Product Owner Contract Job Trends

Product Owner
UK

The median Product Owner daily rate in the UK is £528, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 March 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 371 339 313
Rank change year-on-year -32 -26 +83
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 251 195 307
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.59% 0.64% 0.69%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.64% 0.69% 0.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 158 112 205
10th Percentile £413 £438 £406
25th Percentile £463 £513 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.08% +4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £610 £675 £650
90th Percentile £736 £713 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £575 £525
% change year-on-year -9.13% +9.52% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 4 1
10th Percentile £47.10 £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 £60.61 £95.75 -
90th Percentile £68.08 £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 39,202 28,292 41,263
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.90% 92.81% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,554 17,968 27,109
10th Percentile £310 £291 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,408 853 2,419
10th Percentile £14.82 £16.23 £13.05
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.43 £16.25
Median hourly rate £34.00 £34.00 £34.08
Median % change year-on-year - -0.23% -15.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.20 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +1.54% -7.14% -11.50%

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 6 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 6 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Product Owner in the UK

Product Owner
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 Owner within the UK over the 6 months to 6 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 -33 232 £530 -11.67% 136
UK excluding London -19 121 £523 -9.13% 93
London -51 104 £564 -12.19% 68
Work from Home -23 69 £520 -20.00% 99
North of England -10 61 £492 -18.00% 26
South East -44 34 £563 -2.17% 30
North West +1 30 £561 -6.58% 21
Yorkshire -37 25 £486 -18.96% 3
Midlands -43 21 £523 +12.67% 11
East Midlands -15 12 £538 +50.98% 8
West Midlands -45 9 £516 -0.72% 3
North East - 4 £475 - 2
South West - 3 £449 - 11
Scotland +7 2 - - 4

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

For the 6 months to 6 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.

1 136 (54.18%) Agile
2 118 (47.01%) Roadmaps
3 84 (33.47%) Product Backlog
4 83 (33.07%) User Stories
5 80 (31.87%) Stakeholder Management
6 59 (23.51%) Product Vision
7 56 (22.31%) Backlog Management
8 54 (21.51%) Product Roadmap
9 51 (20.32%) Security Cleared
10 49 (19.52%) Scrum
11 48 (19.12%) Backlog Prioritisation
12 44 (17.53%) Acceptance Criteria
12 44 (17.53%) Continuous Improvement
13 39 (15.54%) JIRA
14 36 (14.34%) Sprint Planning
15 35 (13.94%) Product Strategy
16 34 (13.55%) SC Cleared
17 33 (13.15%) Decision-Making
18 30 (11.95%) Microsoft
19 29 (11.55%) Product Management
19 29 (11.55%) User Experience
20 28 (11.16%) Problem-Solving
21 27 (10.76%) Confluence
21 27 (10.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 26 (10.36%) AWS
22 26 (10.36%) DevOps
23 25 (9.96%) Customer Experience
24 23 (9.16%) Scaled Agile Framework
25 21 (8.37%) Sprint Retrospective
26 19 (7.57%) AI

