Product Manager Contract Job Trends

Product Manager
UK

The median Product Manager daily rate in the UK is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 February 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 326 294 365
Rank change year-on-year -32 +71 -21
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 290 249 252
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.73% 0.80% 0.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.80% 0.86% 0.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 164 181
10th Percentile £402 £403 £409
25th Percentile £455 £472 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £638 £703 £650
90th Percentile £714 £764 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
10th Percentile - - £54.25
25th Percentile - £51.25 £58.75
Median hourly rate - £52.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year - -22.22% -
75th Percentile - £53.75 £68.75
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

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 36,458 28,796 41,269
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.54% 92.96% 93.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,924 17,765 27,180
10th Percentile £300 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £489
% change year-on-year -0.52% -2.35% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,214 834 2,292
10th Percentile £14.53 £15.92 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £16.45
Median hourly rate £30.00 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -2.86% -2.23%
75th Percentile £62.44 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £32.13 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.87% -8.20% -

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 12 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 12 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 -39 264 £550 -4.35% 147
London -45 162 £550 -8.29% 47
Work from Home +17 94 £570 -0.87% 117
UK excluding London -13 93 £500 - 129
North of England -27 47 £500 -1.23% 37
South East -25 23 £589 +33.43% 49
North East 0 20 £456 -8.75% 5
North West -11 16 £550 -12.00% 22
Midlands -46 15 £492 +3.58% 13
Yorkshire -49 12 £525 +2.44% 10
West Midlands -45 11 £492 -6.29% 10
South West -17 5 £525 +23.53% 7
East Midlands -21 4 £440 +6.67% 3
East of England -21 4 £633 -9.64% 14

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

For the 6 months to 12 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.

1 156 (53.79%) Roadmaps
2 145 (50.00%) Agile
3 121 (41.72%) Product Management
4 86 (29.66%) Stakeholder Management
5 83 (28.62%) Product Roadmap
6 77 (26.55%) Product Strategy
7 68 (23.45%) Product Vision
8 49 (16.90%) AI
9 46 (15.86%) Product Backlog
10 43 (14.83%) Security Cleared
11 39 (13.45%) Decision-Making
12 38 (13.10%) User Stories
13 37 (12.76%) Backlog Management
14 36 (12.41%) Backlog Prioritisation
15 35 (12.07%) Scrum
16 34 (11.72%) Continuous Improvement
16 34 (11.72%) SC Cleared
17 31 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
17 31 (10.69%) Strategic Roadmap
18 30 (10.34%) User Experience
18 30 (10.34%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
19 28 (9.66%) User Research
20 27 (9.31%) Analytics
20 27 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 23 (7.93%) Business Case
22 22 (7.59%) Data Science
22 22 (7.59%) Machine Learning
23 21 (7.24%) Product Requirements
24 20 (6.90%) Data-Driven Decision Making
25 19 (6.55%) Customer Experience

