Product Manager Contract Job Trends

Product Manager
UK

The median Product Manager daily rate in the UK is £530, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 September 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 301 345 336
Rank change year-on-year +44 -9 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Product Manager 461 216 235
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.66% 0.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.92% 0.72% 0.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 318 151 170
10th Percentile £400 £370 £362
25th Percentile £451 £454 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.92% -5.45% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £700
90th Percentile £691 £688 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £518 £490 £525
% change year-on-year +5.61% -6.67% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 1 0
10th Percentile £71.38 - -
25th Percentile £72.50 £32.25 -
Median hourly rate £82.54 £34.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +139.24% - -
75th Percentile £88.00 £36.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £34.50 -
% change year-on-year +146.38% - -

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 50,326 29,813 35,459
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.39% 91.05% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,971 18,780 22,045
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,688 1,551 1,736
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.65 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.91 £53.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +11.35%

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 September 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 9 September 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 9 September 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 +56 422 £530 +0.95% 1,134
UK excluding London +43 216 £518 +5.61% 327
London -39 183 £550 +2.33% 881
Work from Home -18 116 £515 +0.49% 448
North of England -15 67 £519 +1.22% 92
South East -20 55 £575 +47.06% 65
South West -8 43 £550 - 48
North West -19 39 £600 +17.07% 49
West Midlands -30 30 £478 -13.18% 28
Midlands -44 30 £478 +11.70% 50
Yorkshire -14 23 £500 - 31
East of England -3 22 £494 -26.85% 26
North East -39 11 £454 -22.77% 12
Scotland -27 2 £475 -1.04% 31

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

For the 6 months to 9 September 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.

1 294 (63.77%) Roadmaps
2 271 (58.79%) Agile
3 195 (42.30%) Product Management
4 175 (37.96%) Stakeholder Management
5 144 (31.24%) Product Roadmap
6 143 (31.02%) Backlog Prioritisation
7 137 (29.72%) Product Backlog
8 132 (28.63%) Product Vision
9 126 (27.33%) Security Cleared
10 113 (24.51%) Continuous Improvement
11 112 (24.30%) Product Strategy
12 92 (19.96%) SC Cleared
13 91 (19.74%) Strategic Roadmap
14 84 (18.22%) Decision-Making
15 79 (17.14%) AI
16 75 (16.27%) Analytics
16 75 (16.27%) User Stories
17 72 (15.62%) Backlog Management
18 68 (14.75%) Scrum
19 61 (13.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 57 (12.36%) Azure
21 55 (11.93%) User Experience
22 53 (11.50%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
23 50 (10.85%) Scaled Agile Framework
24 49 (10.63%) AWS
25 48 (10.41%) Business Case
26 46 (9.98%) Backlog Refinement
27 45 (9.76%) Problem-Solving
28 43 (9.33%) Degree
29 41 (8.89%) Acceptance Criteria

