Product Manager Contract Job Trends

Product Manager
UK

The median Product Manager daily rate in the UK is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 May 2026.

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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 283 285 340
Rank change year-on-year +2 +55 -37
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 404 253 250
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.87% 0.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.92% 0.94% 0.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 182 187
10th Percentile £359 £360 £409
25th Percentile £456 £463 £476
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £585
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -10.26% +6.36%
75th Percentile £620 £624 £663
90th Percentile £725 £725 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £500 £575
% change year-on-year +10.00% -13.04% +6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 3 2
10th Percentile £80.50 £48.25 -
25th Percentile £80.75 £49.38 £66.25
Median hourly rate £88.00 £52.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.62% -22.22% +70.67%
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 43,905 26,796 39,671
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.46% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,903 17,460 25,789
10th Percentile £320 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,866 1,033 2,665
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.20 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.43 £28.18 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.13% -24.85% -16.67%
75th Percentile £66.50 £62.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.26
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £27.24 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.21% -31.91% -4.94%

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 14 May 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 14 May 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 14 May 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 +7 373 £550 +2.33% 313
London -27 189 £550 -2.22% 174
UK excluding London +1 169 £550 +10.00% 171
Work from Home +14 119 £565 +7.62% 149
South East -5 67 £565 +28.05% 50
North of England -47 47 £525 +3.96% 50
South West -9 27 £550 +29.41% 25
North West -24 23 £550 +14.29% 36
Midlands -50 18 £491 -6.48% 17
West Midlands -46 16 £483 -8.10% 11
North East -16 14 £475 -8.21% 2
Yorkshire -44 14 £525 +5.00% 12
East of England -26 12 £600 +3.23% 23
East Midlands -30 2 £550 +8.11% 6

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

For the 6 months to 14 May 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.

1 208 (51.49%) Roadmaps
2 187 (46.29%) Agile
3 139 (34.41%) Product Management
4 117 (28.96%) Security Cleared
5 103 (25.50%) Stakeholder Management
6 95 (23.51%) Product Roadmap
7 94 (23.27%) Product Vision
8 78 (19.31%) Product Strategy
9 71 (17.57%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 70 (17.33%) Product Backlog
11 69 (17.08%) SC Cleared
12 67 (16.58%) Continuous Improvement
13 64 (15.84%) AI
14 61 (15.10%) User Stories
15 55 (13.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 51 (12.62%) Backlog Management
17 49 (12.13%) Degree
18 48 (11.88%) Strategic Roadmap
19 46 (11.39%) Analytics
19 46 (11.39%) Decision-Making
20 43 (10.64%) Scaled Agile Framework
21 41 (10.15%) Azure
22 40 (9.90%) Scrum
23 39 (9.65%) AWS
24 38 (9.41%) Systems Engineering
25 36 (8.91%) Problem-Solving
25 36 (8.91%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
26 35 (8.66%) Computer Science
26 35 (8.66%) User Experience
27 34 (8.42%) Business Case