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 11 (3.79%) Confluence
2 3 (1.03%) CMS
2 3 (1.03%) PowerFactory
3 2 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 5 (1.72%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.69%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.34%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.34%) Exchequer
2 1 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 19 (6.55%) SaaS
2 10 (3.45%) Azure
3 8 (2.76%) AWS
4 6 (2.07%) GCP
5 5 (1.72%) IaaS
5 5 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (1.72%) PaaS
6 3 (1.03%) Figma
6 3 (1.03%) Microsoft Copilot
6 3 (1.03%) Power Platform
7 2 (0.69%) Alation
7 2 (0.69%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (0.69%) dbt
7 2 (0.69%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.69%) Fivetran
7 2 (0.69%) Microsoft Purview
7 2 (0.69%) Miro
7 2 (0.69%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.34%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (0.34%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.72%) Firewall
2 2 (0.69%) ISDN
2 2 (0.69%) OpenScape
2 2 (0.69%) SD-WAN
2 2 (0.69%) WAN
3 1 (0.34%) DNS
3 1 (0.34%) Internet
3 1 (0.34%) Intranet
3 1 (0.34%) LAN
3 1 (0.34%) Network Security
3 1 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.38%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (1.03%) BigQuery
2 3 (1.03%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.69%) Power BI
3 2 (0.69%) Relational Database
3 2 (0.69%) Tableau
4 1 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.34%) Looker
4 1 (0.34%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 14 (4.83%) JIRA
General
1 108 (37.24%) Social Skills
2 69 (23.79%) Finance
3 66 (22.76%) Public Sector
4 42 (14.48%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (7.24%) Banking
5 21 (7.24%) Marketing
6 20 (6.90%) Retail
7 17 (5.86%) Influencing Skills
8 15 (5.17%) Legal
9 7 (2.41%) Aviation
10 6 (2.07%) Investment Banking
11 5 (1.72%) Digital Health
11 5 (1.72%) Military
12 4 (1.38%) Local Government
12 4 (1.38%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (1.03%) Automotive
13 3 (1.03%) Front Office
13 3 (1.03%) Publishing
14 2 (0.69%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (0.69%) React
2 1 (0.34%) Azure Blueprints
2 1 (0.34%) Flash
2 1 (0.34%) HTML
2 1 (0.34%) HTML5
2 1 (0.34%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 51 (17.59%) Product Ownership
2 11 (3.79%) Onboarding
3 10 (3.45%) Mobile App
4 9 (3.10%) Analytical Mindset
4 9 (3.10%) Derivative
5 6 (2.07%) IoT
6 5 (1.72%) AI Agents
6 5 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.72%) Virtual Team
7 4 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.03%) Blockchain
8 3 (1.03%) Data Structures
8 3 (1.03%) Digital Media
8 3 (1.03%) Educational Technology
8 3 (1.03%) Media Streaming
8 3 (1.03%) NHS
9 2 (0.69%) Handset
9 2 (0.69%) Life Science
9 2 (0.69%) Management Information System
9 2 (0.69%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.34%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (53.79%) Roadmaps
2 145 (50.00%) Agile
3 121 (41.72%) Product Management
4 86 (29.66%) Stakeholder Management
5 83 (28.62%) Product Roadmap
6 77 (26.55%) Product Strategy
7 68 (23.45%) Product Vision
8 49 (16.90%) AI
9 46 (15.86%) Product Backlog
10 39 (13.45%) Decision-Making
11 38 (13.10%) User Stories
12 37 (12.76%) Backlog Management
13 36 (12.41%) Backlog Prioritisation
14 35 (12.07%) Scrum
15 34 (11.72%) Continuous Improvement
16 31 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
16 31 (10.69%) Strategic Roadmap
17 30 (10.34%) User Experience
17 30 (10.34%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
18 28 (9.66%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 8 (2.76%) SQL
2 1 (0.34%) Java
2 1 (0.34%) JavaScript
2 1 (0.34%) Korn
2 1 (0.34%) MATLAB
2 1 (0.34%) Python
Qualifications
1 43 (14.83%) Security Cleared
2 34 (11.72%) SC Cleared
3 12 (4.14%) BPSS Clearance
3 12 (4.14%) Degree
4 6 (2.07%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.38%) CSPO
5 4 (1.38%) Master's Degree
6 3 (1.03%) MBA
7 1 (0.34%) APMP
7 1 (0.34%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.34%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.14%) QA
2 10 (3.45%) Accessibility
3 6 (2.07%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.38%) NCSC
5 3 (1.03%) GDPR
5 3 (1.03%) SLA
6 2 (0.69%) GRC
7 1 (0.34%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.34%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.34%) NIST
7 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1 (0.34%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (0.34%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 12 (4.14%) Microsoft
1 12 (4.14%) Salesforce
2 4 (1.38%) Palo Alto
2 4 (1.38%) ServiceNow
3 3 (1.03%) Fortinet
3 3 (1.03%) Google
4 2 (0.69%) Atlassian
4 2 (0.69%) Avature
4 2 (0.69%) Databricks
4 2 (0.69%) DIgSILENT
4 2 (0.69%) Mitel
4 2 (0.69%) Oracle
4 2 (0.69%) SAP
4 2 (0.69%) Virgin Media
4 2 (0.69%) Zscaler
5 1 (0.34%) Adobe
5 1 (0.34%) Apple
5 1 (0.34%) FXall
5 1 (0.34%) OneTrust
5 1 (0.34%) OpenAI