Product Owner Contract Job Trends

Product Owner
UK

The median Product Owner daily rate in the UK is £520, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 January 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 368 315 321
Rank change year-on-year -53 +6 +99
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 230 213 290
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.67% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.69% 0.72% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 123 194
10th Percentile £400 £444 £425
25th Percentile £458 £513 £508
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £600 £595
Median % change year-on-year -13.38% +0.84% +8.18%
75th Percentile £584 £675 £675
90th Percentile £675 £713 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -13.74% +4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 1
10th Percentile £46.51 £29.88 -
25th Percentile £48.86 £33.44 -
Median hourly rate £52.78 £40.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.12% -19.50% +42.86%
75th Percentile £58.65 £47.44 -
90th Percentile £60.61 £51.23 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.78 £40.25 £50.00
% change year-on-year +31.12% -19.50% -

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 33,229 29,465 40,074
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.31% 92.70% 93.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,002 18,045 26,741
10th Percentile £300 £291 £280
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £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 1,953 888 1,677
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.22 £18.93
Median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +28.79%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.31 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.60 £73.75 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.51 £44.78
% change year-on-year -20.18% -29.63% +65.05%

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 11 January 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 11 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Product Owner in the UK

Product Owner
Top 16 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 11 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 -32 208 £525 -12.50% 58
UK excluding London -8 111 £496 -13.74% 46
London -37 96 £550 -14.56% 25
Work from Home -30 60 £525 -19.08% 35
North of England -1 45 £490 -18.38% 10
South East -16 32 £525 -8.70% 19
Midlands -27 22 £478 -9.05% 12
North West -8 21 £500 -16.67% 7
Yorkshire -28 21 £486 -18.96% 2
East Midlands -11 16 £490 -27.41% 4
South West - 7 £640 - 1
West Midlands -28 6 £475 +1.33% 8
Scotland +2 4 £425 -10.53% 3
East of England - 1 £525 - 1
Wales - 1 £450 - 1
North East - 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 11 January 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.

1 148 (64.35%) Agile
2 109 (47.39%) Roadmaps
3 97 (42.17%) Product Backlog
4 88 (38.26%) User Stories
5 79 (34.35%) Stakeholder Management
6 71 (30.87%) Backlog Management
7 67 (29.13%) Scrum
8 54 (23.48%) Product Vision
9 52 (22.61%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 47 (20.43%) Product Roadmap
11 41 (17.83%) Acceptance Criteria
12 40 (17.39%) JIRA
13 36 (15.65%) Continuous Improvement
13 36 (15.65%) Product Strategy
13 36 (15.65%) Sprint Planning
14 35 (15.22%) Problem-Solving
15 32 (13.91%) Security Cleared
16 31 (13.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 29 (12.61%) Confluence
18 27 (11.74%) Scaled Agile Framework
19 26 (11.30%) Decision-Making
19 26 (11.30%) DevOps
20 25 (10.87%) Sprint Retrospective
21 24 (10.43%) Microsoft
21 24 (10.43%) Sprint Review
22 23 (10.00%) AWS
22 23 (10.00%) Product Management
23 21 (9.13%) Azure
23 21 (9.13%) Customer Experience
23 21 (9.13%) SC Cleared

