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 9 March 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 305 279 352
Rank change year-on-year -26 +73 -19
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 342 266 266
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.81% 0.89% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.88% 0.96% 0.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 232 186 188
10th Percentile £400 £388 £409
25th Percentile £457 £464 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £638 £675 £650
90th Percentile £724 £750 £777
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £550
% change year-on-year -1.96% -7.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 3 3
10th Percentile £80.68 £48.25 £54.25
25th Percentile £80.75 £49.38 £58.75
Median hourly rate £88.00 £52.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.62% -22.22% -
75th Percentile - £63.13 £68.75
90th Percentile - £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £70.00 -
% change year-on-year +25.71% - -

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 38,836 27,659 41,539
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.95% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,338 17,830 27,237
10th Percentile £310 £294 £270
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,391 872 2,505
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.81 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £34.95 £33.75 £32.69
Median % change year-on-year +3.54% +3.24% -20.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £32.50 £32.90
% change year-on-year +3.08% -1.20% -17.30%

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 9 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 9 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 -24 313 £550 -2.22% 209
London -35 181 £550 -8.29% 70
UK excluding London -10 123 £500 -1.96% 188
Work from Home +6 109 £550 -2.22% 133
South East -3 57 £565 +15.90% 66
North of England -28 48 £500 -1.96% 45
North East -1 20 £456 -9.65% 4
North West -16 16 £550 +10.00% 23
Yorkshire -47 13 £513 - 18
Midlands -55 9 £500 +5.26% 21
West Midlands -49 7 £492 -1.60% 9
South West -26 5 £525 +23.53% 19
East of England -31 4 £615 +5.81% 26
East Midlands -33 2 £550 +33.33% 12

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

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 171 (50.00%) Roadmaps
2 162 (47.37%) Agile
3 121 (35.38%) Product Management
4 89 (26.02%) Security Cleared
5 87 (25.44%) Stakeholder Management
6 85 (24.85%) Product Roadmap
7 78 (22.81%) Product Strategy
8 70 (20.47%) Product Vision
9 58 (16.96%) Continuous Improvement
10 57 (16.67%) SC Cleared
11 53 (15.50%) AI
11 53 (15.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 49 (14.33%) Product Backlog
13 47 (13.74%) User Stories
14 45 (13.16%) Backlog Management
15 44 (12.87%) Decision-Making
16 43 (12.57%) Backlog Prioritisation
17 38 (11.11%) Scaled Agile Framework
18 37 (10.82%) Degree
19 36 (10.53%) Scrum
20 35 (10.23%) Problem-Solving
21 34 (9.94%) Analytics
22 32 (9.36%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
23 29 (8.48%) User Experience
24 28 (8.19%) Strategic Roadmap
24 28 (8.19%) Systems Engineering
24 28 (8.19%) User Research
25 26 (7.60%) Computer Science
26 25 (7.31%) Data-Driven Decision Making
26 25 (7.31%) PRINCE2

