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 30 July 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 353 365 344
Rank change year-on-year +12 -21 +33
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 337 181 237
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.55% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.69% 0.60% 0.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 200 129 172
10th Percentile £400 £355 £400
25th Percentile £480 £405 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £501 £588
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% -14.81% -2.08%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £675
90th Percentile £750 £661 £762
UK excluding London median daily rate £518 £462 £550
% change year-on-year +11.95% -15.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 0 0
10th Percentile £72.48 - -
25th Percentile £80.88 - -
Median hourly rate £87.16 - -
75th Percentile £102.45 - -
90th Percentile £104.50 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £87.16 - -

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 49,068 30,025 37,043
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.63% 91.50% 92.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,609 19,114 23,981
10th Percentile £331 £282 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,359 1,460 2,193
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.69 £14.05
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £19.09
Median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.38% -40.82% -1.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +7.50%

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 30 July 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 30 July 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 30 July 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 +14 304 £525 +4.27% 89
London +12 168 £538 +2.38% 44
UK excluding London -37 137 £518 +11.95% 56
Work from Home -3 103 £550 +10.00% 48
North of England -33 50 £500 -9.09% 13
South East -42 44 £650 +44.44% 23
Yorkshire -18 31 £503 -1.80% 3
Midlands -57 25 £525 +38.52% 8
West Midlands -50 21 £525 +1.94% 4
North West -46 15 £574 -2.88% 10
Scotland -14 9 £531 +14.86% 1
South West -41 8 £500 -1.96% 8
East of England -11 6 £475 +15.15%
East Midlands -24 4 £388 +8.38% 4
North East -42 4 £450 -5.26%

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

For the 6 months to 30 July 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.

1 193 (57.27%) Agile
2 180 (53.41%) Roadmaps
3 139 (41.25%) User Stories
4 132 (39.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 131 (38.87%) Product Backlog
6 116 (34.42%) Backlog Prioritisation
7 105 (31.16%) Product Roadmap
8 89 (26.41%) Acceptance Criteria
9 86 (25.52%) Backlog Management
10 80 (23.74%) Product Vision
11 74 (21.96%) Continuous Improvement
12 71 (21.07%) Decision-Making
13 64 (18.99%) Security Cleared
14 61 (18.10%) Sprint Planning
15 60 (17.80%) Scrum
16 57 (16.91%) JIRA
17 54 (16.02%) SC Cleared
18 52 (15.43%) AI
19 46 (13.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 45 (13.35%) Product Management
21 44 (13.06%) Analytics
22 42 (12.46%) Epics
22 42 (12.46%) Problem-Solving
23 41 (12.17%) AWS
24 39 (11.57%) Confluence
25 35 (10.39%) User Experience
26 33 (9.79%) Product Requirements
27 32 (9.50%) Scaled Agile Framework
28 31 (9.20%) DevOps
28 31 (9.20%) Kanban

