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 29 May 2026.

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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 367 388 350
Rank change year-on-year +21 -38 +33
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 289 135 243
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.59% 0.47% 0.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.64% 0.51% 0.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 173 85 176
10th Percentile £415 £357 £405
25th Percentile £475 £416 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £586
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -12.58% +1.96%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £675
90th Percentile £707 £675 £759
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £450 £550
% change year-on-year +16.67% -18.18% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 0
10th Percentile £55.91 £88.62 -
25th Percentile £69.03 £88.79 -
Median hourly rate £83.00 £92.54 -
Median % change year-on-year -10.31% - -
75th Percentile £102.80 £96.24 -
90th Percentile £103.90 £96.39 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £92.00 -
% change year-on-year -9.78% - -

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 45,155 26,550 39,743
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.33% 92.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,543 17,231 25,865
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,003 1,045 2,776
10th Percentile £15.01 £14.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.99 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +51.84% -24.72% -17.38%
75th Percentile £66.38 £59.90 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +73.38% -37.13% -5.88%

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 29 May 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 29 May 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 29 May 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 +8 265 £525 +2.44% 63
UK excluding London -21 136 £525 +16.67% 45
London -16 128 £550 +4.76% 29
Work from Home +6 77 £521 -3.02% 27
North of England -22 58 £500 -16.67% 8
South East -29 38 £538 +7.50% 16
Yorkshire -29 28 £500 -16.67% 1
North West -9 27 £561 -10.32% 6
Midlands -48 26 £538 +41.45% 11
West Midlands -48 19 £538 +4.37% 9
South West -27 9 £500 +9.65% 7
East Midlands -28 7 £520 +45.25% 2
Scotland -5 6 £466 -6.75% 1
East of England -25 4 £475 - 3
North East -25 3 £475 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 29 May 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.