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 (3.51%) Confluence
2 3 (0.88%) CMS
3 1 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (0.88%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (0.88%) Sprinklr
2 2 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.58%) Exchequer
2 2 (0.58%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.29%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 23 (6.73%) SaaS
2 13 (3.80%) Azure
3 11 (3.22%) AWS
4 7 (2.05%) IaaS
4 7 (2.05%) PaaS
5 6 (1.75%) GCP
5 6 (1.75%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (0.88%) Figma
6 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Copilot
6 3 (0.88%) Power Platform
7 2 (0.58%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (0.58%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Purview
7 2 (0.58%) Miro
7 2 (0.58%) Power Automate
7 2 (0.58%) Snowflake
8 1 (0.29%) AWS Step Functions
8 1 (0.29%) GitHub
8 1 (0.29%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (0.29%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.05%) Firewall
2 5 (1.46%) SD-WAN
2 5 (1.46%) WAN
3 3 (0.88%) DNS
3 3 (0.88%) LAN
4 2 (0.58%) ISDN
4 2 (0.58%) OpenScape
4 2 (0.58%) Unified Communications
5 1 (0.29%) 5G
5 1 (0.29%) Internet
5 1 (0.29%) Intranet
5 1 (0.29%) Network Security
5 1 (0.29%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.58%) BigQuery
1 2 (0.58%) Data Lake
1 2 (0.58%) Data Warehouse
1 2 (0.58%) Power BI
2 1 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
2 1 (0.29%) Looker
2 1 (0.29%) Metadata
2 1 (0.29%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.29%) Semantic Layer
2 1 (0.29%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 22 (6.43%) Rational DOORS
2 14 (4.09%) JIRA
General
1 107 (31.29%) Social Skills
2 71 (20.76%) Finance
3 68 (19.88%) Public Sector
4 47 (13.74%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (8.77%) Marketing
6 29 (8.48%) Aerospace
7 19 (5.56%) Banking
8 17 (4.97%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (4.97%) Retail
9 13 (3.80%) Legal
10 12 (3.51%) Aviation
11 8 (2.34%) Military
12 5 (1.46%) Digital Health
12 5 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (1.46%) Publishing
13 4 (1.17%) Advertising
13 4 (1.17%) Investment Banking
13 4 (1.17%) Local Government
14 3 (0.88%) Automotive
14 3 (0.88%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (0.88%) Azure Blueprints
2 1 (0.29%) PySpark
2 1 (0.29%) React
2 1 (0.29%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 78 (22.81%) Product Ownership
2 18 (5.26%) Data Structures
3 13 (3.80%) Onboarding
4 10 (2.92%) Mobile App
5 9 (2.63%) Analytical Mindset
6 8 (2.34%) Marketing Technology
7 7 (2.05%) Derivative
8 6 (1.75%) AI Agents
8 6 (1.75%) IoT
8 6 (1.75%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.17%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.17%) Social Media
11 3 (0.88%) Blockchain
11 3 (0.88%) Digital Media
11 3 (0.88%) Educational Technology
11 3 (0.88%) Media Streaming
11 3 (0.88%) NHS
11 3 (0.88%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.88%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (50.00%) Roadmaps
2 162 (47.37%) Agile
3 121 (35.38%) Product Management
4 87 (25.44%) Stakeholder Management
5 85 (24.85%) Product Roadmap
6 78 (22.81%) Product Strategy
7 70 (20.47%) Product Vision
8 58 (16.96%) Continuous Improvement
9 53 (15.50%) AI
9 53 (15.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 49 (14.33%) Product Backlog
11 47 (13.74%) User Stories
12 45 (13.16%) Backlog Management
13 44 (12.87%) Decision-Making
14 43 (12.57%) Backlog Prioritisation
15 38 (11.11%) Scaled Agile Framework
16 36 (10.53%) Scrum
17 35 (10.23%) Problem-Solving
18 34 (9.94%) Analytics
19 32 (9.36%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 8 (2.34%) SQL
2 2 (0.58%) Java
3 1 (0.29%) Korn
3 1 (0.29%) Python
Qualifications
1 89 (26.02%) Security Cleared
2 57 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 37 (10.82%) Degree
4 13 (3.80%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (3.80%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.17%) CSPO
5 4 (1.17%) Master's Degree
6 2 (0.58%) MBA
7 1 (0.29%) APMP
7 1 (0.29%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.29%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.29%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.51%) QA
2 10 (2.92%) Accessibility
3 8 (2.34%) Data Quality
4 5 (1.46%) NCSC
4 5 (1.46%) SLA
5 3 (0.88%) GDPR
5 3 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.88%) NIST
6 2 (0.58%) DO-254
6 2 (0.58%) GRC
6 2 (0.58%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.58%) ISO 26262
7 1 (0.29%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.29%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1 (0.29%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (0.29%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 18 (5.26%) IBM
2 13 (3.80%) Microsoft
3 9 (2.63%) Salesforce
4 4 (1.17%) Google
4 4 (1.17%) Palo Alto
4 4 (1.17%) ServiceNow
5 3 (0.88%) Fortinet
5 3 (0.88%) Pinterest
5 3 (0.88%) Snapchat
5 3 (0.88%) TikTok
5 3 (0.88%) Workday
6 2 (0.58%) Apple
6 2 (0.58%) Atlassian
6 2 (0.58%) Avature
6 2 (0.58%) Databricks
6 2 (0.58%) Mitel
6 2 (0.58%) Oracle
6 2 (0.58%) SAP
6 2 (0.58%) Virgin Media
6 2 (0.58%) Zscaler