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 14 (3.47%) Confluence
2 2 (0.50%) CMS
3 1 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.99%) Sprinklr
3 2 (0.50%) Exchequer
3 2 (0.50%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.25%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 41 (10.15%) Azure
2 39 (9.65%) AWS
3 22 (5.45%) SaaS
4 7 (1.73%) GitHub
4 7 (1.73%) IaaS
4 7 (1.73%) PaaS
5 6 (1.49%) GCP
6 5 (1.24%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (1.24%) n8n
6 5 (1.24%) Power Platform
7 4 (0.99%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (0.74%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (0.74%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (0.74%) Snowflake
9 2 (0.50%) Figma
9 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Purview
9 2 (0.50%) Miro
9 2 (0.50%) Power Automate
9 2 (0.50%) WhatsApp
10 1 (0.25%) AWS CodePipeline
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.98%) Firewall
2 6 (1.49%) SD-WAN
2 6 (1.49%) WAN
3 4 (0.99%) DNS
3 4 (0.99%) LAN
4 2 (0.50%) ISDN
4 2 (0.50%) OpenScape
4 2 (0.50%) Unified Communications
5 1 (0.25%) 5G
5 1 (0.25%) Internet
5 1 (0.25%) Intranet
5 1 (0.25%) Network Security
5 1 (0.25%) NFC
5 1 (0.25%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.25%) SMS
5 1 (0.25%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.99%) Power BI
2 2 (0.50%) Big Data
2 2 (0.50%) Metadata
2 2 (0.50%) Semantic Layer
3 1 (0.25%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (0.25%) BigQuery
3 1 (0.25%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.25%) Delta Lake
3 1 (0.25%) Electronic Patient Records
3 1 (0.25%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 1 (0.25%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (7.67%) Rational DOORS
2 16 (3.96%) JIRA
3 1 (0.25%) CircleCI
General
1 112 (27.72%) Social Skills
2 60 (14.85%) Finance
2 60 (14.85%) Public Sector
3 47 (11.63%) Analytical Skills
4 44 (10.89%) Marketing
5 39 (9.65%) Aerospace
6 23 (5.69%) Retail
7 15 (3.71%) Aviation
7 15 (3.71%) Influencing Skills
8 13 (3.22%) Military
9 11 (2.72%) Banking
10 7 (1.73%) Legal
11 6 (1.49%) Billing
12 5 (1.24%) Local Government
12 5 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (1.24%) Publishing
13 4 (0.99%) Advertising
13 4 (0.99%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.99%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (0.99%) Azure Blueprints
2 3 (0.74%) PySpark
2 3 (0.74%) RESTful
3 1 (0.25%) Django
3 1 (0.25%) FastAPI
3 1 (0.25%) Spring
3 1 (0.25%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 85 (21.04%) Product Ownership
2 27 (6.68%) Legacy Systems
3 24 (5.94%) Data Structures
4 14 (3.47%) Marketing Technology
5 12 (2.97%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (2.72%) Mobile App
6 11 (2.72%) Onboarding
7 7 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
7 7 (1.73%) IoT
7 7 (1.73%) Virtual Team
8 6 (1.49%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.24%) AI Agents
9 5 (1.24%) Social Media
10 4 (0.99%) Cloud Native
10 4 (0.99%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.99%) Robotics
11 3 (0.74%) FMCG
11 3 (0.74%) Media Streaming
11 3 (0.74%) NHS
11 3 (0.74%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.99%) VMS
2 1 (0.25%) Android
2 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (51.49%) Roadmaps
2 187 (46.29%) Agile
3 139 (34.41%) Product Management
4 103 (25.50%) Stakeholder Management
5 95 (23.51%) Product Roadmap
6 94 (23.27%) Product Vision
7 78 (19.31%) Product Strategy
8 71 (17.57%) Backlog Prioritisation
9 70 (17.33%) Product Backlog
10 67 (16.58%) Continuous Improvement
11 64 (15.84%) AI
12 61 (15.10%) User Stories
13 55 (13.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 51 (12.62%) Backlog Management
15 48 (11.88%) Strategic Roadmap
16 46 (11.39%) Analytics
16 46 (11.39%) Decision-Making
17 43 (10.64%) Scaled Agile Framework
18 40 (9.90%) Scrum
19 38 (9.41%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 9 (2.23%) SQL
2 4 (0.99%) Java
2 4 (0.99%) Python
3 1 (0.25%) JavaScript
3 1 (0.25%) PL/SQL
3 1 (0.25%) Ruby
3 1 (0.25%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 117 (28.96%) Security Cleared
2 69 (17.08%) SC Cleared
3 49 (12.13%) Degree
4 20 (4.95%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (3.47%) DV Cleared
6 4 (0.99%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.74%) CSPO
8 2 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.50%) MBA
9 1 (0.25%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (2.97%) Data Quality
2 10 (2.48%) Accessibility
3 7 (1.73%) QA
4 5 (1.24%) NCSC
4 5 (1.24%) SLA
5 4 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (0.99%) NIST
6 2 (0.50%) DO-254
6 2 (0.50%) GDPR
6 2 (0.50%) GRC
6 2 (0.50%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.50%) ISO 26262
7 1 (0.25%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.25%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.25%) PMO
7 1 (0.25%) PSD2
7 1 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 4 (0.99%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (2.23%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.74%) Ansible
2 3 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.25%) Grafana
3 1 (0.25%) Kibana
3 1 (0.25%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 26 (6.44%) IBM
2 12 (2.97%) Microsoft
3 7 (1.73%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.49%) Oracle
5 5 (1.24%) Databricks
5 5 (1.24%) Google
5 5 (1.24%) SAP
6 4 (0.99%) Apple
6 4 (0.99%) Palo Alto
6 4 (0.99%) Pinterest
6 4 (0.99%) ServiceNow
6 4 (0.99%) Snapchat
6 4 (0.99%) TikTok
6 4 (0.99%) Workday
7 3 (0.74%) Fortinet
8 2 (0.50%) Mitel
8 2 (0.50%) Virgin Media
9 1 (0.25%) FXall
9 1 (0.25%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.25%) Zscaler