1 156 (53.98%) Agile
2 152 (52.60%) Roadmaps
3 111 (38.41%) User Stories
4 102 (35.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 98 (33.91%) Product Backlog
6 85 (29.41%) Product Roadmap
7 74 (25.61%) Backlog Prioritisation
8 67 (23.18%) Acceptance Criteria
8 67 (23.18%) Backlog Management
9 55 (19.03%) Decision-Making
10 54 (18.69%) Product Vision
11 49 (16.96%) Continuous Improvement
11 49 (16.96%) Security Cleared
12 48 (16.61%) Sprint Planning
13 45 (15.57%) JIRA
14 42 (14.53%) Scrum
15 37 (12.80%) AI
16 36 (12.46%) Product Management
17 34 (11.76%) Analytics
17 34 (11.76%) Microsoft
18 31 (10.73%) SC Cleared
19 29 (10.03%) Customer Experience
19 29 (10.03%) Problem-Solving
19 29 (10.03%) Product Strategy
19 29 (10.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 27 (9.34%) Scaled Agile Framework
21 26 (9.00%) Confluence
22 25 (8.65%) Epics
22 25 (8.65%) Salesforce
23 24 (8.30%) 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 26 (9.00%) Confluence
2 8 (2.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (1.04%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (1.04%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.35%) Appian
4 1 (0.35%) CMS
4 1 (0.35%) Mendix
4 1 (0.35%) Moodle
4 1 (0.35%) Mule
4 1 (0.35%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.35%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.69%) Chatbot
1 2 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.35%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.35%) Notion
2 1 (0.35%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 8 (2.77%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.38%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.69%) Finacle
3 2 (0.69%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.35%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.35%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.35%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 23 (7.96%) AWS
2 18 (6.23%) Azure
3 12 (4.15%) SaaS
4 10 (3.46%) OpenShift
5 9 (3.11%) Dynamics 365
6 8 (2.77%) GCP
7 7 (2.42%) Power Platform
8 6 (2.08%) GitHub
9 5 (1.73%) Collibra
10 4 (1.38%) Amazon S3
10 4 (1.38%) Figma
10 4 (1.38%) PaaS
11 3 (1.04%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 3 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (1.04%) Microsoft 365
11 3 (1.04%) Serverless
12 2 (0.69%) Adobe Analytics
12 2 (0.69%) Amazon SageMaker
12 2 (0.69%) Azure DevOps
12 2 (0.69%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.08%) DNS
1 6 (2.08%) Firewall
2 5 (1.73%) Network Security
3 3 (1.04%) NGFW
4 2 (0.69%) Wireless
5 1 (0.35%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.77%) Metadata
2 6 (2.08%) Delta Lake
2 6 (2.08%) Power BI
3 5 (1.73%) Parquet
4 3 (1.04%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.69%) Big Data
5 2 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.69%) GIS
5 2 (0.69%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.35%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.35%) Geospatial Data
6 1 (0.35%) MySQL
6 1 (0.35%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.35%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 45 (15.57%) JIRA
2 1 (0.35%) Cucumber
2 1 (0.35%) Git
2 1 (0.35%) JUnit
2 1 (0.35%) Postman
2 1 (0.35%) REST Assured
2 1 (0.35%) Vite
General
1 95 (32.87%) Finance
2 79 (27.34%) Social Skills
3 46 (15.92%) Banking
4 34 (11.76%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (8.30%) Marketing
6 18 (6.23%) Retail
7 17 (5.88%) Public Sector
8 14 (4.84%) Legal
9 12 (4.15%) Retail Banking
10 10 (3.46%) Corporate Banking
11 9 (3.11%) Pharmaceutical
12 8 (2.77%) Investment Banking
13 6 (2.08%) Aerospace
13 6 (2.08%) Military
14 5 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (1.73%) Manufacturing
15 4 (1.38%) Telecoms
16 3 (1.04%) Front Office
17 2 (0.69%) Documentation Skills
17 2 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.38%) JSON
1 4 (1.38%) OAuth
1 4 (1.38%) XML
2 3 (1.04%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.04%) REST
3 2 (0.69%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.69%) Azure Blueprints
3 2 (0.69%) Faiss
3 2 (0.69%) Flutter
3 2 (0.69%) LangChain
3 2 (0.69%) LangGraph
3 2 (0.69%) LDAP
3 2 (0.69%) OpenID
3 2 (0.69%) React
3 2 (0.69%) SAML
4 1 (0.35%) Django
4 1 (0.35%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.35%) RESTful
4 1 (0.35%) Ruby on Rails
4 1 (0.35%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 287 (99.31%) Product Ownership
2 14 (4.84%) Legacy Systems
3 13 (4.50%) Onboarding
4 10 (3.46%) Data Protection Act
5 9 (3.11%) Marketing Technology
6 8 (2.77%) CMDB
7 7 (2.42%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (2.08%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.73%) Distributed Computing
9 5 (1.73%) Mobile App
9 5 (1.73%) Virtual Team
10 4 (1.38%) CCTV
10 4 (1.38%) Cloud Native
10 4 (1.38%) Credit Risk
10 4 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.38%) Life Science
11 3 (1.04%) AI Agents
11 3 (1.04%) FMCG
11 3 (1.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 3 (1.04%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 14 (4.84%) Windows
2 9 (3.11%) Linux
3 8 (2.77%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (53.98%) Agile
2 152 (52.60%) Roadmaps
3 111 (38.41%) User Stories
4 102 (35.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 98 (33.91%) Product Backlog
6 85 (29.41%) Product Roadmap
7 74 (25.61%) Backlog Prioritisation
8 67 (23.18%) Acceptance Criteria
8 67 (23.18%) Backlog Management
9 55 (19.03%) Decision-Making
10 54 (18.69%) Product Vision
11 49 (16.96%) Continuous Improvement
12 48 (16.61%) Sprint Planning
13 42 (14.53%) Scrum
14 37 (12.80%) AI
15 36 (12.46%) Product Management
16 34 (11.76%) Analytics
17 29 (10.03%) Problem-Solving
17 29 (10.03%) Product Strategy
17 29 (10.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 12 (4.15%) SQL
2 10 (3.46%) Python
3 3 (1.04%) Java
3 3 (1.04%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.69%) ABAP
4 2 (0.69%) Kotlin
4 2 (0.69%) PHP
5 1 (0.35%) Bash
5 1 (0.35%) C#
5 1 (0.35%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.35%) R
5 1 (0.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 49 (16.96%) Security Cleared
2 31 (10.73%) SC Cleared
3 12 (4.15%) Degree
4 10 (3.46%) CSPO
5 6 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (2.08%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.38%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.69%) CISSP
8 1 (0.35%) ACCA
8 1 (0.35%) APMP
8 1 (0.35%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.35%) CBAP
8 1 (0.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.35%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.23%) Data Quality
2 16 (5.54%) QA
3 5 (1.73%) SLA
4 4 (1.38%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 4 (1.38%) GDPR
4 4 (1.38%) GxP
5 3 (1.04%) Accessibility
5 3 (1.04%) GRC
5 3 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 3 (1.04%) NIST
5 3 (1.04%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.69%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.35%) Basel II
System Software
1 10 (3.46%) Active Directory
2 8 (2.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.08%) Ceph
3 6 (2.08%) Hyper-V
3 6 (2.08%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.35%) Docker
4 1 (0.35%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 6 (2.08%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.04%) Ansible
2 3 (1.04%) CASB
2 3 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
2 3 (1.04%) Terraform
3 1 (0.35%) Argo
3 1 (0.35%) PingFederate
3 1 (0.35%) PowerCLI
3 1 (0.35%) vCenter Server
3 1 (0.35%) vRealize
3 1 (0.35%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 34 (11.76%) Microsoft
2 25 (8.65%) Salesforce
3 12 (4.15%) ServiceNow
4 10 (3.46%) SAP
5 8 (2.77%) VMware
6 7 (2.42%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7 5 (1.73%) Databricks
8 4 (1.38%) Adobe
8 4 (1.38%) Cisco
8 4 (1.38%) ForeScout
8 4 (1.38%) Fortinet
8 4 (1.38%) Infoblox
8 4 (1.38%) Splunk
8 4 (1.38%) Zscaler
9 3 (1.04%) Epicor
9 3 (1.04%) MuleSoft
9 3 (1.04%) Oracle
10 2 (0.69%) CA Agile Central
10 2 (0.69%) Okta
10 2 (0.69%) Xero