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 26 January 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 360 329 334
Rank change year-on-year -31 +5 +76
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 234 211 292
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.67% 0.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.68% 0.73% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 116 201
10th Percentile £400 £448 £413
25th Percentile £458 £513 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £675 £675
90th Percentile £685 £719 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -15.00% +4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 1
10th Percentile £46.51 £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% +42.86%
75th Percentile £58.65 £95.75 -
90th Percentile £60.61 £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 34,502 29,046 41,229
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 92.85% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,791 17,729 27,311
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £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 £478 £480 £495
% change year-on-year -0.52% -3.03% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,057 865 2,093
10th Percentile £14.41 £15.95 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.25
Median hourly rate £28.88 £32.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.14% -13.33% +8.49%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.26 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -12.70% -21.25% +33.33%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -50 213 £525 -12.50% 89
UK excluding London -1 115 £489 -15.00% 71
London -37 96 £550 -14.06% 36
Work from Home -26 59 £525 -19.08% 65
North of England -8 48 £486 -18.96% 14
South East -41 31 £525 -8.70% 28
Midlands -29 25 £480 +2.40% 11
North West -1 23 £475 -20.83% 8
Yorkshire -26 22 £488 -18.75% 2
East Midlands -13 17 £490 - 5
West Midlands -35 8 £475 +1.33% 6
South West - 6 £640 - 5
Scotland +6 4 £425 -10.53% 4
East of England -12 1 £525 - 8
Wales - 1 £450 - 3
North East - 1 - - 4

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

For the 6 months to 26 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.

1 149 (63.68%) Agile
2 110 (47.01%) Roadmaps
3 95 (40.60%) Product Backlog
4 87 (37.18%) User Stories
5 75 (32.05%) Stakeholder Management
6 68 (29.06%) Backlog Management
7 63 (26.92%) Scrum
8 55 (23.50%) Product Vision
9 53 (22.65%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 51 (21.79%) Product Roadmap
11 42 (17.95%) JIRA
12 39 (16.67%) Acceptance Criteria
13 38 (16.24%) Continuous Improvement
13 38 (16.24%) Product Strategy
14 37 (15.81%) Security Cleared
15 36 (15.38%) Sprint Planning
16 32 (13.68%) Problem-Solving
17 30 (12.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 29 (12.39%) Scaled Agile Framework
19 28 (11.97%) Confluence
19 28 (11.97%) Decision-Making
19 28 (11.97%) Product Management
20 26 (11.11%) DevOps
20 26 (11.11%) Sprint Retrospective
21 25 (10.68%) Microsoft
22 23 (9.83%) AWS
22 23 (9.83%) Customer Experience
22 23 (9.83%) SC Cleared
22 23 (9.83%) Sprint Review
23 21 (8.97%) User Experience

