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 19 January 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 362 314 320
Rank change year-on-year -48 +6 +96
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 232 214 289
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.68% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.69% 0.73% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 144 118 193
10th Percentile £400 £450 £415
25th Percentile £454 £513 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £588
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +2.13% +6.82%
75th Percentile £588 £675 £675
90th Percentile £684 £716 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -15.22% +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 33,788 29,232 40,213
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 92.85% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,356 17,863 26,715
10th Percentile £300 £295 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £481 £500
% change year-on-year -1.14% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,002 885 1,834
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.99
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.76
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.32
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -19.39% +18.58%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +46.55%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -40 210 £525 -12.50% 60
UK excluding London 0 112 £488 -15.22% 44
London -50 96 £550 -15.09% 31
Work from Home -21 59 £525 -19.23% 35
North of England -4 48 £486 -18.96% 7
South East -27 30 £525 -8.70% 26
North West -6 23 £475 -20.83% 5
Midlands -26 23 £480 -8.57% 5
Yorkshire -25 22 £488 -18.75% 1
East Midlands -13 16 £490 -27.41% 2
West Midlands -32 7 £475 +1.33% 3
South West - 6 £640 - 2
Scotland +7 4 £425 -10.53% 3
North East - 1 - - 1
East of England - 1 £525 - 2
Wales - 1 £450 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 152 (65.52%) Agile
2 114 (49.14%) Roadmaps
3 99 (42.67%) Product Backlog
4 89 (38.36%) User Stories
5 79 (34.05%) Stakeholder Management
6 73 (31.47%) Backlog Management
7 65 (28.02%) Scrum
8 57 (24.57%) Product Vision
9 53 (22.84%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 51 (21.98%) Product Roadmap
11 43 (18.53%) JIRA
12 42 (18.10%) Acceptance Criteria
13 40 (17.24%) Continuous Improvement
14 37 (15.95%) Product Strategy
14 37 (15.95%) Sprint Planning
15 35 (15.09%) Problem-Solving
16 33 (14.22%) Security Cleared
17 32 (13.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 30 (12.93%) Confluence
19 29 (12.50%) Scaled Agile Framework
20 28 (12.07%) Decision-Making
21 27 (11.64%) Sprint Retrospective
22 26 (11.21%) DevOps
22 26 (11.21%) Product Management
23 25 (10.78%) Customer Experience
24 24 (10.34%) Sprint Review
25 23 (9.91%) AWS
25 23 (9.91%) Microsoft
26 22 (9.48%) SC Cleared
26 22 (9.48%) 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 30 (12.93%) Confluence
2 5 (2.16%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.29%) CMS
4 2 (0.86%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.43%) Appian
5 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.43%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.86%) Chatbot
1 2 (0.86%) 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 6 (2.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.72%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.86%) Finacle
3 2 (0.86%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.86%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.86%) 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 (9.91%) AWS
2 21 (9.05%) Azure
3 10 (4.31%) GCP
4 9 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
4 9 (3.88%) Dynamics 365
5 6 (2.59%) SaaS
6 5 (2.16%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (2.16%) Power Platform
7 4 (1.72%) OCI
7 4 (1.72%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.29%) Power Automate
8 3 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
9 2 (0.86%) Apigee
9 2 (0.86%) Figma
10 1 (0.43%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.43%) Entra ID
10 1 (0.43%) iPaaS
10 1 (0.43%) Kong
10 1 (0.43%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 1 (0.43%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.43%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.16%) Power BI
2 3 (1.29%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.86%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.86%) SAP HANA
4 1 (0.43%) Big Data
