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 25 March 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 373 361 323
Rank change year-on-year -12 -38 +70
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 267 161 289
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 0.55% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.66% 0.60% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 169 91 198
10th Percentile £413 £413 £405
25th Percentile £463 £479 £480
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - +4.55%
75th Percentile £603 £675 £650
90th Percentile £736 £713 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £502 £500
% change year-on-year +4.63% +0.35% -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 40,363 27,024 41,118
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.92% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,200 17,764 26,931
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £412 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.47% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,503 906 2,513
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.87
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.95% - -24.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.86 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +13.40% - -20.36%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -18 246 £525 -8.70% 82
UK excluding London -19 131 £525 +4.63% 57
London -53 109 £564 -9.80% 34
Work from Home -22 68 £525 -18.22% 47
North of England -15 60 £492 -18.00% 21
South East -30 38 £550 +4.41% 13
North West -10 30 £561 -6.58% 11
Yorkshire -37 25 £486 -18.96% 7
Midlands -54 23 £525 +24.26% 6
East Midlands -25 13 £538 +50.98% 1
West Midlands -46 10 £525 +1.94% 5
South West -20 5 £475 +5.56% 9
Scotland +6 3 £408 -18.50% 3
North East - 3 £475 - 3
East of England -32 2 £450 - 4

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

For the 6 months to 25 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 (49.81%) Agile
2 129 (48.31%) Roadmaps
3 85 (31.84%) User Stories
4 82 (30.71%) Stakeholder Management
5 81 (30.34%) Product Backlog
6 65 (24.34%) Product Roadmap
7 58 (21.72%) Product Vision
8 57 (21.35%) Backlog Management
9 55 (20.60%) Security Cleared
10 48 (17.98%) Acceptance Criteria
11 46 (17.23%) Scrum
12 44 (16.48%) Backlog Prioritisation
12 44 (16.48%) Continuous Improvement
13 40 (14.98%) Sprint Planning
14 39 (14.61%) JIRA
15 37 (13.86%) SC Cleared
16 35 (13.11%) Decision-Making
16 35 (13.11%) Product Strategy
17 33 (12.36%) Microsoft
18 29 (10.86%) Product Management
18 29 (10.86%) User Experience
19 27 (10.11%) AWS
19 27 (10.11%) Customer Experience
19 27 (10.11%) Problem-Solving
20 26 (9.74%) Confluence
20 26 (9.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 25 (9.36%) DevOps
22 21 (7.87%) Scaled Agile Framework
23 20 (7.49%) Analytics
23 20 (7.49%) Sprint Retrospective