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 29 (12.61%) Confluence
2 5 (2.17%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.87%) CMS
3 2 (0.87%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 2 (0.87%) Chatbot
1 2 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.43%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.43%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (3.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.74%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (1.30%) Oracle ERP
3 3 (1.30%) Oracle SCM
4 2 (0.87%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.43%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.43%) Oracle Payroll
5 1 (0.43%) ProductWriter
5 1 (0.43%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 23 (10.00%) AWS
2 21 (9.13%) Azure
3 10 (4.35%) Dynamics 365
3 10 (4.35%) GCP
4 9 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (2.61%) SaaS
6 5 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (2.17%) OCI
6 5 (2.17%) Power Platform
7 4 (1.74%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.30%) Power Automate
8 3 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
9 2 (0.87%) Apigee
9 2 (0.87%) Figma
10 1 (0.43%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.43%) Entra ID
10 1 (0.43%) Kong
10 1 (0.43%) PowerApps
10 1 (0.43%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 1 (0.43%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.43%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.17%) Power BI
2 4 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (1.30%) Data Lake
3 3 (1.30%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.87%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.43%) Big Data
5 1 (0.43%) Delta Lake
5 1 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 40 (17.39%) JIRA
2 1 (0.43%) Postman
2 1 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 82 (35.65%) Social Skills
2 73 (31.74%) Finance
3 37 (16.09%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (11.30%) Banking
5 10 (4.35%) Influencing Skills
5 10 (4.35%) Marketing
6 9 (3.91%) Public Sector
6 9 (3.91%) Retail
7 8 (3.48%) Legal
8 7 (3.04%) Law
9 6 (2.61%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.74%) Investment Banking
10 4 (1.74%) Police
11 3 (1.30%) Aerospace
11 3 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.87%) Front Office
12 2 (0.87%) Games
12 2 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.87%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.87%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (0.87%) Flutter
1 2 (0.87%) HTML
1 2 (0.87%) JSON
1 2 (0.87%) React
1 2 (0.87%) REST
1 2 (0.87%) RESTful
1 2 (0.87%) XML
2 1 (0.43%) .NET
2 1 (0.43%) ADO
2 1 (0.43%) AngularJS
2 1 (0.43%) CSS
2 1 (0.43%) HTML5
2 1 (0.43%) Kafka
2 1 (0.43%) OAuth
2 1 (0.43%) Pandas
2 1 (0.43%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 229 (99.57%) Product Ownership
2 17 (7.39%) Onboarding
3 11 (4.78%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (3.91%) Cloud Native
4 9 (3.91%) Mobile App
5 7 (3.04%) Analytical Mindset
5 7 (3.04%) CMDB
6 6 (2.61%) Public Cloud
7 4 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
8 3 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
8 3 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.30%) Reinsurance
8 3 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.87%) AI Agents
9 2 (0.87%) Derivative
9 2 (0.87%) DTCC
9 2 (0.87%) Low-Code
9 2 (0.87%) OTC Derivatives
9 2 (0.87%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 1 (0.43%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 5 (2.17%) Windows
2 2 (0.87%) Android
2 2 (0.87%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.43%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.43%) VMS
3 1 (0.43%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (64.35%) Agile
2 109 (47.39%) Roadmaps
3 97 (42.17%) Product Backlog
4 88 (38.26%) User Stories
5 79 (34.35%) Stakeholder Management
6 71 (30.87%) Backlog Management
7 67 (29.13%) Scrum
8 54 (23.48%) Product Vision
9 52 (22.61%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 47 (20.43%) Product Roadmap
11 41 (17.83%) Acceptance Criteria
12 36 (15.65%) Continuous Improvement
12 36 (15.65%) Product Strategy
12 36 (15.65%) Sprint Planning
13 35 (15.22%) Problem-Solving
14 31 (13.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 27 (11.74%) Scaled Agile Framework
16 26 (11.30%) Decision-Making
16 26 (11.30%) DevOps
17 25 (10.87%) Sprint Retrospective
Programming Languages
1 13 (5.65%) SQL
2 4 (1.74%) Python
3 3 (1.30%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.87%) Java
4 2 (0.87%) Korn
5 1 (0.43%) C#
5 1 (0.43%) Kotlin
5 1 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 32 (13.91%) Security Cleared
2 21 (9.13%) SC Cleared
3 19 (8.26%) CSPO
4 9 (3.91%) Degree
5 5 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.30%) CBAP
6 3 (1.30%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.87%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.87%) OCP
7 2 (0.87%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.43%) ACCA
8 1 (0.43%) APMP
8 1 (0.43%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.43%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.43%) CCNA
8 1 (0.43%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.43%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.43%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.43%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.96%) QA
2 7 (3.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (3.04%) SLA
3 6 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 6 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27005
3 6 (2.61%) NCSC
4 4 (1.74%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.74%) GDPR
5 3 (1.30%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.87%) PSD2
7 1 (0.43%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.43%) NIST
7 1 (0.43%) PERC
7 1 (0.43%) SEPA
System Software
1 4 (1.74%) Docker
2 1 (0.43%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 8 (3.48%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.43%) CASB
2 1 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
2 1 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 24 (10.43%) Microsoft
2 17 (7.39%) SAP
3 9 (3.91%) ServiceNow
4 6 (2.61%) Salesforce
5 5 (2.17%) Oracle
6 4 (1.74%) Databricks
6 4 (1.74%) Workday
7 2 (0.87%) HubSpot
8 1 (0.43%) Adobe
8 1 (0.43%) Cisco
8 1 (0.43%) DocuSign
8 1 (0.43%) Google
8 1 (0.43%) Guidewire
8 1 (0.43%) IBM
8 1 (0.43%) IBM Sterling
8 1 (0.43%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.43%) Netskope
8 1 (0.43%) Splunk
8 1 (0.43%) Spotify
8 1 (0.43%) Zscaler