Product Owner Contract Job Trends

Product Owner
UK

The median Product Owner daily rate in the UK is £530, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 March 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 377 345 320
Rank change year-on-year -32 -25 +65
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 250 175 302
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.59% 0.59% 0.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.64% 0.64% 0.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 155 100 204
10th Percentile £413 £413 £406
25th Percentile £463 £505 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -11.67% +4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £675 £650
90th Percentile £737 £713 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £525
% change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 1
10th Percentile - £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 £70.57 £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 39,016 27,486 41,551
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.97% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,419 17,729 27,243
10th Percentile £310 £293 £270
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.46%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.16% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,405 862 2,505
10th Percentile £14.91 £15.64 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £33.20 £32.69
Median % change year-on-year +5.42% +1.56% -22.84%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.10 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.75 £32.50 £32.70
% change year-on-year +3.85% -0.60% -18.26%

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 10 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 10 March 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 10 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 -25 230 £539 -10.21% 129
UK excluding London -15 123 £525 -4.55% 89
London -46 100 £565 -11.72% 58
Work from Home -28 68 £525 -18.70% 94
North of England -8 61 £492 -18.00% 25
South East -33 35 £575 +4.55% 28
North West -8 30 £561 -6.58% 20
Yorkshire -34 25 £486 -18.96% 3
Midlands -53 21 £525 +13.21% 10
East Midlands -22 13 £538 +50.98% 7
West Midlands -56 8 £520 - 3
North East - 4 £475 - 2
South West -25 3 £449 - 10
Scotland +4 2 - - 6
East of England -31 1 £425 - 9

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

For the 6 months to 10 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.

1 131 (52.40%) Agile
2 118 (47.20%) Roadmaps
3 82 (32.80%) Product Backlog
4 78 (31.20%) User Stories
5 77 (30.80%) Stakeholder Management
6 59 (23.60%) Product Vision
7 56 (22.40%) Backlog Management
8 54 (21.60%) Product Roadmap
9 51 (20.40%) Security Cleared
10 46 (18.40%) Scrum
11 45 (18.00%) Backlog Prioritisation
12 43 (17.20%) Continuous Improvement
13 42 (16.80%) Acceptance Criteria
14 36 (14.40%) Sprint Planning
15 35 (14.00%) JIRA
16 34 (13.60%) Decision-Making
16 34 (13.60%) Product Strategy
16 34 (13.60%) SC Cleared
17 31 (12.40%) Microsoft
18 28 (11.20%) Problem-Solving
18 28 (11.20%) Product Management
18 28 (11.20%) User Experience
19 26 (10.40%) AWS
20 25 (10.00%) DevOps
20 25 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 24 (9.60%) Customer Experience
22 23 (9.20%) Confluence
23 21 (8.40%) Scaled Agile Framework
24 19 (7.60%) AI
24 19 (7.60%) Analytics

