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 21 April 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 368 362 346
Rank change year-on-year -6 -16 +31
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 261 158 247
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 0.54% 0.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.61% 0.58% 0.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 161 92 174
10th Percentile £413 £407 £405
25th Percentile £463 £475 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £595 £673 £650
90th Percentile £700 £713 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £518 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +3.50% -9.09% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 0
10th Percentile - £39.70 -
25th Percentile £48.86 £58.00 -
Median hourly rate £52.78 £92.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -42.64% - -
75th Percentile £60.61 £95.99 -
90th Percentile £70.57 £96.29 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.78 £60.00 -
% change year-on-year -12.04% - -

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 42,695 27,272 40,291
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 92.61% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,420 17,879 26,298
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,730 998 2,613
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.50 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £19.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £42.00 £30.45 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.93% -13.00% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.60 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.33 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £29.80 £36.50
% change year-on-year +46.34% -18.36% -15.12%

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 21 April 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 21 April 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 21 April 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 -13 239 £525 -4.55% 111
UK excluding London -19 131 £518 +3.50% 81
London -48 106 £538 -12.60% 49
North of England -2 67 £500 -16.67% 25
Work from Home -25 62 £500 -16.67% 73
South East -41 34 £525 +4.27% 25
Yorkshire -34 33 £490 -18.38% 10
North West -22 29 £561 -8.49% 13
Midlands -55 20 £538 +30.30% 12
West Midlands -52 14 £525 +1.94% 7
South West -27 7 £500 +11.11% 5
East Midlands -32 6 £550 +54.06% 4
Scotland -2 4 £466 -6.75% 2
East of England -29 3 £450 - 11
North East - 3 £475 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 21 April 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.

1 135 (51.72%) Roadmaps
2 127 (48.66%) Agile
3 86 (32.95%) User Stories
4 79 (30.27%) Product Backlog
4 79 (30.27%) Stakeholder Management
5 65 (24.90%) Product Roadmap
6 53 (20.31%) Product Vision
7 50 (19.16%) Backlog Management
8 49 (18.77%) Acceptance Criteria
8 49 (18.77%) Security Cleared
9 47 (18.01%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 43 (16.48%) Continuous Improvement
10 43 (16.48%) Decision-Making
11 39 (14.94%) Sprint Planning
12 37 (14.18%) Scrum
13 35 (13.41%) Microsoft
14 34 (13.03%) JIRA
15 29 (11.11%) SC Cleared
16 27 (10.34%) Customer Experience
16 27 (10.34%) DevOps
16 27 (10.34%) Product Management
16 27 (10.34%) Product Strategy
17 25 (9.58%) Problem-Solving
18 24 (9.20%) Analytics
18 24 (9.20%) Salesforce
18 24 (9.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 24 (9.20%) User Experience
19 23 (8.81%) AI
19 23 (8.81%) AWS
20 22 (8.43%) Confluence

