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 15 March 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 310 264 343
Rank change year-on-year -46 +79 -16
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 359 271 263
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.91% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.90% 0.98% 0.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 192 187
10th Percentile £381 £362 £409
25th Percentile £450 £463 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £638 £675 £650
90th Percentile £719 £750 £760
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £505 £550
% change year-on-year -0.99% -8.18% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 3 3
10th Percentile - £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 39,729 27,628 41,284
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.88% 92.94% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,809 17,866 27,104
10th Percentile £313 £297 £270
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,476 879 2,491
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.32 £12.92
25th Percentile £19.08 £21.13 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.71 £33.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.21% +1.54% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.44
90th Percentile £75.79 £77.50 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -20.36%

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 15 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 15 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 -31 329 £550 -1.12% 236
London -46 186 £550 -5.66% 115
UK excluding London +1 134 £500 -0.99% 174
Work from Home +5 112 £550 -2.22% 150
South East -1 67 £565 +15.90% 62
North of England -35 48 £500 -0.99% 37
North East -2 20 £456 -9.65% 4
North West -20 16 £550 +22.22% 21
Yorkshire -46 13 £513 - 12
Midlands -52 10 £500 +5.26% 18
West Midlands -59 8 £492 -1.60% 13
South West -29 5 £525 +23.53% 20
East of England -25 4 £615 +5.81% 31
East Midlands -30 2 £550 +33.33% 5

