Product Manager Contract Job Trends

Product Manager
UK

The median Product Manager daily rate in the UK is £520, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 January 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 345 295 358
Rank change year-on-year -50 +63 +2
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 259 252 249
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.70% 0.79% 0.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.76% 0.86% 0.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 198 168 187
10th Percentile £394 £412 £409
25th Percentile £431 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% -4.35% -1.50%
75th Percentile £634 £713 £700
90th Percentile £707 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £475 £506
% change year-on-year -0.26% -6.17% -11.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
10th Percentile - - £51.75
25th Percentile - - £52.50
Median hourly rate - - £55.00
75th Percentile - - £57.50
90th Percentile - - £58.25
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 33,942 29,468 40,286
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.41% 92.82% 93.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,457 18,028 26,771
10th Percentile £300 £296 £279
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,003 894 1,815
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £18.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.69
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -20.13% +19.68%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £64.45
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £75.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +46.55%

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 18 January 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 18 January 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 -32 238 £525 -9.95% 84
London -37 156 £550 -8.33% 35
Work from Home +3 79 £550 +4.36% 71
UK excluding London -32 73 £474 -0.26% 74
North of England -25 36 £468 -8.78% 14
North East +3 19 £450 +0.56% 4
South East -21 16 £425 -1.73% 33
Midlands -41 12 £415 -19.07% 8
Yorkshire -41 10 £525 -5.62% 9
North West -24 8 £475 -13.64% 4
South West +1 7 £525 +28.05% 4
East Midlands -17 6 £378 -8.48% 1
West Midlands -37 6 £628 +11.56% 7
East of England -10 3 £650 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 18 January 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.

1 147 (56.76%) Roadmaps
2 135 (52.12%) Agile
3 113 (43.63%) Product Management
4 77 (29.73%) Product Roadmap
4 77 (29.73%) Stakeholder Management
5 72 (27.80%) Product Strategy
6 70 (27.03%) Product Vision
7 47 (18.15%) AI
8 39 (15.06%) Decision-Making
8 39 (15.06%) Product Backlog
9 36 (13.90%) Security Cleared
10 33 (12.74%) User Stories
11 31 (11.97%) Backlog Management
11 31 (11.97%) Scrum
12 30 (11.58%) Analytics
12 30 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
13 29 (11.20%) Backlog Prioritisation
13 29 (11.20%) Strategic Roadmap
14 28 (10.81%) SC Cleared
14 28 (10.81%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 26 (10.04%) Problem-Solving
16 25 (9.65%) Machine Learning
16 25 (9.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 25 (9.65%) User Experience
16 25 (9.65%) User Research
17 24 (9.27%) Fintech
18 23 (8.88%) Product Requirements
19 22 (8.49%) Data Science
20 21 (8.11%) Business Case
20 21 (8.11%) Scaled Agile Framework