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 22 (8.43%) Confluence
2 8 (3.07%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 4 (1.53%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.38%) Appian
4 1 (0.38%) CMS
4 1 (0.38%) Mendix
4 1 (0.38%) Mule
4 1 (0.38%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.38%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.77%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.38%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.38%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.38%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 6 (2.30%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.77%) Finacle
3 2 (0.77%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.77%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.38%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.38%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.38%) Oracle Payroll
4 1 (0.38%) ProductWriter
4 1 (0.38%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.38%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 23 (8.81%) AWS
2 18 (6.90%) Azure
3 12 (4.60%) GCP
4 9 (3.45%) Dynamics 365
4 9 (3.45%) OpenShift
5 8 (3.07%) SaaS
6 6 (2.30%) Power Platform
7 4 (1.53%) Amazon S3
7 4 (1.53%) Figma
7 4 (1.53%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (1.15%) Amazon Bedrock
8 3 (1.15%) Amazon OpenSearch
8 3 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (1.15%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.15%) Collibra
8 3 (1.15%) Power Automate
8 3 (1.15%) Serverless
9 2 (0.77%) Amazon ECR
9 2 (0.77%) Amazon EventBridge
9 2 (0.77%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.30%) DNS
1 6 (2.30%) Firewall
2 5 (1.92%) Network Security
3 3 (1.15%) NGFW
4 1 (0.38%) Cisco IPT
4 1 (0.38%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.92%) Delta Lake
1 5 (1.92%) Metadata
1 5 (1.92%) Power BI
2 4 (1.53%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (1.15%) Data Lake
3 3 (1.15%) Parquet
4 2 (0.77%) GIS
4 2 (0.77%) Pinecone
4 2 (0.77%) SAP HANA
4 2 (0.77%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.38%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.38%) Big Data
5 1 (0.38%) Geospatial Data
5 1 (0.38%) MySQL
5 1 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 34 (13.03%) JIRA
2 1 (0.38%) Cucumber
2 1 (0.38%) Git
2 1 (0.38%) JUnit
2 1 (0.38%) Postman
2 1 (0.38%) REST Assured
2 1 (0.38%) Team Foundation Server
2 1 (0.38%) Vite
General
1 76 (29.12%) Finance
2 70 (26.82%) Social Skills
3 33 (12.64%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (11.88%) Banking
5 19 (7.28%) Marketing
6 17 (6.51%) Public Sector
7 13 (4.98%) Legal
8 10 (3.83%) Retail
9 7 (2.68%) Pharmaceutical
10 6 (2.30%) Military
10 6 (2.30%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.53%) Corporate Banking
12 3 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.15%) Manufacturing
12 3 (1.15%) Retail Banking
13 2 (0.77%) Front Office
13 2 (0.77%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.38%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.53%) JSON
1 4 (1.53%) XML
2 3 (1.15%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.15%) REST
3 2 (0.77%) Faiss
3 2 (0.77%) Flutter
3 2 (0.77%) LangChain
3 2 (0.77%) LangGraph
3 2 (0.77%) React
4 1 (0.38%) AngularJS
4 1 (0.38%) cloud-init
4 1 (0.38%) Django
4 1 (0.38%) Laravel
4 1 (0.38%) LEMP Stack
4 1 (0.38%) OAuth
4 1 (0.38%) RESTful
4 1 (0.38%) Ruby on Rails
4 1 (0.38%) Tailwind CSS
4 1 (0.38%) Vue
4 1 (0.38%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 260 (99.62%) Product Ownership
2 16 (6.13%) Onboarding
3 11 (4.21%) Data Protection Act
3 11 (4.21%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (3.83%) Cloud Native
5 9 (3.45%) Marketing Technology
6 7 (2.68%) CMDB
7 5 (1.92%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.92%) Greenfield Project
7 5 (1.92%) Mobile App
8 4 (1.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 4 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.15%) AI Agents
9 3 (1.15%) Credit Risk
9 3 (1.15%) Distributed Computing
9 3 (1.15%) FMCG
10 2 (0.77%) CCTV
10 2 (0.77%) Low-Code
10 2 (0.77%) Security Posture
10 2 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.36%) Windows
2 9 (3.45%) Linux
3 8 (3.07%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.38%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (51.72%) Roadmaps
2 127 (48.66%) Agile
3 86 (32.95%) User Stories
4 79 (30.27%) Product Backlog
4 79 (30.27%) Stakeholder Management
5 65 (24.90%) Product Roadmap
6 53 (20.31%) Product Vision
7 50 (19.16%) Backlog Management
8 49 (18.77%) Acceptance Criteria
9 47 (18.01%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 43 (16.48%) Continuous Improvement
10 43 (16.48%) Decision-Making
11 39 (14.94%) Sprint Planning
12 37 (14.18%) Scrum
13 27 (10.34%) Customer Experience
13 27 (10.34%) DevOps
13 27 (10.34%) Product Management
13 27 (10.34%) Product Strategy
14 25 (9.58%) Problem-Solving
15 24 (9.20%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 11 (4.21%) SQL
2 7 (2.68%) Python
3 3 (1.15%) Java
3 3 (1.15%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.77%) ABAP
4 2 (0.77%) Kotlin
5 1 (0.38%) Bash
5 1 (0.38%) C#
5 1 (0.38%) PHP
5 1 (0.38%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.38%) R
5 1 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 49 (18.77%) Security Cleared
2 29 (11.11%) SC Cleared
3 12 (4.60%) Degree
4 10 (3.83%) CSPO
5 9 (3.45%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.53%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.53%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.77%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.38%) ACCA
8 1 (0.38%) APMP
8 1 (0.38%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.38%) CBAP
8 1 (0.38%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.38%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.13%) Data Quality
2 14 (5.36%) QA
3 8 (3.07%) SLA
4 4 (1.53%) GDPR
4 4 (1.53%) NIST
5 3 (1.15%) Accessibility
5 3 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 3 (1.15%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.77%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 2 (0.77%) GxP
6 2 (0.77%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.38%) Basel II
7 1 (0.38%) GRC
7 1 (0.38%) PERC
System Software
1 8 (3.07%) Active Directory
1 8 (3.07%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (2.30%) Hyper-V
3 5 (1.92%) Ceph
3 5 (1.92%) Docker
3 5 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.38%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (3.45%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.53%) CASB
3 3 (1.15%) Ansible
4 2 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (0.77%) Terraform
5 1 (0.38%) Argo
5 1 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
5 1 (0.38%) PowerCLI
5 1 (0.38%) vCenter Server
5 1 (0.38%) vRealize
5 1 (0.38%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 35 (13.41%) Microsoft
2 24 (9.20%) Salesforce
3 15 (5.75%) SAP
4 12 (4.60%) ServiceNow
5 8 (3.07%) VMware
6 7 (2.68%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7 5 (1.92%) Adobe
7 5 (1.92%) Cisco
7 5 (1.92%) Databricks
7 5 (1.92%) Splunk
7 5 (1.92%) Zscaler
8 4 (1.53%) ForeScout
8 4 (1.53%) Fortinet
8 4 (1.53%) Infoblox
8 4 (1.53%) Oracle
9 3 (1.15%) Epicor
9 3 (1.15%) MuleSoft
10 2 (0.77%) CA Agile Central
10 2 (0.77%) Cognizant
10 2 (0.77%) ESRI