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 20 May 2026.

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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 276 299 336
Rank change year-on-year +23 +37 -28
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 414 246 255
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.86% 0.84% 0.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.93% 0.91% 0.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 174 193
10th Percentile £359 £360 £406
25th Percentile £450 £460 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £585
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -10.26% +6.36%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £675
90th Percentile £724 £713 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £544 £500 £575
% change year-on-year +8.80% -13.04% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 3 2
10th Percentile £75.70 £48.25 -
25th Percentile £80.75 £49.38 £66.25
Median hourly rate £85.00 £52.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.90% -22.22% +70.67%
75th Percentile £88.00 £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 44,449 26,943 39,487
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.37% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,215 17,536 25,722
10th Percentile £325 £293 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.23%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,895 1,057 2,674
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.31 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.45% -23.29% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.13 £61.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £77.80 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £27.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +62.96% -32.50% -5.88%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +13 383 £550 +4.76% 303
London -15 192 £550 - 175
UK excluding London +21 175 £544 +8.80% 159
Work from Home +8 119 £557 +7.32% 135
South East -12 66 £565 +30.64% 50
North of England -41 50 £525 +5.00% 44
South West -9 32 £550 +29.41% 24
North West -25 25 £550 +22.22% 32
Midlands -56 18 £491 -6.48% 11
West Midlands -43 16 £483 -8.10% 6
Yorkshire -46 15 £525 +5.00% 12
North East -22 14 £475 -8.21%
East of England -22 11 £600 +3.23% 22
East Midlands -29 2 £550 +8.11% 5

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

For the 6 months to 20 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.

1 221 (53.38%) Roadmaps
2 193 (46.62%) Agile
3 146 (35.27%) Product Management
4 116 (28.02%) Security Cleared
5 109 (26.33%) Stakeholder Management
6 100 (24.15%) Product Roadmap
7 98 (23.67%) Product Vision
8 82 (19.81%) Product Strategy
9 76 (18.36%) Backlog Prioritisation
9 76 (18.36%) Product Backlog
10 68 (16.43%) Continuous Improvement
10 68 (16.43%) SC Cleared
11 65 (15.70%) AI
12 62 (14.98%) User Stories
13 57 (13.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 54 (13.04%) Backlog Management
15 52 (12.56%) Strategic Roadmap
16 51 (12.32%) Decision-Making
17 50 (12.08%) Degree
18 49 (11.84%) Analytics
19 47 (11.35%) Azure
20 43 (10.39%) AWS
20 43 (10.39%) Scaled Agile Framework
21 41 (9.90%) Scrum
22 39 (9.42%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
23 38 (9.18%) Systems Engineering
24 37 (8.94%) User Experience
25 36 (8.70%) Problem-Solving
26 35 (8.45%) Business Case
26 35 (8.45%) Computer Science

