Product Owner Contract Job Trends

Product Owner
UK

The median Product Owner daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 March 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 375 365 306
Rank change year-on-year -10 -59 +86
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 263 163 298
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 0.56% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.66% 0.60% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 90 203
10th Percentile £413 £413 £405
25th Percentile £463 £500 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £588 £575
Median % change year-on-year -10.64% +2.17% +4.55%
75th Percentile £602 £675 £650
90th Percentile £736 £713 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £515 £500
% change year-on-year +1.94% +3.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 1
10th Percentile - £34.63 -
25th Percentile £48.86 £45.31 -
Median hourly rate £52.78 £72.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.96% +44.50% +66.67%
75th Percentile £60.61 £95.75 -
90th Percentile £70.57 £96.19 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.78 £52.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year +0.52% +5.00% -

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 39,673 27,289 41,313
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.89% 92.94% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,785 17,711 27,109
10th Percentile £313 £300 £272
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.11%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £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 2,471 884 2,499
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.98
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.04 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.71 £33.00 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +8.21% +0.32% -22.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.95
90th Percentile £75.79 £77.41 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £32.70
% change year-on-year +7.69% -0.60% -19.44%

Product Owner
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Product Owner' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Product Owner job vacancy trend in the UK

Product Owner
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Product Owner job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Product Owner job vacancies in the UK

Product Owner
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Product Owner over the 6 months to 17 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Product Owner in the UK

Product Owner
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Product Owner job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Product Owner job vacancies in the UK

Product Owner
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Product Owner over the 6 months to 17 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Product Owner in the UK

Product Owner
Top 15 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 Owner within the UK over the 6 months to 17 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 -10 243 £525 -8.70% 117
UK excluding London -16 128 £525 +1.94% 88
London -41 108 £550 -13.04% 53
Work from Home -19 68 £515 -20.77% 94
North of England -13 61 £492 -18.00% 25
South East -32 35 £575 +9.16% 24
North West -6 30 £561 -6.58% 20
Yorkshire -32 25 £486 -18.96% 4
Midlands -40 23 £525 +27.27% 12
East Midlands -22 13 £538 +50.98% 6
West Midlands -58 10 £525 +1.94% 6
South West -21 5 £475 - 11
North East - 4 £475 - 1
Scotland +7 2 - - 5
East of England -27 2 £450 - 10

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

For the 6 months to 17 March 2026, Product Owner 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 Owner in the job title.

1 133 (50.57%) Agile
2 127 (48.29%) Roadmaps
3 84 (31.94%) User Stories
4 83 (31.56%) Product Backlog
5 78 (29.66%) Stakeholder Management
6 62 (23.57%) Product Roadmap
7 60 (22.81%) Product Vision
8 58 (22.05%) Backlog Management
9 54 (20.53%) Security Cleared
10 46 (17.49%) Acceptance Criteria
10 46 (17.49%) Scrum
11 45 (17.11%) Backlog Prioritisation
11 45 (17.11%) Continuous Improvement
12 41 (15.59%) Sprint Planning
13 36 (13.69%) SC Cleared
14 35 (13.31%) JIRA
15 34 (12.93%) Decision-Making
16 33 (12.55%) Product Strategy
17 32 (12.17%) Microsoft
18 29 (11.03%) Problem-Solving
18 29 (11.03%) Product Management
19 28 (10.65%) User Experience
20 27 (10.27%) AWS
21 25 (9.51%) Customer Experience
21 25 (9.51%) DevOps
21 25 (9.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 24 (9.13%) Confluence
23 21 (7.98%) Sprint Retrospective
24 20 (7.60%) AI
24 20 (7.60%) Scaled Agile Framework