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 9 (3.47%) Confluence
2 6 (2.32%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (1.16%) PowerFactory
4 2 (0.77%) CMS
Applications
1 5 (1.93%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (1.54%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.77%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.77%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.39%) Distributed Ledger
3 1 (0.39%) Exchequer
3 1 (0.39%) Shopify
3 1 (0.39%) Sonata
Cloud Services
1 14 (5.41%) SaaS
2 9 (3.47%) AWS
3 8 (3.09%) GCP
4 7 (2.70%) dbt
5 6 (2.32%) Azure
6 5 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (1.54%) Vertex AI
8 3 (1.16%) IaaS
8 3 (1.16%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.16%) PaaS
8 3 (1.16%) Power Platform
9 2 (0.77%) Alation
9 2 (0.77%) AWS Step Functions
9 2 (0.77%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (0.77%) Dynamics 365
9 2 (0.77%) Fivetran
9 2 (0.77%) Microsoft Purview
9 2 (0.77%) Power Automate
10 1 (0.39%) Anthropic Claude
10 1 (0.39%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.54%) Firewall
2 2 (0.77%) ISDN
2 2 (0.77%) OpenScape
3 1 (0.39%) Internet
3 1 (0.39%) Network Security
3 1 (0.39%) SD-WAN
3 1 (0.39%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.47%) Data Warehouse
2 7 (2.70%) BigQuery
3 3 (1.16%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
4 2 (0.77%) Power BI
4 2 (0.77%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.77%) Tableau
5 1 (0.39%) Looker
5 1 (0.39%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 14 (5.41%) JIRA
2 4 (1.54%) MLflow
General
1 104 (40.15%) Social Skills
2 63 (24.32%) Finance
3 58 (22.39%) Public Sector
4 35 (13.51%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (8.11%) Banking
5 21 (8.11%) Marketing
6 19 (7.34%) Retail
7 16 (6.18%) Legal
8 10 (3.86%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (2.32%) Advertising
9 6 (2.32%) Investment Banking
10 4 (1.54%) Digital Health
10 4 (1.54%) Military
10 4 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.54%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.16%) Automotive
11 3 (1.16%) Front Office
11 3 (1.16%) Local Government
11 3 (1.16%) Publishing
12 2 (0.77%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (0.77%) Flash
1 2 (0.77%) React
2 1 (0.39%) HTML
2 1 (0.39%) HTML5
2 1 (0.39%) Hugging Face
2 1 (0.39%) OAuth
2 1 (0.39%) OAuth2
2 1 (0.39%) OpenID
2 1 (0.39%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 43 (16.60%) Product Ownership
2 11 (4.25%) Analytical Mindset
3 9 (3.47%) Derivative
3 9 (3.47%) Mobile App
3 9 (3.47%) Onboarding
4 7 (2.70%) Digital Media
5 5 (1.93%) AI Agents
5 5 (1.93%) Cloud Native
5 5 (1.93%) Marketing Technology
6 4 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.54%) IoT
6 4 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (1.54%) Virtual Team
7 3 (1.16%) Blockchain
7 3 (1.16%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.16%) Educational Technology
7 3 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (1.16%) Media Streaming
7 3 (1.16%) NHS
8 2 (0.77%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.39%) Android
1 1 (0.39%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (56.76%) Roadmaps
2 135 (52.12%) Agile
3 113 (43.63%) Product Management
4 77 (29.73%) Product Roadmap
4 77 (29.73%) Stakeholder Management
5 72 (27.80%) Product Strategy
6 70 (27.03%) Product Vision
7 47 (18.15%) AI
8 39 (15.06%) Decision-Making
8 39 (15.06%) Product Backlog
9 33 (12.74%) User Stories
10 31 (11.97%) Backlog Management
10 31 (11.97%) Scrum
11 30 (11.58%) Analytics
11 30 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
12 29 (11.20%) Backlog Prioritisation
12 29 (11.20%) Strategic Roadmap
13 28 (10.81%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 26 (10.04%) Problem-Solving
15 25 (9.65%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 8 (3.09%) SQL
2 1 (0.39%) Java
2 1 (0.39%) JavaScript
2 1 (0.39%) Korn
2 1 (0.39%) MATLAB
2 1 (0.39%) Python
Qualifications
1 36 (13.90%) Security Cleared
2 28 (10.81%) SC Cleared
3 13 (5.02%) Degree
4 9 (3.47%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (1.54%) CSPO
6 3 (1.16%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.16%) Master's Degree
6 3 (1.16%) MBA
7 1 (0.39%) APMP
7 1 (0.39%) CCNA
7 1 (0.39%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.39%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.39%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.86%) QA
2 6 (2.32%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.93%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.54%) GDPR
4 4 (1.54%) NCSC
5 2 (0.77%) GRC
6 1 (0.39%) EU AI Act
6 1 (0.39%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.39%) NIST
6 1 (0.39%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1 (0.39%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (1.54%) Kubeflow
2 1 (0.39%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.39%) Terraform
Vendors
1 16 (6.18%) Microsoft
2 11 (4.25%) Salesforce
3 4 (1.54%) Palo Alto
3 4 (1.54%) ServiceNow
4 3 (1.16%) Fortinet
4 3 (1.16%) Google
5 2 (0.77%) Atlassian
5 2 (0.77%) Avature
5 2 (0.77%) Databricks
5 2 (0.77%) DIgSILENT
5 2 (0.77%) Mitel
5 2 (0.77%) OpenAI
5 2 (0.77%) Oracle
5 2 (0.77%) SAP
5 2 (0.77%) Zscaler
6 1 (0.39%) Apple
6 1 (0.39%) Bloomberg
6 1 (0.39%) OneLogin
6 1 (0.39%) OneTrust
6 1 (0.39%) Spotify