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

For the 6 months to 15 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 (47.63%) Roadmaps
2 170 (47.35%) Agile
3 125 (34.82%) Product Management
4 103 (28.69%) Security Cleared
5 89 (24.79%) Stakeholder Management
6 86 (23.96%) Product Roadmap
7 79 (22.01%) Product Strategy
8 70 (19.50%) Product Vision
9 64 (17.83%) Continuous Improvement
10 62 (17.27%) SC Cleared
11 61 (16.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 56 (15.60%) AI
13 49 (13.65%) Product Backlog
14 48 (13.37%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 47 (13.09%) User Stories
16 46 (12.81%) Degree
17 45 (12.53%) Backlog Management
17 45 (12.53%) Backlog Prioritisation
18 42 (11.70%) Decision-Making
19 38 (10.58%) Systems Engineering
20 37 (10.31%) Problem-Solving
21 36 (10.03%) Scrum
22 35 (9.75%) Analytics
22 35 (9.75%) Computer Science
23 34 (9.47%) PRINCE2
24 32 (8.91%) Change Control
24 32 (8.91%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
25 31 (8.64%) Rational DOORS
26 30 (8.36%) Programme Management
27 28 (7.80%) Model-Based 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 12 (3.34%) Confluence
2 3 (0.84%) CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.84%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (1.11%) Sprinklr
2 2 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.56%) Exchequer
2 2 (0.56%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.28%) Distributed Ledger
3 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 24 (6.69%) SaaS
2 13 (3.62%) Azure
3 12 (3.34%) AWS
4 8 (2.23%) IaaS
4 8 (2.23%) PaaS
5 6 (1.67%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (1.39%) GCP
7 3 (0.84%) Figma
7 3 (0.84%) Microsoft Copilot
7 3 (0.84%) Power Platform
8 2 (0.56%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (0.56%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Purview
8 2 (0.56%) Miro
8 2 (0.56%) n8n
8 2 (0.56%) Power Automate
8 2 (0.56%) Snowflake
9 1 (0.28%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
9 1 (0.28%) Serverless
9 1 (0.28%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.23%) Firewall
2 6 (1.67%) SD-WAN
2 6 (1.67%) WAN
3 4 (1.11%) DNS
3 4 (1.11%) LAN
4 2 (0.56%) ISDN
4 2 (0.56%) OpenScape
4 2 (0.56%) Unified Communications
5 1 (0.28%) 5G
5 1 (0.28%) Internet
5 1 (0.28%) Intranet
5 1 (0.28%) Network Security
5 1 (0.28%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.56%) Power BI
2 1 (0.28%) Amazon Redshift
2 1 (0.28%) BigQuery
2 1 (0.28%) Data Lake
2 1 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (0.28%) Metadata
2 1 (0.28%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 31 (8.64%) Rational DOORS
2 14 (3.90%) JIRA
General
1 110 (30.64%) Social Skills
2 71 (19.78%) Finance
3 68 (18.94%) Public Sector
4 48 (13.37%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (10.58%) Aerospace
6 34 (9.47%) Marketing
7 19 (5.29%) Banking
8 18 (5.01%) Retail
9 16 (4.46%) Influencing Skills
10 13 (3.62%) Legal
11 12 (3.34%) Aviation
12 9 (2.51%) Military
13 5 (1.39%) Advertising
13 5 (1.39%) Investment Banking
13 5 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (1.39%) Publishing
14 4 (1.11%) Digital Health
15 3 (0.84%) Automotive
15 3 (0.84%) Front Office
15 3 (0.84%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (0.84%) Azure Blueprints
1 3 (0.84%) PySpark
2 1 (0.28%) React
2 1 (0.28%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 87 (24.23%) Product Ownership
2 25 (6.96%) Data Structures
3 13 (3.62%) Onboarding
4 12 (3.34%) Marketing Technology
5 9 (2.51%) Mobile App
6 8 (2.23%) Analytical Mindset
7 7 (1.95%) AI Agents
8 6 (1.67%) Derivative
8 6 (1.67%) IoT
8 6 (1.67%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.39%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.39%) Social Media
10 4 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.84%) Blockchain
11 3 (0.84%) Digital Media
11 3 (0.84%) Educational Technology
11 3 (0.84%) Media Streaming
11 3 (0.84%) Robotics
11 3 (0.84%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.11%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (47.63%) Roadmaps
2 170 (47.35%) Agile
3 125 (34.82%) Product Management
4 89 (24.79%) Stakeholder Management
5 86 (23.96%) Product Roadmap
6 79 (22.01%) Product Strategy
7 70 (19.50%) Product Vision
8 64 (17.83%) Continuous Improvement
9 61 (16.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 56 (15.60%) AI
11 49 (13.65%) Product Backlog
12 48 (13.37%) Scaled Agile Framework
13 47 (13.09%) User Stories
14 45 (12.53%) Backlog Management
14 45 (12.53%) Backlog Prioritisation
15 42 (11.70%) Decision-Making
16 38 (10.58%) Systems Engineering
17 37 (10.31%) Problem-Solving
18 36 (10.03%) Scrum
19 35 (9.75%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 9 (2.51%) SQL
2 4 (1.11%) Java
3 3 (0.84%) Python
4 1 (0.28%) Korn
Qualifications
1 103 (28.69%) Security Cleared
2 62 (17.27%) SC Cleared
3 46 (12.81%) Degree
4 15 (4.18%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (3.90%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.11%) CSPO
6 4 (1.11%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.56%) MBA
8 1 (0.28%) APMP
8 1 (0.28%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.34%) QA
2 10 (2.79%) Accessibility
3 9 (2.51%) Data Quality
4 5 (1.39%) NCSC
4 5 (1.39%) SLA
5 4 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (1.11%) NIST
6 2 (0.56%) DO-254
6 2 (0.56%) GDPR
6 2 (0.56%) GRC
6 2 (0.56%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.56%) ISO 26262
7 1 (0.28%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 2 (0.56%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (1.11%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 26 (7.24%) IBM
2 13 (3.62%) Microsoft
3 9 (2.51%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.67%) Google
5 4 (1.11%) Apple
5 4 (1.11%) Palo Alto
5 4 (1.11%) Pinterest
5 4 (1.11%) ServiceNow
5 4 (1.11%) Snapchat
5 4 (1.11%) TikTok
6 3 (0.84%) Fortinet
6 3 (0.84%) Workday
7 2 (0.56%) Atlassian
7 2 (0.56%) Avature
7 2 (0.56%) Databricks
7 2 (0.56%) Mitel
7 2 (0.56%) Oracle
7 2 (0.56%) SAP
7 2 (0.56%) Virgin Media
7 2 (0.56%) Zscaler