4 1 (0.43%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.43%) Delta Lake
4 1 (0.43%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 43 (18.53%) 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 81 (34.91%) Social Skills
2 76 (32.76%) Finance
3 38 (16.38%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (12.07%) Banking
5 10 (4.31%) Influencing Skills
5 10 (4.31%) Public Sector
6 9 (3.88%) Legal
6 9 (3.88%) Retail
7 8 (3.45%) Marketing
8 7 (3.02%) Law
8 7 (3.02%) Telecoms
9 4 (1.72%) Police
10 3 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.29%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.86%) Aerospace
11 2 (0.86%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.86%) Games
11 2 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.86%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.29%) HTML
2 2 (0.86%) CSS
2 2 (0.86%) Flutter
2 2 (0.86%) JSON
2 2 (0.86%) React
2 2 (0.86%) REST
2 2 (0.86%) RESTful
2 2 (0.86%) XML
3 1 (0.43%) .NET
3 1 (0.43%) AngularJS
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
1 231 (99.57%) Product Ownership
2 18 (7.76%) Onboarding
3 11 (4.74%) Data Protection Act
4 10 (4.31%) Cloud Native
5 9 (3.88%) Mobile App
6 7 (3.02%) Analytical Mindset
6 7 (3.02%) CMDB
7 6 (2.59%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.86%) AI Agents
10 2 (0.86%) DTCC
10 2 (0.86%) Greenfield Project
10 2 (0.86%) Low-Code
10 2 (0.86%) Reinsurance
10 2 (0.86%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 1 (0.43%) Credit Risk
11 1 (0.43%) Private Cloud
11 1 (0.43%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 5 (2.16%) Windows
2 2 (0.86%) Android
2 2 (0.86%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.43%) Linux
3 1 (0.43%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.43%) VMS
3 1 (0.43%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (65.52%) Agile
2 114 (49.14%) Roadmaps
3 99 (42.67%) Product Backlog
4 89 (38.36%) User Stories
5 79 (34.05%) Stakeholder Management
6 73 (31.47%) Backlog Management
7 65 (28.02%) Scrum
8 57 (24.57%) Product Vision
9 53 (22.84%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 51 (21.98%) Product Roadmap
11 42 (18.10%) Acceptance Criteria
12 40 (17.24%) Continuous Improvement
13 37 (15.95%) Product Strategy
13 37 (15.95%) Sprint Planning
14 35 (15.09%) Problem-Solving
15 32 (13.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 29 (12.50%) Scaled Agile Framework
17 28 (12.07%) Decision-Making
18 27 (11.64%) Sprint Retrospective
19 26 (11.21%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 13 (5.60%) SQL
2 4 (1.72%) JavaScript
2 4 (1.72%) Python
3 2 (0.86%) Korn
4 1 (0.43%) Bash
4 1 (0.43%) C#
4 1 (0.43%) Java
4 1 (0.43%) Kotlin
4 1 (0.43%) PHP
4 1 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 33 (14.22%) Security Cleared
2 22 (9.48%) SC Cleared
3 18 (7.76%) CSPO
4 9 (3.88%) Degree
5 6 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.29%) CBAP
6 3 (1.29%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.86%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.86%) OCP
7 2 (0.86%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.43%) ACCA
8 1 (0.43%) APMP
8 1 (0.43%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.43%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.43%) CCNA
8 1 (0.43%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.43%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.43%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.43%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.90%) QA
2 7 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (3.02%) SLA
3 6 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 6 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27005
3 6 (2.59%) NCSC
4 4 (1.72%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.72%) GDPR
5 3 (1.29%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.86%) 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 (2.16%) Docker
2 1 (0.43%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 8 (3.45%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.43%) CASB
2 1 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
2 1 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 23 (9.91%) Microsoft
2 17 (7.33%) SAP
3 8 (3.45%) ServiceNow
4 7 (3.02%) Salesforce
5 4 (1.72%) Databricks
5 4 (1.72%) Oracle
5 4 (1.72%) Workday
6 2 (0.86%) IBM
6 2 (0.86%) IBM Sterling
7 1 (0.43%) Adobe
7 1 (0.43%) Apple
7 1 (0.43%) Ariba
7 1 (0.43%) Cisco
7 1 (0.43%) Cognizant
7 1 (0.43%) DocuSign
7 1 (0.43%) Google
7 1 (0.43%) Guidewire
7 1 (0.43%) MuleSoft
7 1 (0.43%) Netskope
7 1 (0.43%) Splunk