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 23 (9.20%) Confluence
2 8 (3.20%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (2.00%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.80%) 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
Business Applications
1 6 (2.40%) 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 (10.40%) AWS
2 19 (7.60%) Azure
3 11 (4.40%) GCP
4 7 (2.80%) Dynamics 365
4 7 (2.80%) Power Platform
5 6 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (2.40%) SaaS
6 5 (2.00%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (1.60%) Amazon S3
7 4 (1.60%) OpenShift
7 4 (1.60%) Power Automate
8 3 (1.20%) Amazon Bedrock
8 3 (1.20%) Amazon OpenSearch
8 3 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (1.20%) Serverless
8 3 (1.20%) SuccessFactors
9 2 (0.80%) Amazon SageMaker
9 2 (0.80%) Apigee
9 2 (0.80%) OCI
9 2 (0.80%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.40%) DNS
1 6 (2.40%) Firewall
2 5 (2.00%) Network Security
3 3 (1.20%) NGFW
4 1 (0.40%) Cisco IPT
4 1 (0.40%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.40%) Power BI
2 2 (0.80%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (0.80%) Delta Lake
2 2 (0.80%) GIS
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%) Metadata
3 1 (0.40%) MySQL
3 1 (0.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 35 (14.00%) 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 81 (32.40%) Social Skills
2 73 (29.20%) Finance
3 34 (13.60%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (9.60%) Banking
5 14 (5.60%) Public Sector
6 12 (4.80%) Marketing
7 10 (4.00%) Legal
8 8 (3.20%) Retail
9 7 (2.80%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (2.80%) Law
10 6 (2.40%) Military
10 6 (2.40%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (1.60%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.60%) Police
11 4 (1.60%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.80%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.80%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.40%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.40%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.60%) JSON
1 4 (1.60%) 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%) J2EE
4 1 (0.40%) Laravel
4 1 (0.40%) LEMP Stack
4 1 (0.40%) OAuth
4 1 (0.40%) RESTful
4 1 (0.40%) Tailwind CSS
4 1 (0.40%) Vue
4 1 (0.40%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 250 (100.00%) Product Ownership
2 14 (5.60%) Onboarding
3 11 (4.40%) Legacy Systems
4 9 (3.60%) Cloud Native
4 9 (3.60%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (3.60%) Mobile App
5 7 (2.80%) CMDB
6 6 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (2.40%) Greenfield Project
6 6 (2.40%) Public Cloud
7 4 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
8 3 (1.20%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 2 (0.80%) AI Agents
9 2 (0.80%) Credit Risk
9 2 (0.80%) FMCG
9 2 (0.80%) Life Science
9 2 (0.80%) Low-Code
9 2 (0.80%) Security Posture
9 2 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.80%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.60%) Windows
2 8 (3.20%) Linux
2 8 (3.20%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.40%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (52.40%) Agile
2 118 (47.20%) Roadmaps
3 82 (32.80%) Product Backlog
4 78 (31.20%) User Stories
5 77 (30.80%) Stakeholder Management
6 59 (23.60%) Product Vision
7 56 (22.40%) Backlog Management
8 54 (21.60%) Product Roadmap
9 46 (18.40%) Scrum
10 45 (18.00%) Backlog Prioritisation
11 43 (17.20%) Continuous Improvement
12 42 (16.80%) Acceptance Criteria
13 36 (14.40%) Sprint Planning
14 34 (13.60%) Decision-Making
14 34 (13.60%) Product Strategy
15 28 (11.20%) Problem-Solving
15 28 (11.20%) Product Management
15 28 (11.20%) User Experience
16 25 (10.00%) DevOps
16 25 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 11 (4.40%) SQL
2 5 (2.00%) Python
3 3 (1.20%) Java
3 3 (1.20%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.80%) Kotlin
5 1 (0.40%) Bash
5 1 (0.40%) C#
5 1 (0.40%) Korn
5 1 (0.40%) PHP
5 1 (0.40%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.40%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 51 (20.40%) Security Cleared
2 34 (13.60%) SC Cleared
3 14 (5.60%) CSPO
4 11 (4.40%) Degree
5 10 (4.00%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.60%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.60%) 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 19 (7.60%) QA
2 11 (4.40%) Data Quality
3 10 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (3.60%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 8 (3.20%) SLA
6 6 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27005
6 6 (2.40%) NCSC
7 5 (2.00%) GDPR
8 4 (1.60%) NIST
9 3 (1.20%) Accessibility
9 3 (1.20%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.80%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.40%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 1 (0.40%) GRC
11 1 (0.40%) GxP
11 1 (0.40%) PERC
System Software
1 8 (3.20%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.40%) Hyper-V
4 5 (2.00%) Docker
5 1 (0.40%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (3.20%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.60%) 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 31 (12.40%) Microsoft
2 15 (6.00%) SAP
3 14 (5.60%) Salesforce
4 12 (4.80%) ServiceNow
5 7 (2.80%) VMware
6 6 (2.40%) Databricks
7 5 (2.00%) Cisco
7 5 (2.00%) Splunk
7 5 (2.00%) Zscaler
8 4 (1.60%) ForeScout
8 4 (1.60%) Fortinet
8 4 (1.60%) Infoblox
9 3 (1.20%) Epicor
9 3 (1.20%) Oracle
9 3 (1.20%) Workday
10 2 (0.80%) Adobe
10 2 (0.80%) Cognizant
10 2 (0.80%) ESRI
10 2 (0.80%) MuleSoft
10 2 (0.80%) Sage