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 26 (9.74%) Confluence
2 8 (3.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.87%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.75%) CMS
5 1 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.37%) Appian
5 1 (0.37%) Mendix
5 1 (0.37%) Mule
5 1 (0.37%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.37%) nginx
Applications
1 1 (0.37%) Adobe Illustrator
1 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (0.37%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.37%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 6 (2.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.75%) Finacle
2 2 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.37%) Adobe Campaign
3 1 (0.37%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle Payroll
3 1 (0.37%) ProductWriter
3 1 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.37%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.37%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 27 (10.11%) AWS
2 19 (7.12%) Azure
3 11 (4.12%) GCP
4 9 (3.37%) Dynamics 365
5 7 (2.62%) Power Platform
6 6 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
6 6 (2.25%) SaaS
7 5 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (1.50%) Amazon S3
8 4 (1.50%) Figma
8 4 (1.50%) OpenShift
8 4 (1.50%) Power Automate
9 3 (1.12%) Amazon Bedrock
9 3 (1.12%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 3 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (1.12%) Serverless
9 3 (1.12%) SuccessFactors
10 2 (0.75%) Amazon EventBridge
10 2 (0.75%) Amazon SageMaker
10 2 (0.75%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.25%) DNS
1 6 (2.25%) Firewall
2 5 (1.87%) Network Security
3 3 (1.12%) NGFW
4 1 (0.37%) Cisco IPT
4 1 (0.37%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.25%) Power BI
2 3 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.75%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.75%) Delta Lake
3 2 (0.75%) GIS
3 2 (0.75%) Metadata
3 2 (0.75%) Pinecone
3 2 (0.75%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.75%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.37%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.37%) Big Data
4 1 (0.37%) Geospatial Data
4 1 (0.37%) MySQL
4 1 (0.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 39 (14.61%) JIRA
2 1 (0.37%) Cucumber
2 1 (0.37%) Git
2 1 (0.37%) JUnit
2 1 (0.37%) Postman
2 1 (0.37%) REST Assured
2 1 (0.37%) Team Foundation Server
2 1 (0.37%) Vite
General
1 84 (31.46%) Social Skills
2 75 (28.09%) Finance
3 36 (13.48%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (9.36%) Banking
5 16 (5.99%) Marketing
5 16 (5.99%) Public Sector
6 10 (3.75%) Legal
7 8 (3.00%) Pharmaceutical
7 8 (3.00%) Retail
8 7 (2.62%) Law
9 6 (2.25%) Military
9 6 (2.25%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.50%) Police
12 3 (1.12%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.75%) Corporate Banking
13 2 (0.75%) Front Office
14 1 (0.37%) Documentation Skills
14 1 (0.37%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.50%) JSON
1 4 (1.50%) XML
2 3 (1.12%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.12%) REST
3 2 (0.75%) Faiss
3 2 (0.75%) Flutter
3 2 (0.75%) LangChain
3 2 (0.75%) LangGraph
3 2 (0.75%) React
4 1 (0.37%) AngularJS
4 1 (0.37%) Django
4 1 (0.37%) HTML
4 1 (0.37%) Laravel
4 1 (0.37%) LEMP Stack
4 1 (0.37%) OAuth
4 1 (0.37%) RESTful
4 1 (0.37%) Ruby on Rails
4 1 (0.37%) Tailwind CSS
4 1 (0.37%) Vue
4 1 (0.37%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 267 (100.00%) Product Ownership
2 14 (5.24%) Onboarding
3 11 (4.12%) Legacy Systems
4 9 (3.37%) Cloud Native
4 9 (3.37%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (3.37%) Mobile App
5 7 (2.62%) Analytical Mindset
5 7 (2.62%) CMDB
6 6 (2.25%) Public Cloud
7 5 (1.87%) Greenfield Project
7 5 (1.87%) Marketing Technology
8 4 (1.50%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 4 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.12%) Life Science
10 2 (0.75%) Credit Risk
10 2 (0.75%) FMCG
10 2 (0.75%) Reference Data
10 2 (0.75%) Security Posture
10 2 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.75%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.24%) Windows
2 8 (3.00%) Linux
2 8 (3.00%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.37%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (49.81%) Agile
2 129 (48.31%) Roadmaps
3 85 (31.84%) User Stories
4 82 (30.71%) Stakeholder Management
5 81 (30.34%) Product Backlog
6 65 (24.34%) Product Roadmap
7 58 (21.72%) Product Vision
8 57 (21.35%) Backlog Management
9 48 (17.98%) Acceptance Criteria
10 46 (17.23%) Scrum
11 44 (16.48%) Backlog Prioritisation
11 44 (16.48%) Continuous Improvement
12 40 (14.98%) Sprint Planning
13 35 (13.11%) Decision-Making
13 35 (13.11%) Product Strategy
14 29 (10.86%) Product Management
14 29 (10.86%) User Experience
15 27 (10.11%) Customer Experience
15 27 (10.11%) Problem-Solving
16 26 (9.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 10 (3.75%) SQL
2 5 (1.87%) Python
3 3 (1.12%) Java
3 3 (1.12%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.75%) Kotlin
5 1 (0.37%) Bash
5 1 (0.37%) C#
5 1 (0.37%) Korn
5 1 (0.37%) PHP
5 1 (0.37%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.37%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 55 (20.60%) Security Cleared
2 37 (13.86%) SC Cleared
3 12 (4.49%) CSPO
4 11 (4.12%) Degree
5 10 (3.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.50%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.50%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.75%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.75%) CBAP
8 1 (0.37%) ACCA
8 1 (0.37%) APMP
8 1 (0.37%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.37%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.37%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (7.12%) QA
2 13 (4.87%) Data Quality
3 10 (3.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (3.37%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 8 (3.00%) SLA
6 6 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
6 6 (2.25%) NCSC
7 4 (1.50%) NIST
8 3 (1.12%) Accessibility
8 3 (1.12%) GDPR
8 3 (1.12%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.75%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 2 (0.75%) GxP
9 2 (0.75%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.37%) GRC
10 1 (0.37%) PERC
System Software
1 8 (3.00%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.25%) Hyper-V
4 5 (1.87%) Docker
5 1 (0.37%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (3.00%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.50%) CASB
3 2 (0.75%) Terraform
4 1 (0.37%) Ansible
4 1 (0.37%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (0.37%) PowerCLI
4 1 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.37%) vCenter Server
4 1 (0.37%) vRealize
4 1 (0.37%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 33 (12.36%) Microsoft
2 19 (7.12%) Salesforce
3 15 (5.62%) SAP
4 12 (4.49%) ServiceNow
5 7 (2.62%) VMware
6 6 (2.25%) Databricks
7 5 (1.87%) Cisco
7 5 (1.87%) Splunk
7 5 (1.87%) Zscaler
8 4 (1.50%) ForeScout
8 4 (1.50%) Fortinet
8 4 (1.50%) Infoblox
8 4 (1.50%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
9 3 (1.12%) Epicor
9 3 (1.12%) MuleSoft
9 3 (1.12%) Oracle
10 2 (0.75%) Adobe
10 2 (0.75%) CA Agile Central
10 2 (0.75%) Cognizant
10 2 (0.75%) ESRI