63%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.63%) Fivetran
7 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Purview
7 2 (0.63%) Miro
7 2 (0.63%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.32%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (0.32%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.90%) Firewall
2 4 (1.27%) SD-WAN
2 4 (1.27%) WAN
3 2 (0.63%) DNS
3 2 (0.63%) ISDN
3 2 (0.63%) LAN
3 2 (0.63%) OpenScape
4 1 (0.32%) 5G
4 1 (0.32%) Internet
4 1 (0.32%) Intranet
4 1 (0.32%) Network Security
4 1 (0.32%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.32%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.95%) BigQuery
1 3 (0.95%) Data Lake
1 3 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (0.63%) Power BI
2 2 (0.63%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.63%) Tableau
3 1 (0.32%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (0.32%) Looker
3 1 (0.32%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 13 (4.11%) JIRA
2 9 (2.85%) Rational DOORS
General
1 110 (34.81%) Social Skills
2 69 (21.84%) Finance
2 69 (21.84%) Public Sector
3 43 (13.61%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (8.23%) Marketing
5 19 (6.01%) Influencing Skills
6 18 (5.70%) Banking
7 17 (5.38%) Retail
8 15 (4.75%) Aerospace
9 13 (4.11%) Legal
10 10 (3.16%) Aviation
11 8 (2.53%) Military
12 5 (1.58%) Digital Health
12 5 (1.58%) Investment Banking
12 5 (1.58%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (1.58%) Publishing
13 4 (1.27%) Local Government
13 4 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.95%) Advertising
14 3 (0.95%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (0.95%) Azure Blueprints
2 1 (0.32%) React
2 1 (0.32%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 62 (19.62%) Product Ownership
2 12 (3.80%) Onboarding
3 10 (3.16%) Mobile App
4 8 (2.53%) Analytical Mindset
4 8 (2.53%) Derivative
5 7 (2.22%) Data Structures
6 6 (1.90%) AI Agents
6 6 (1.90%) IoT
6 6 (1.90%) Virtual Team
7 5 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.58%) Marketing Technology
8 4 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.95%) Blockchain
9 3 (0.95%) Digital Media
9 3 (0.95%) Educational Technology
9 3 (0.95%) Management Information System
9 3 (0.95%) Media Streaming
9 3 (0.95%) NHS
9 3 (0.95%) Robotics
9 3 (0.95%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 2 (0.63%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 165 (52.22%) Roadmaps
2 155 (49.05%) Agile
3 117 (37.03%) Product Management
4 90 (28.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 85 (26.90%) Product Roadmap
6 76 (24.05%) Product Strategy
7 69 (21.84%) Product Vision
8 50 (15.82%) AI
9 48 (15.19%) Product Backlog
10 46 (14.56%) Continuous Improvement
11 44 (13.92%) Backlog Management
11 44 (13.92%) Backlog Prioritisation
12 43 (13.61%) Decision-Making
12 43 (13.61%) User Stories
13 38 (12.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 37 (11.71%) Scrum
15 33 (10.44%) Problem-Solving
15 33 (10.44%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 31 (9.81%) User Research
17 29 (9.18%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 8 (2.53%) SQL
2 1 (0.32%) Java
2 1 (0.32%) Korn
2 1 (0.32%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 67 (21.20%) Security Cleared
2 48 (15.19%) SC Cleared
3 24 (7.59%) Degree
4 15 (4.75%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (3.16%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.27%) CSPO
6 4 (1.27%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.95%) MBA
8 1 (0.32%) APMP
8 1 (0.32%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.32%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.80%) QA
2 10 (3.16%) Accessibility
3 7 (2.22%) Data Quality
4 5 (1.58%) NCSC
5 4 (1.27%) SLA
6 3 (0.95%) GDPR
7 2 (0.63%) DO-254
7 2 (0.63%) GRC
7 2 (0.63%) IEC 61508
7 2 (0.63%) ISO 26262
7 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.63%) NIST
8 1 (0.32%) EU AI Act
8 1 (0.32%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1 (0.32%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (0.32%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 13 (4.11%) Microsoft
2 9 (2.85%) Salesforce
3 6 (1.90%) IBM
4 4 (1.27%) Palo Alto
4 4 (1.27%) ServiceNow
5 3 (0.95%) Fortinet
5 3 (0.95%) Google
6 2 (0.63%) Atlassian
6 2 (0.63%) Avature
6 2 (0.63%) Databricks
6 2 (0.63%) Mitel
6 2 (0.63%) Oracle
6 2 (0.63%) Pinterest
6 2 (0.63%) SAP
6 2 (0.63%) Snapchat
6 2 (0.63%) TikTok
6 2 (0.63%) Virgin Media
6 2 (0.63%) Zscaler
7 1 (0.32%) DIgSILENT
7 1 (0.32%) OpenAI