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 28 (11.97%) Confluence
2 5 (2.14%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.28%) CMS
4 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.85%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.43%) Appian
5 1 (0.43%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.85%) Chatbot
1 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.43%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.43%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.43%) Photoshop
2 1 (0.43%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (2.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.71%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.85%) Finacle
3 2 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.85%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.85%) Oracle SCM
4 1 (0.43%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.43%) Oracle Payroll
4 1 (0.43%) ProductWriter
4 1 (0.43%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.43%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 23 (9.83%) AWS
2 20 (8.55%) Azure
3 10 (4.27%) GCP
4 9 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
5 8 (3.42%) Dynamics 365
6 7 (2.99%) SaaS
7 5 (2.14%) Power Platform
8 4 (1.71%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (1.71%) OCI
8 4 (1.71%) OpenShift
9 3 (1.28%) Power Automate
9 3 (1.28%) SuccessFactors
10 2 (0.85%) Apigee
10 2 (0.85%) Figma
11 1 (0.43%) Cloudflare
11 1 (0.43%) Entra ID
11 1 (0.43%) GitHub
11 1 (0.43%) Google Workspace
11 1 (0.43%) iPaaS
11 1 (0.43%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.43%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.14%) Power BI
2 2 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (0.85%) SAP HANA
2 2 (0.85%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.43%) Big Data
3 1 (0.43%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.43%) Delta Lake
3 1 (0.43%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 42 (17.95%) JIRA
2 1 (0.43%) Git
2 1 (0.43%) Postman
2 1 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
2 1 (0.43%) Vite
General
1 85 (36.32%) Social Skills
2 79 (33.76%) Finance
3 39 (16.67%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (12.82%) Banking
5 12 (5.13%) Public Sector
6 10 (4.27%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (3.85%) Legal
8 7 (2.99%) Law
8 7 (2.99%) Marketing
8 7 (2.99%) Retail
9 6 (2.56%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.71%) Police
11 3 (1.28%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.85%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.85%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.85%) Games
12 2 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.85%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.28%) HTML
2 2 (0.85%) AngularJS
2 2 (0.85%) CSS
2 2 (0.85%) Flutter
2 2 (0.85%) JSON
2 2 (0.85%) React
2 2 (0.85%) REST
2 2 (0.85%) RESTful
2 2 (0.85%) XML
3 1 (0.43%) Django
3 1 (0.43%) HTML5
3 1 (0.43%) Kafka
3 1 (0.43%) Laravel
3 1 (0.43%) LEMP Stack
3 1 (0.43%) OAuth
3 1 (0.43%) Pandas
3 1 (0.43%) SOAP
3 1 (0.43%) Tailwind CSS
3 1 (0.43%) Vue
3 1 (0.43%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 233 (99.57%) Product Ownership
2 18 (7.69%) Onboarding
3 11 (4.70%) Data Protection Act
4 10 (4.27%) Cloud Native
5 9 (3.85%) Mobile App
6 7 (2.99%) CMDB
7 6 (2.56%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (2.56%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.85%) AI Agents
10 2 (0.85%) DTCC
10 2 (0.85%) Greenfield Project
10 2 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.85%) Low-Code
10 2 (0.85%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 1 (0.43%) Credit Risk
11 1 (0.43%) OTC Derivatives
11 1 (0.43%) Reference Data
11 1 (0.43%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 6 (2.56%) Windows
2 2 (0.85%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.43%) Android
3 1 (0.43%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.43%) Linux
3 1 (0.43%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.43%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (63.68%) Agile
2 110 (47.01%) Roadmaps
3 95 (40.60%) Product Backlog
4 87 (37.18%) User Stories
5 75 (32.05%) Stakeholder Management
6 68 (29.06%) Backlog Management
7 63 (26.92%) Scrum
8 55 (23.50%) Product Vision
9 53 (22.65%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 51 (21.79%) Product Roadmap
11 39 (16.67%) Acceptance Criteria
12 38 (16.24%) Continuous Improvement
12 38 (16.24%) Product Strategy
13 36 (15.38%) Sprint Planning
14 32 (13.68%) Problem-Solving
15 30 (12.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 29 (12.39%) Scaled Agile Framework
17 28 (11.97%) Decision-Making
17 28 (11.97%) Product Management
18 26 (11.11%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 13 (5.56%) SQL
2 5 (2.14%) JavaScript
2 5 (2.14%) Python
3 2 (0.85%) C#
3 2 (0.85%) Korn
4 1 (0.43%) Bash
4 1 (0.43%) Java
4 1 (0.43%) Kotlin
4 1 (0.43%) PHP
4 1 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 37 (15.81%) Security Cleared
2 23 (9.83%) SC Cleared
3 17 (7.26%) CSPO
4 9 (3.85%) Degree
5 6 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.71%) DV Cleared
7 3 (1.28%) CBAP
8 2 (0.85%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.85%) OCP
8 2 (0.85%) Oracle Certification
9 1 (0.43%) ACCA
9 1 (0.43%) APMP
9 1 (0.43%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.43%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.43%) CCNA
9 1 (0.43%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.43%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.43%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.43%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.84%) QA
2 7 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (2.99%) SLA
3 6 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 6 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
3 6 (2.56%) NCSC
4 4 (1.71%) GDPR
5 3 (1.28%) Data Quality
5 3 (1.28%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.85%) 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 5 (2.14%) Docker
2 2 (0.85%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 8 (3.42%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.43%) CASB
2 1 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
2 1 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 25 (10.68%) Microsoft
2 16 (6.84%) SAP
3 8 (3.42%) Salesforce
3 8 (3.42%) ServiceNow
4 4 (1.71%) Databricks
4 4 (1.71%) Oracle
4 4 (1.71%) Workday
5 2 (0.85%) Cognizant
5 2 (0.85%) IBM
5 2 (0.85%) IBM Sterling
6 1 (0.43%) Adobe
6 1 (0.43%) Apple
6 1 (0.43%) DocuSign
6 1 (0.43%) Google
6 1 (0.43%) Guidewire
6 1 (0.43%) MuleSoft
6 1 (0.43%) Netskope
6 1 (0.43%) Splunk
6 1 (0.43%) Spotify
6 1 (0.43%) Zscaler