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 39 (11.57%) Confluence
2 6 (1.78%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.89%) CMS
5 2 (0.59%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.30%) Apache
6 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.30%) Mendix
6 1 (0.30%) Moodle
6 1 (0.30%) Mule
6 1 (0.30%) Mule ESB
6 1 (0.30%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.89%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.30%) Notion
Business Applications
1 10 (2.97%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.08%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.89%) SAP SD
4 2 (0.59%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.59%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.59%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.59%) Workfront
5 1 (0.30%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.30%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 1 (0.30%) SAP IS-U
5 1 (0.30%) Sonata
Cloud Services
1 41 (12.17%) AWS
2 27 (8.01%) Azure
3 11 (3.26%) GCP
4 10 (2.97%) Collibra
5 9 (2.67%) Dynamics 365
5 9 (2.67%) SaaS
6 8 (2.37%) Power Platform
7 7 (2.08%) Figma
7 7 (2.08%) OpenShift
8 6 (1.78%) GitHub
9 5 (1.48%) Amazon S3
9 5 (1.48%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (1.48%) Entra ID
10 4 (1.19%) Miro
10 4 (1.19%) PaaS
11 3 (0.89%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 3 (0.89%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (0.89%) CloudFront
11 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Purview
11 3 (0.89%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.78%) DNS
1 6 (1.78%) Firewall
2 5 (1.48%) Broadband
2 5 (1.48%) Network Security
3 3 (0.89%) NGFW
4 2 (0.59%) Wireless
5 1 (0.30%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (0.30%) NGN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (5.64%) Metadata
2 10 (2.97%) Delta Lake
3 9 (2.67%) Parquet
4 6 (1.78%) Data Lake
4 6 (1.78%) Power BI
5 5 (1.48%) DTS
6 3 (0.89%) Big Data
6 3 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.59%) GIS
7 2 (0.59%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.30%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.30%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.30%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.30%) Looker
8 1 (0.30%) Semantic Layer
8 1 (0.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 1 (0.30%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 57 (16.91%) JIRA
2 2 (0.59%) Postman
3 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
3 1 (0.30%) JUnit
3 1 (0.30%) REST Assured
General
1 93 (27.60%) Social Skills
2 90 (26.71%) Finance
3 50 (14.84%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (12.17%) Banking
5 26 (7.72%) Marketing
5 26 (7.72%) Public Sector
5 26 (7.72%) Retail
6 18 (5.34%) Legal
7 15 (4.45%) Aerospace
7 15 (4.45%) Pharmaceutical
8 14 (4.15%) Influencing Skills
9 13 (3.86%) Retail Banking
10 10 (2.97%) Corporate Banking
11 9 (2.67%) Investment Banking
11 9 (2.67%) Manufacturing
12 6 (1.78%) Military
13 5 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.89%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.89%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (2.97%) SailPoint
2 8 (2.37%) OAuth
3 5 (1.48%) OpenID
3 5 (1.48%) SAML
4 4 (1.19%) LDAP
5 3 (0.89%) 802.1X
5 3 (0.89%) JSON
6 2 (0.59%) Azure Blueprints
6 2 (0.59%) Faiss
6 2 (0.59%) FHIR
6 2 (0.59%) Gherkin
6 2 (0.59%) LangChain
6 2 (0.59%) LangGraph
6 2 (0.59%) XML
7 1 (0.30%) Flutter
7 1 (0.30%) Jakarta EE
7 1 (0.30%) Keycloak
7 1 (0.30%) REST
7 1 (0.30%) Ruby on Rails
7 1 (0.30%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 335 (99.41%) Product Ownership
2 21 (6.23%) Onboarding
3 14 (4.15%) Legacy Systems
4 13 (3.86%) Data Protection Act
5 12 (3.56%) Analytical Mindset
6 11 (3.26%) Life Science
6 11 (3.26%) Marketing Technology
7 9 (2.67%) Distributed Computing
8 6 (1.78%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.48%) Cloud Native
9 5 (1.48%) Credit Risk
9 5 (1.48%) FMCG
9 5 (1.48%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.48%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.48%) Social Media
9 5 (1.48%) Virtual Team
10 4 (1.19%) CCTV
10 4 (1.19%) Mobile App
10 4 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.89%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 8 (2.37%) Linux
2 7 (2.08%) Windows
3 6 (1.78%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 193 (57.27%) Agile
2 180 (53.41%) Roadmaps
3 139 (41.25%) User Stories
4 132 (39.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 131 (38.87%) Product Backlog
6 116 (34.42%) Backlog Prioritisation
7 105 (31.16%) Product Roadmap
8 89 (26.41%) Acceptance Criteria
9 86 (25.52%) Backlog Management
10 80 (23.74%) Product Vision
11 74 (21.96%) Continuous Improvement
12 71 (21.07%) Decision-Making
13 61 (18.10%) Sprint Planning
14 60 (17.80%) Scrum
15 52 (15.43%) AI
16 46 (13.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 45 (13.35%) Product Management
18 44 (13.06%) Analytics
19 42 (12.46%) Epics
19 42 (12.46%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 24 (7.12%) SQL
2 20 (5.93%) Python
3 2 (0.59%) ABAP
3 2 (0.59%) Java
4 1 (0.30%) Kotlin
4 1 (0.30%) PHP
4 1 (0.30%) PL/SQL
4 1 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 64 (18.99%) Security Cleared
2 54 (16.02%) SC Cleared
3 16 (4.75%) Degree
4 14 (4.15%) CSPO
5 7 (2.08%) CISSP
6 6 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.48%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.48%) DV Cleared
8 4 (1.19%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.89%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.59%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.59%) TOGAF Certification
11 1 (0.30%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (8.61%) Data Quality
2 23 (6.82%) QA
3 10 (2.97%) GxP
4 8 (2.37%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 5 (1.48%) GDPR
5 5 (1.48%) GRC
6 4 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (1.19%) NIST
7 3 (0.89%) Accessibility
7 3 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 3 (0.89%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.59%) EU AI Act
8 2 (0.59%) SLA
8 2 (0.59%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.30%) Basel II
9 1 (0.30%) PERC
9 1 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 9 (2.67%) Active Directory
2 8 (2.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.78%) Ceph
3 6 (1.78%) Hyper-V
3 6 (1.78%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.30%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 4 (1.19%) Terraform
2 3 (0.89%) Ansible
2 3 (0.89%) CASB
2 3 (0.89%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.59%) Argo
3 2 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.30%) PingFederate
4 1 (0.30%) PowerCLI
4 1 (0.30%) vCenter Server
4 1 (0.30%) vRealize
4 1 (0.30%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 30 (8.90%) Microsoft
2 25 (7.42%) Salesforce
3 10 (2.97%) Adobe
3 10 (2.97%) SAP
4 9 (2.67%) Atlassian
4 9 (2.67%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
4 9 (2.67%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.37%) VMware
6 5 (1.48%) Databricks
6 5 (1.48%) Google
6 5 (1.48%) Okta
6 5 (1.48%) Ping Identity
7 4 (1.19%) Cisco
7 4 (1.19%) ForeScout
7 4 (1.19%) ForgeRock
7 4 (1.19%) Fortinet
7 4 (1.19%) Infoblox
7 4 (1.19%) Oracle
7 4 (1.19%) Splunk
7 4 (1.19%) Zscaler