Product Owner Contract Job Trends

Product Owner
UK

The median Product Owner daily rate in the UK is £518, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 358 319 336
Rank change year-on-year -39 +17 +80
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 243 231 284
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.65% 0.70% 0.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.72% 0.75% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 138 188
10th Percentile £400 £429 £425
25th Percentile £450 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £600 £595
Median % change year-on-year -13.72% +0.84% +8.18%
75th Percentile £588 £675 £675
90th Percentile £675 £713 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £563 £550
% change year-on-year -12.53% +2.27% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 1
10th Percentile £46.51 £29.88 -
25th Percentile £48.86 £33.44 -
Median hourly rate £52.78 £40.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.12% -19.50% +42.86%
75th Percentile £58.65 £47.44 -
90th Percentile £60.61 £51.23 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.78 £40.25 £50.00
% change year-on-year +31.12% -19.50% -

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 33,835 30,753 40,099
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.20% 92.71% 93.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,431 18,857 26,859
10th Percentile £300 £298 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £485 £500
% change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,964 949 1,554
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £14.43
25th Percentile £18.24 £21.05 £19.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -27.78% +41.93%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.52 £46.18
% change year-on-year -20.21% -31.75% +80.14%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -32 221 £525 -12.50% 102
UK excluding London 0 116 £492 -12.53% 71
London -48 106 £550 -12.87% 40
Work from Home -21 66 £520 -18.75% 59
North of England -17 44 £490 -18.38% 21
South East -23 31 £525 -8.70% 27
Midlands -24 22 £478 -9.05% 16
Yorkshire -34 21 £486 -8.25% 4
North West -10 20 £500 -16.67% 17
East Midlands -7 16 £490 -27.41% 8
South West - 10 £640 - 2
West Midlands -29 6 £475 +1.33% 8
Scotland +11 5 £370 -10.30% 3
East of England - 3 £425 - 2
Wales - 2 £463 - 1
North East - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 157 (64.61%) Agile
2 116 (47.74%) Roadmaps
3 104 (42.80%) Product Backlog
4 97 (39.92%) User Stories
5 82 (33.74%) Stakeholder Management
6 78 (32.10%) Backlog Management
7 73 (30.04%) Scrum
8 58 (23.87%) Backlog Prioritisation
9 56 (23.05%) Product Vision
10 53 (21.81%) Product Roadmap
11 46 (18.93%) JIRA
12 44 (18.11%) Acceptance Criteria
13 41 (16.87%) Continuous Improvement
14 40 (16.46%) Sprint Planning
15 38 (15.64%) Problem-Solving
16 37 (15.23%) Product Strategy
17 34 (13.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 33 (13.58%) Confluence
18 33 (13.58%) Security Cleared
19 28 (11.52%) Scaled Agile Framework
20 27 (11.11%) Decision-Making
20 27 (11.11%) DevOps
20 27 (11.11%) Sprint Retrospective
21 26 (10.70%) Microsoft
21 26 (10.70%) Product Management
21 26 (10.70%) Sprint Review
22 24 (9.88%) User Experience
23 23 (9.47%) AWS
23 23 (9.47%) Backlog Refinement
23 23 (9.47%) SC Cleared