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 13 (3.14%) Confluence
2 2 (0.48%) CMS
3 1 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.24%) Notion
Business Applications
1 6 (1.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.97%) Sprinklr
3 2 (0.48%) Exchequer
3 2 (0.48%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.24%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 47 (11.35%) Azure
2 43 (10.39%) AWS
3 22 (5.31%) SaaS
4 7 (1.69%) GCP
4 7 (1.69%) GitHub
4 7 (1.69%) IaaS
4 7 (1.69%) PaaS
5 6 (1.45%) Power Platform
6 5 (1.21%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (1.21%) n8n
7 4 (0.97%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (0.97%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (0.72%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (0.72%) Snowflake
9 2 (0.48%) Figma
9 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Purview
9 2 (0.48%) Miro
9 2 (0.48%) Power Automate
9 2 (0.48%) WhatsApp
10 1 (0.24%) Contentsquare
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.93%) Firewall
2 6 (1.45%) SD-WAN
2 6 (1.45%) WAN
3 4 (0.97%) DNS
3 4 (0.97%) LAN
4 2 (0.48%) ISDN
4 2 (0.48%) OpenScape
4 2 (0.48%) Unified Communications
5 1 (0.24%) 5G
5 1 (0.24%) Internet
5 1 (0.24%) Intranet
5 1 (0.24%) Network Security
5 1 (0.24%) NFC
5 1 (0.24%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.24%) SMS
5 1 (0.24%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.21%) Power BI
2 3 (0.72%) Metadata
3 2 (0.48%) Big Data
3 2 (0.48%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.48%) Semantic Layer
4 1 (0.24%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.24%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.24%) Delta Lake
4 1 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
4 1 (0.24%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 1 (0.24%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (7.49%) Rational DOORS
2 15 (3.62%) JIRA
3 1 (0.24%) CircleCI
General
1 117 (28.26%) Social Skills
2 63 (15.22%) Finance
3 60 (14.49%) Public Sector
4 48 (11.59%) Analytical Skills
5 46 (11.11%) Marketing
6 39 (9.42%) Aerospace
7 26 (6.28%) Retail
8 15 (3.62%) Influencing Skills
9 14 (3.38%) Aviation
10 13 (3.14%) Military
11 11 (2.66%) Banking
12 8 (1.93%) Legal
13 6 (1.45%) Billing
14 5 (1.21%) Local Government
14 5 (1.21%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (1.21%) Publishing
15 4 (0.97%) Advertising
15 4 (0.97%) Corporate Banking
15 4 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.97%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (1.21%) Azure Blueprints
1 5 (1.21%) RESTful
2 3 (0.72%) PySpark
3 1 (0.24%) Django
3 1 (0.24%) FastAPI
3 1 (0.24%) JSON
3 1 (0.24%) Spring
3 1 (0.24%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 86 (20.77%) Product Ownership
2 29 (7.00%) Legacy Systems
3 24 (5.80%) Data Structures
4 14 (3.38%) Marketing Technology
5 12 (2.90%) Data Protection Act
5 12 (2.90%) Mobile App
6 11 (2.66%) Onboarding
7 7 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
7 7 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (1.69%) Virtual Team
8 6 (1.45%) IoT
9 5 (1.21%) AI Agents
9 5 (1.21%) Cloud Native
9 5 (1.21%) Social Media
10 4 (0.97%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.97%) NHS
10 4 (0.97%) Robotics
11 3 (0.72%) FMCG
11 3 (0.72%) Media Streaming
11 3 (0.72%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.97%) VMS
2 1 (0.24%) Android
2 1 (0.24%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 221 (53.38%) Roadmaps
2 193 (46.62%) Agile
3 146 (35.27%) Product Management
4 109 (26.33%) Stakeholder Management
5 100 (24.15%) Product Roadmap
6 98 (23.67%) Product Vision
7 82 (19.81%) Product Strategy
8 76 (18.36%) Backlog Prioritisation
8 76 (18.36%) Product Backlog
9 68 (16.43%) Continuous Improvement
10 65 (15.70%) AI
11 62 (14.98%) User Stories
12 57 (13.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 54 (13.04%) Backlog Management
14 52 (12.56%) Strategic Roadmap
15 51 (12.32%) Decision-Making
16 49 (11.84%) Analytics
17 43 (10.39%) Scaled Agile Framework
18 41 (9.90%) Scrum
19 39 (9.42%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 10 (2.42%) SQL
2 5 (1.21%) Python
3 4 (0.97%) Java
4 1 (0.24%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.24%) PL/SQL
4 1 (0.24%) Ruby
4 1 (0.24%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 116 (28.02%) Security Cleared
2 68 (16.43%) SC Cleared
3 50 (12.08%) Degree
4 20 (4.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.62%) DV Cleared
6 4 (0.97%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.72%) CSPO
8 2 (0.48%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.48%) MBA
9 1 (0.24%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.38%) Data Quality
2 10 (2.42%) Accessibility
3 7 (1.69%) QA
4 5 (1.21%) SLA
5 4 (0.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (0.97%) NIST
6 2 (0.48%) DO-254
6 2 (0.48%) GDPR
6 2 (0.48%) GRC
6 2 (0.48%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.48%) ISO 26262
6 2 (0.48%) NCSC
7 1 (0.24%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.24%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.24%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.24%) PMO
7 1 (0.24%) PSD2
7 1 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 4 (0.97%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (2.17%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.72%) Ansible
2 3 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.24%) Grafana
3 1 (0.24%) Kibana
3 1 (0.24%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 26 (6.28%) IBM
2 12 (2.90%) Microsoft
3 7 (1.69%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.45%) Oracle
5 5 (1.21%) Databricks
5 5 (1.21%) Google
5 5 (1.21%) SAP
6 4 (0.97%) Apple
6 4 (0.97%) Palo Alto
6 4 (0.97%) Pinterest
6 4 (0.97%) ServiceNow
6 4 (0.97%) Snapchat
6 4 (0.97%) TikTok
6 4 (0.97%) Workday
7 3 (0.72%) Fortinet
8 2 (0.48%) Mitel
8 2 (0.48%) Virgin Media
9 1 (0.24%) FXall
9 1 (0.24%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.24%) Zscaler