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 35 (7.59%) Confluence
2 5 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.43%) Apache
3 2 (0.43%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.22%) Kinematics
4 1 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (1.08%) Notion
2 4 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.65%) Chatbot
3 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.22%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (1.52%) Shopify
2 5 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.87%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.22%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.22%) Maximo
5 1 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.22%) SAP EHS
5 1 (0.22%) SAP Retail
5 1 (0.22%) Sprinklr
5 1 (0.22%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.22%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 57 (12.36%) Azure
2 49 (10.63%) AWS
3 15 (3.25%) SaaS
4 14 (3.04%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (2.17%) Power Platform
6 9 (1.95%) GCP
6 9 (1.95%) GitHub
7 8 (1.74%) Snowflake
8 6 (1.30%) dbt
8 6 (1.30%) Miro
9 5 (1.08%) n8n
10 4 (0.87%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (0.87%) Google Analytics
11 3 (0.65%) Azure Monitor
11 3 (0.65%) Dynamics 365
11 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
12 2 (0.43%) Apple Pay
12 2 (0.43%) Google Pay
12 2 (0.43%) Slack
12 2 (0.43%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.65%) SD-WAN
1 3 (0.65%) WAN
2 2 (0.43%) Broadband
2 2 (0.43%) SMS
3 1 (0.22%) DNS
3 1 (0.22%) Firewall
3 1 (0.22%) LAN
3 1 (0.22%) NFC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.17%) Metadata
2 9 (1.95%) Data Lake
3 8 (1.74%) Power BI
4 7 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.30%) Big Data
6 4 (0.87%) Delta Lake
6 4 (0.87%) Tableau
7 3 (0.65%) Semantic Layer
8 2 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.43%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.43%) Looker
9 1 (0.22%) Electronic Patient Records
9 1 (0.22%) Mixpanel
9 1 (0.22%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.22%) Redis
9 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 40 (8.68%) JIRA
2 10 (2.17%) Rational DOORS
3 2 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (0.22%) CircleCI
General
1 125 (27.11%) Social Skills
2 83 (18.00%) Public Sector
3 78 (16.92%) Finance
4 52 (11.28%) Retail
5 50 (10.85%) Marketing
6 48 (10.41%) Analytical Skills
7 31 (6.72%) Aerospace
8 25 (5.42%) Banking
9 22 (4.77%) Influencing Skills
10 17 (3.69%) Legal
11 11 (2.39%) Manufacturing
12 9 (1.95%) Aviation
12 9 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 9 (1.95%) Military
13 6 (1.30%) Billing
13 6 (1.30%) Local Government
13 6 (1.30%) Retail Banking
14 5 (1.08%) Investment Banking
14 5 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.87%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.30%) RESTful
2 3 (0.65%) Azure Blueprints
2 3 (0.65%) Terraform
3 2 (0.43%) Gherkin
3 2 (0.43%) JSON
3 2 (0.43%) OAuth
3 2 (0.43%) PySpark
4 1 (0.22%) Django
4 1 (0.22%) FastAPI
4 1 (0.22%) Flutter
4 1 (0.22%) JSON Schema
4 1 (0.22%) MACH
4 1 (0.22%) Model Context Protocol
4 1 (0.22%) REST
4 1 (0.22%) Spring
4 1 (0.22%) Spring Boot
4 1 (0.22%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 106 (22.99%) Product Ownership
2 27 (5.86%) Legacy Systems
3 15 (3.25%) Mobile App
4 14 (3.04%) Data Protection Act
4 14 (3.04%) Virtual Team
5 13 (2.82%) Onboarding
6 12 (2.60%) Cloud Native
7 10 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
7 10 (2.17%) Data Structures
8 8 (1.74%) Distributed Systems
9 7 (1.52%) Management Information System
9 7 (1.52%) NHS
10 6 (1.30%) AI Agents
10 6 (1.30%) Marketing Technology
11 5 (1.08%) Credit Risk
12 4 (0.87%) FMCG
12 4 (0.87%) Robotics
12 4 (0.87%) Social Media
13 3 (0.65%) Distributed Architecture
13 3 (0.65%) Smart Home
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.65%) Android
1 3 (0.65%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.22%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 294 (63.77%) Roadmaps
2 271 (58.79%) Agile
3 195 (42.30%) Product Management
4 175 (37.96%) Stakeholder Management
5 144 (31.24%) Product Roadmap
6 143 (31.02%) Backlog Prioritisation
7 137 (29.72%) Product Backlog
8 132 (28.63%) Product Vision
9 113 (24.51%) Continuous Improvement
10 112 (24.30%) Product Strategy
11 91 (19.74%) Strategic Roadmap
12 84 (18.22%) Decision-Making
13 79 (17.14%) AI
14 75 (16.27%) Analytics
14 75 (16.27%) User Stories
15 72 (15.62%) Backlog Management
16 68 (14.75%) Scrum
17 61 (13.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 55 (11.93%) User Experience
19 53 (11.50%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 13 (2.82%) SQL
2 10 (2.17%) Python
3 3 (0.65%) Bash
3 3 (0.65%) Java
4 2 (0.43%) Korn
5 1 (0.22%) JavaScript
5 1 (0.22%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.22%) Ruby
5 1 (0.22%) SPARQL
5 1 (0.22%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 126 (27.33%) Security Cleared
2 92 (19.96%) SC Cleared
3 43 (9.33%) Degree
4 31 (6.72%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.60%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Certification
7 5 (1.08%) CSPO
8 3 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (0.65%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.22%) APMG
9 1 (0.22%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.90%) Accessibility
2 17 (3.69%) Data Quality
3 12 (2.60%) QA
4 8 (1.74%) WCAG
5 6 (1.30%) GDPR
6 3 (0.65%) PSD2
7 2 (0.43%) GRC
7 2 (0.43%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.43%) PMO
8 1 (0.22%) ARP4761
8 1 (0.22%) Basel III
8 1 (0.22%) DICOM
8 1 (0.22%) DO-160
8 1 (0.22%) DO-254
8 1 (0.22%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.22%) IFRS
8 1 (0.22%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.22%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.22%) NIST
System Software
1 3 (0.65%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (1.74%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.65%) Ansible
2 3 (0.65%) MOM
2 3 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.22%) Grafana
3 1 (0.22%) Kibana
3 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 15 (3.25%) Microsoft
2 14 (3.04%) Google
3 9 (1.95%) IBM
3 9 (1.95%) Salesforce
4 7 (1.52%) SAP
5 5 (1.08%) Databricks
5 5 (1.08%) Oracle
6 4 (0.87%) Apple
6 4 (0.87%) JDA
6 4 (0.87%) RedPrairie
6 4 (0.87%) Remedy
6 4 (0.87%) Splunk
7 3 (0.65%) BMC
7 3 (0.65%) EMC
7 3 (0.65%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.43%) Klarna
8 2 (0.43%) MicroStrategy
8 2 (0.43%) OneLogin
8 2 (0.43%) PayPal
8 2 (0.43%) Workday