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 27 (10.76%) Confluence
2 7 (2.79%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.59%) SharePoint
4 3 (1.20%) CMS
5 1 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.40%) Appian
5 1 (0.40%) Mendix
5 1 (0.40%) Mule
5 1 (0.40%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.40%) nginx
5 1 (0.40%) WebSphere
Applications
1 2 (0.80%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.40%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.40%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.40%) Photoshop
2 1 (0.40%) Trello
Business Applications
1 6 (2.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.80%) Finacle
2 2 (0.80%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.40%) Adobe Campaign
3 1 (0.40%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.40%) Oracle Payroll
3 1 (0.40%) ProductWriter
3 1 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.40%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.40%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 26 (10.36%) AWS
2 19 (7.57%) Azure
3 11 (4.38%) GCP
4 7 (2.79%) Dynamics 365
4 7 (2.79%) Power Platform
5 6 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (2.39%) SaaS
6 4 (1.59%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (1.59%) OpenShift
6 4 (1.59%) Power Automate
7 3 (1.20%) Amazon Bedrock
7 3 (1.20%) Amazon S3
7 3 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
7 3 (1.20%) Serverless
7 3 (1.20%) SuccessFactors
8 2 (0.80%) Amazon EventBridge
8 2 (0.80%) Amazon SageMaker
8 2 (0.80%) Apigee
8 2 (0.80%) Figma
8 2 (0.80%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.39%) Firewall
2 5 (1.99%) DNS
2 5 (1.99%) Network Security
3 3 (1.20%) NGFW
4 1 (0.40%) Cisco IPT
4 1 (0.40%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.39%) Power BI
2 2 (0.80%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (0.80%) Delta Lake
2 2 (0.80%) Pinecone
2 2 (0.80%) SAP HANA
2 2 (0.80%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (0.40%) Big Data
3 1 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
3 1 (0.40%) GIS
3 1 (0.40%) Metadata
3 1 (0.40%) MySQL
3 1 (0.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 39 (15.54%) JIRA
2 1 (0.40%) Cucumber
2 1 (0.40%) Git
2 1 (0.40%) JUnit
2 1 (0.40%) Postman
2 1 (0.40%) REST Assured
2 1 (0.40%) Team Foundation Server
2 1 (0.40%) Vite
General
1 82 (32.67%) Social Skills
2 77 (30.68%) Finance
3 34 (13.55%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (9.96%) Banking
5 14 (5.58%) Public Sector
6 12 (4.78%) Marketing
7 9 (3.59%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (3.59%) Legal
8 8 (3.19%) Retail
9 7 (2.79%) Law
10 6 (2.39%) Military
11 5 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (1.99%) Telecoms
12 4 (1.59%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.59%) Police
13 2 (0.80%) Corporate Banking
14 1 (0.40%) Aerospace
14 1 (0.40%) Investment Banking
14 1 (0.40%) Manufacturing
14 1 (0.40%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.59%) JSON
1 4 (1.59%) XML
2 3 (1.20%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.20%) REST
3 2 (0.80%) Faiss
3 2 (0.80%) Flutter
3 2 (0.80%) LangChain
3 2 (0.80%) LangGraph
3 2 (0.80%) React
4 1 (0.40%) AngularJS
4 1 (0.40%) Django
4 1 (0.40%) HTML
4 1 (0.40%) Laravel
4 1 (0.40%) LEMP Stack
4 1 (0.40%) OAuth
4 1 (0.40%) Pandas
4 1 (0.40%) RESTful
4 1 (0.40%) Tailwind CSS
4 1 (0.40%) Vue
4 1 (0.40%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 251 (100.00%) Product Ownership
2 14 (5.58%) Onboarding
3 11 (4.38%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (3.98%) Data Protection Act
5 9 (3.59%) Cloud Native
6 8 (3.19%) Mobile App
7 7 (2.79%) CMDB
8 6 (2.39%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (2.39%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (2.39%) Public Cloud
9 4 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
10 3 (1.20%) AI Agents
10 3 (1.20%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 2 (0.80%) Credit Risk
11 2 (0.80%) FMCG
11 2 (0.80%) Low-Code
11 2 (0.80%) Security Posture
11 2 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (0.80%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 1 (0.40%) Learning Management System
Operating Systems
1 13 (5.18%) Windows
2 7 (2.79%) Linux
2 7 (2.79%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.40%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.40%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (54.18%) Agile
2 118 (47.01%) Roadmaps
3 84 (33.47%) Product Backlog
4 83 (33.07%) User Stories
5 80 (31.87%) Stakeholder Management
6 59 (23.51%) Product Vision
7 56 (22.31%) Backlog Management
8 54 (21.51%) Product Roadmap
9 49 (19.52%) Scrum
10 48 (19.12%) Backlog Prioritisation
11 44 (17.53%) Acceptance Criteria
11 44 (17.53%) Continuous Improvement
12 36 (14.34%) Sprint Planning
13 35 (13.94%) Product Strategy
14 33 (13.15%) Decision-Making
15 29 (11.55%) Product Management
15 29 (11.55%) User Experience
16 28 (11.16%) Problem-Solving
17 27 (10.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 26 (10.36%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 11 (4.38%) SQL
2 6 (2.39%) Python
3 3 (1.20%) Java
3 3 (1.20%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.80%) Korn
4 2 (0.80%) Kotlin
5 1 (0.40%) Bash
5 1 (0.40%) C#
5 1 (0.40%) PHP
5 1 (0.40%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.40%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 51 (20.32%) Security Cleared
2 34 (13.55%) SC Cleared
3 15 (5.98%) CSPO
4 12 (4.78%) Degree
5 10 (3.98%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.59%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.59%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.80%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.80%) CBAP
8 1 (0.40%) ACCA
8 1 (0.40%) APMP
8 1 (0.40%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.40%) OCP
8 1 (0.40%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.40%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.40%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (7.17%) QA
2 10 (3.98%) Data Quality
2 10 (3.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (3.59%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 8 (3.19%) SLA
5 6 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27005
5 6 (2.39%) NCSC
6 5 (1.99%) GDPR
7 4 (1.59%) NIST
8 3 (1.20%) Accessibility
8 3 (1.20%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.80%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.40%) PERC
System Software
1 7 (2.79%) Active Directory
2 6 (2.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.99%) Docker
3 5 (1.99%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.40%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (3.19%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.59%) CASB
3 1 (0.40%) Ansible
3 1 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (0.40%) PowerCLI
3 1 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.40%) Terraform
3 1 (0.40%) vCenter Server
3 1 (0.40%) vRealize
3 1 (0.40%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 30 (11.95%) Microsoft
2 15 (5.98%) SAP
3 14 (5.58%) Salesforce
4 12 (4.78%) ServiceNow
5 6 (2.39%) Databricks
5 6 (2.39%) VMware
6 5 (1.99%) Cisco
6 5 (1.99%) Splunk
6 5 (1.99%) Zscaler
7 4 (1.59%) ForeScout
7 4 (1.59%) Fortinet
7 4 (1.59%) Infoblox
7 4 (1.59%) Workday
8 3 (1.20%) Oracle
9 2 (0.80%) Adobe
9 2 (0.80%) CA Agile Central
9 2 (0.80%) Cognizant
9 2 (0.80%) Epicor
9 2 (0.80%) MuleSoft
9 2 (0.80%) Sage