Product Owner 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 24 (9.13%) Confluence
2 8 (3.04%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.90%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.76%) CMS
5 1 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.38%) Appian
5 1 (0.38%) Mendix
5 1 (0.38%) Mule
5 1 (0.38%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.38%) nginx
Applications
1 1 (0.38%) Adobe Illustrator
1 1 (0.38%) Chatbot
1 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (0.38%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.38%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 6 (2.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.76%) Finacle
2 2 (0.76%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.38%) Adobe Campaign
3 1 (0.38%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle Payroll
3 1 (0.38%) ProductWriter
3 1 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.38%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.38%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 27 (10.27%) AWS
2 19 (7.22%) Azure
3 11 (4.18%) GCP
4 8 (3.04%) Dynamics 365
5 7 (2.66%) Power Platform
6 6 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
6 6 (2.28%) SaaS
7 5 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (1.52%) Amazon S3
8 4 (1.52%) OpenShift
8 4 (1.52%) Power Automate
9 3 (1.14%) Amazon Bedrock
9 3 (1.14%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 3 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (1.14%) Serverless
9 3 (1.14%) SuccessFactors
10 2 (0.76%) Amazon ECR
10 2 (0.76%) Amazon SageMaker
10 2 (0.76%) Apigee
10 2 (0.76%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.28%) DNS
1 6 (2.28%) Firewall
2 5 (1.90%) Network Security
3 3 (1.14%) NGFW
4 1 (0.38%) Cisco IPT
4 1 (0.38%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.28%) Power BI
2 3 (1.14%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.76%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.76%) Delta Lake
3 2 (0.76%) GIS
3 2 (0.76%) Metadata
3 2 (0.76%) Pinecone
3 2 (0.76%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.76%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.38%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.38%) Big Data
4 1 (0.38%) Geospatial Data
4 1 (0.38%) MySQL
4 1 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 35 (13.31%) JIRA
2 1 (0.38%) Cucumber
2 1 (0.38%) Git
2 1 (0.38%) JUnit
2 1 (0.38%) Postman
2 1 (0.38%) REST Assured
2 1 (0.38%) Team Foundation Server
2 1 (0.38%) Vite
General
1 85 (32.32%) Social Skills
2 74 (28.14%) Finance
3 37 (14.07%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (9.13%) Banking
5 16 (6.08%) Marketing
5 16 (6.08%) Public Sector
6 10 (3.80%) Legal
7 8 (3.04%) Pharmaceutical
7 8 (3.04%) Retail
8 7 (2.66%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.66%) Law
9 6 (2.28%) Military
10 4 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.52%) Police
10 4 (1.52%) Telecoms
11 3 (1.14%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.76%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.38%) Documentation Skills
13 1 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.38%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.52%) JSON
1 4 (1.52%) XML
2 3 (1.14%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.14%) REST
3 2 (0.76%) Faiss
3 2 (0.76%) Flutter
3 2 (0.76%) LangChain
3 2 (0.76%) LangGraph
3 2 (0.76%) React
4 1 (0.38%) AngularJS
4 1 (0.38%) Django
4 1 (0.38%) HTML
4 1 (0.38%) J2EE
4 1 (0.38%) Laravel
4 1 (0.38%) LEMP Stack
4 1 (0.38%) OAuth
4 1 (0.38%) RESTful
4 1 (0.38%) Tailwind CSS
4 1 (0.38%) Vue
4 1 (0.38%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 263 (100.00%) Product Ownership
2 14 (5.32%) Onboarding
3 11 (4.18%) Legacy Systems
4 9 (3.42%) Cloud Native
4 9 (3.42%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (3.42%) Mobile App
5 7 (2.66%) Analytical Mindset
5 7 (2.66%) CMDB
6 6 (2.28%) Greenfield Project
6 6 (2.28%) Public Cloud
7 5 (1.90%) Marketing Technology
8 4 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 3 (1.14%) Life Science
10 2 (0.76%) Credit Risk
10 2 (0.76%) FMCG
10 2 (0.76%) Low-Code
10 2 (0.76%) Security Posture
10 2 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.76%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.32%) Windows
2 8 (3.04%) Linux
2 8 (3.04%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.38%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (50.57%) Agile
2 127 (48.29%) Roadmaps
3 84 (31.94%) User Stories
4 83 (31.56%) Product Backlog
5 78 (29.66%) Stakeholder Management
6 62 (23.57%) Product Roadmap
7 60 (22.81%) Product Vision
8 58 (22.05%) Backlog Management
9 46 (17.49%) Acceptance Criteria
9 46 (17.49%) Scrum
10 45 (17.11%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 45 (17.11%) Continuous Improvement
11 41 (15.59%) Sprint Planning
12 34 (12.93%) Decision-Making
13 33 (12.55%) Product Strategy
14 29 (11.03%) Problem-Solving
14 29 (11.03%) Product Management
15 28 (10.65%) User Experience
16 25 (9.51%) DevOps
16 25 (9.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 11 (4.18%) SQL
2 5 (1.90%) Python
3 3 (1.14%) Java
3 3 (1.14%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.76%) Kotlin
5 1 (0.38%) Bash
5 1 (0.38%) C#
5 1 (0.38%) Korn
5 1 (0.38%) PHP
5 1 (0.38%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 54 (20.53%) Security Cleared
2 36 (13.69%) SC Cleared
3 13 (4.94%) CSPO
4 11 (4.18%) Degree
5 10 (3.80%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.52%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.52%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.76%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.76%) CBAP
8 1 (0.38%) ACCA
8 1 (0.38%) APMP
8 1 (0.38%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.38%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.38%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (7.22%) QA
2 13 (4.94%) Data Quality
3 10 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (3.42%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 8 (3.04%) SLA
6 6 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27005
6 6 (2.28%) NCSC
7 5 (1.90%) GDPR
8 4 (1.52%) NIST
9 3 (1.14%) Accessibility
9 3 (1.14%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.76%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 2 (0.76%) GxP
10 2 (0.76%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.38%) GRC
11 1 (0.38%) PERC
System Software
1 8 (3.04%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.28%) Hyper-V
4 5 (1.90%) Docker
5 1 (0.38%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (3.04%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.52%) CASB
3 2 (0.76%) Terraform
4 1 (0.38%) Ansible
4 1 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (0.38%) PowerCLI
4 1 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.38%) vCenter Server
4 1 (0.38%) vRealize
4 1 (0.38%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 32 (12.17%) Microsoft
2 19 (7.22%) Salesforce
3 15 (5.70%) SAP
4 12 (4.56%) ServiceNow
5 7 (2.66%) VMware
6 6 (2.28%) Databricks
7 5 (1.90%) Cisco
7 5 (1.90%) Splunk
7 5 (1.90%) Zscaler
8 4 (1.52%) ForeScout
8 4 (1.52%) Fortinet
8 4 (1.52%) Infoblox
8 4 (1.52%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
9 3 (1.14%) Epicor
9 3 (1.14%) MuleSoft
9 3 (1.14%) Oracle
9 3 (1.14%) Workday
10 2 (0.76%) Adobe
10 2 (0.76%) Cognizant
10 2 (0.76%) ESRI