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 33 (13.58%) Confluence
2 5 (2.06%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.23%) CMS
4 2 (0.82%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.41%) Drupal
5 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.41%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.82%) Chatbot
1 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.41%) Adobe XD
2 1 (0.41%) InVision
2 1 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.41%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.41%) Sketch
2 1 (0.41%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (3.70%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.88%) Oracle ERP
2 7 (2.88%) Oracle SCM
3 4 (1.65%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.82%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.41%) Endur
5 1 (0.41%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.41%) Oracle Payroll
5 1 (0.41%) ProductWriter
5 1 (0.41%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 23 (9.47%) AWS
2 22 (9.05%) Azure
3 13 (5.35%) Dynamics 365
4 10 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
4 10 (4.12%) GCP
5 9 (3.70%) OCI
6 6 (2.47%) Power Platform
6 6 (2.47%) SaaS
7 5 (2.06%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (1.65%) OpenShift
8 4 (1.65%) Power Automate
9 3 (1.23%) Figma
9 3 (1.23%) SuccessFactors
10 2 (0.82%) Apigee
10 2 (0.82%) Miro
10 2 (0.82%) PowerApps
11 1 (0.41%) Azure Pipelines
11 1 (0.41%) Entra ID
11 1 (0.41%) Slack
11 1 (0.41%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.41%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.47%) Power BI
2 4 (1.65%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (1.23%) Data Lake
3 3 (1.23%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.82%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.41%) Big Data
5 1 (0.41%) Delta Lake
5 1 (0.41%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 46 (18.93%) JIRA
2 1 (0.41%) Postman
2 1 (0.41%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 88 (36.21%) Social Skills
2 78 (32.10%) Finance
3 41 (16.87%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (11.52%) Banking
5 11 (4.53%) Influencing Skills
5 11 (4.53%) Marketing
6 9 (3.70%) Public Sector
6 9 (3.70%) Retail
7 7 (2.88%) Legal
8 6 (2.47%) Aerospace
8 6 (2.47%) Law
8 6 (2.47%) Telecoms
9 4 (1.65%) Investment Banking
9 4 (1.65%) Police
10 3 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.82%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (0.82%) Games
11 2 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.82%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.23%) Flutter
1 3 (1.23%) HTML
1 3 (1.23%) RESTful
2 2 (0.82%) .NET
2 2 (0.82%) AngularJS
2 2 (0.82%) CSS
2 2 (0.82%) JSON
2 2 (0.82%) React
2 2 (0.82%) REST
2 2 (0.82%) XML
3 1 (0.41%) ADO
3 1 (0.41%) HTML5
3 1 (0.41%) Kafka
3 1 (0.41%) OAuth
3 1 (0.41%) Pandas
3 1 (0.41%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 242 (99.59%) Product Ownership
2 18 (7.41%) Onboarding
3 10 (4.12%) Data Protection Act
3 10 (4.12%) Mobile App
4 9 (3.70%) Cloud Native
5 8 (3.29%) Analytical Mindset
6 7 (2.88%) CMDB
7 6 (2.47%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.65%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (1.65%) Reinsurance
9 3 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.82%) AI Agents
10 2 (0.82%) Derivative
10 2 (0.82%) DTCC
10 2 (0.82%) Low-Code
10 2 (0.82%) OTC Derivatives
10 2 (0.82%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 1 (0.41%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.65%) Windows
2 2 (0.82%) Android
2 2 (0.82%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.41%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.41%) VMS
3 1 (0.41%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (64.61%) Agile
2 116 (47.74%) Roadmaps
3 104 (42.80%) Product Backlog
4 97 (39.92%) User Stories
5 82 (33.74%) Stakeholder Management
6 78 (32.10%) Backlog Management
7 73 (30.04%) Scrum
8 58 (23.87%) Backlog Prioritisation
9 56 (23.05%) Product Vision
10 53 (21.81%) Product Roadmap
11 44 (18.11%) Acceptance Criteria
12 41 (16.87%) Continuous Improvement
13 40 (16.46%) Sprint Planning
14 38 (15.64%) Problem-Solving
15 37 (15.23%) Product Strategy
16 34 (13.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 28 (11.52%) Scaled Agile Framework
18 27 (11.11%) Decision-Making
18 27 (11.11%) DevOps
18 27 (11.11%) Sprint Retrospective
Programming Languages
1 15 (6.17%) SQL
2 4 (1.65%) JavaScript
2 4 (1.65%) Python
3 2 (0.82%) C#
3 2 (0.82%) Java
3 2 (0.82%) Korn
4 1 (0.41%) Kotlin
4 1 (0.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 33 (13.58%) Security Cleared
2 23 (9.47%) SC Cleared
3 22 (9.05%) CSPO
4 9 (3.70%) Degree
5 6 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.23%) CBAP
6 3 (1.23%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.82%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.82%) OCP
7 2 (0.82%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.41%) ACCA
8 1 (0.41%) APMP
8 1 (0.41%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.41%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.41%) CCNA
8 1 (0.41%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.41%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.41%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.41%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.00%) QA
2 7 (2.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (2.88%) SLA
3 6 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 6 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27005
3 6 (2.47%) NCSC
4 5 (2.06%) GDPR
5 4 (1.65%) Data Quality
6 3 (1.23%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.82%) PSD2
8 1 (0.41%) EMIR
8 1 (0.41%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.41%) MiFID
8 1 (0.41%) NIST
8 1 (0.41%) PERC
8 1 (0.41%) SEPA
System Software
1 4 (1.65%) Docker
2 1 (0.41%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 8 (3.29%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.41%) CASB
2 1 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
2 1 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 26 (10.70%) Microsoft
2 17 (7.00%) SAP
3 9 (3.70%) Oracle
3 9 (3.70%) ServiceNow
4 6 (2.47%) Salesforce
5 4 (1.65%) Databricks
5 4 (1.65%) Workday
6 3 (1.23%) Adobe
7 2 (0.82%) HubSpot
8 1 (0.41%) Apple
8 1 (0.41%) Ariba
8 1 (0.41%) CA Agile Central
8 1 (0.41%) Cisco
8 1 (0.41%) DocuSign
8 1 (0.41%) IBM
8 1 (0.41%) IBM Sterling
8 1 (0.41%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.41%) Netskope
8 1 (0.41%) Spotify
8 1 (0.41%) Zscaler