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 14 August 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 362 351 353
Rank change year-on-year -11 +2 +27
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 327 208 201
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 0.63% 0.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.66% 0.69% 0.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 193 145 151
10th Percentile £400 £353 £400
25th Percentile £475 £405 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £600
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -16.67% -
75th Percentile £625 £619 £688
90th Percentile £726 £660 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £475 £550
% change year-on-year +6.63% -13.64% -0.59%
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 49,408 30,056 36,163
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.31% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,654 19,017 23,287
10th Percentile £325 £281 £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 3,477 1,528 2,029
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.59 £14.23
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.29 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +2.00%
75th Percentile £67.98 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.13 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +71.50% -44.11% +23.29%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -13 295 £525 +4.90% 150
London -5 167 £550 +4.76% 98
UK excluding London -62 129 £507 +6.63% 65
Work from Home -4 96 £558 +6.19% 60
North of England -34 44 £528 -1.72% 19
South East -51 41 £588 +30.56% 25
Yorkshire -16 26 £507 +1.30% 2
Midlands -53 24 £525 +30.92% 8
West Midlands -43 20 £525 +5.00% 7
North West -35 17 £574 -2.88% 16
South West -51 10 £500 -11.97% 4
Scotland -9 9 £531 +14.86% 2
East of England -16 6 £475 +11.76% 5
East Midlands -35 4 £388 +2.11% 1
North East -43 1 £400 -15.79% 1

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

For the 6 months to 14 August 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.

1 190 (58.10%) Agile
2 171 (52.29%) Roadmaps
3 135 (41.28%) Stakeholder Management
3 135 (41.28%) User Stories
4 128 (39.14%) Product Backlog
5 114 (34.86%) Backlog Prioritisation
6 95 (29.05%) Product Roadmap
7 90 (27.52%) Backlog Management
8 85 (25.99%) Acceptance Criteria
9 78 (23.85%) Product Vision
10 74 (22.63%) Continuous Improvement
11 65 (19.88%) Decision-Making
12 62 (18.96%) Scrum
13 61 (18.65%) JIRA
14 58 (17.74%) Sprint Planning
15 57 (17.43%) Security Cleared
16 52 (15.90%) AI
17 49 (14.98%) SC Cleared
18 46 (14.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 45 (13.76%) Epics
19 45 (13.76%) Product Management
20 43 (13.15%) Analytics
20 43 (13.15%) AWS
21 42 (12.84%) Problem-Solving
22 41 (12.54%) Confluence
23 33 (10.09%) DevOps
23 33 (10.09%) Product Strategy
23 33 (10.09%) Scaled Agile Framework
24 32 (9.79%) Product Requirements
25 31 (9.48%) 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 41 (12.54%) Confluence
2 5 (1.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 4 (1.22%) CMS
4 3 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.61%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.31%) Apache
6 1 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.31%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.31%) Mendix
6 1 (0.31%) Moodle
6 1 (0.31%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.92%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.61%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.31%) Notion
Business Applications
1 10 (3.06%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.14%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.92%) SAP SD
4 2 (0.61%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.61%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.61%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.61%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.61%) Workfront
5 1 (0.31%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.31%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 1 (0.31%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.31%) SAP IS-U
5 1 (0.31%) Sonata
Cloud Services
1 43 (13.15%) AWS
2 30 (9.17%) Azure
3 11 (3.36%) GCP
4 10 (3.06%) Collibra
5 9 (2.75%) Dynamics 365
5 9 (2.75%) SaaS
6 8 (2.45%) Power Platform
7 7 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (2.14%) Figma
7 7 (2.14%) OpenShift
8 6 (1.83%) GitHub
9 5 (1.53%) Entra ID
10 4 (1.22%) Amazon S3
10 4 (1.22%) Miro
10 4 (1.22%) PaaS
11 3 (0.92%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 3 (0.92%) CloudFront
11 3 (0.92%) Microsoft Purview
11 3 (0.92%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 2 (0.61%) Amazon Bedrock
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.83%) Firewall
2 5 (1.53%) Broadband
2 5 (1.53%) Network Security
3 3 (0.92%) DNS
3 3 (0.92%) NGFW
4 2 (0.61%) Wireless
5 1 (0.31%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (0.31%) NGN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (5.81%) Metadata
2 9 (2.75%) Delta Lake
2 9 (2.75%) Parquet
3 6 (1.83%) Power BI
4 5 (1.53%) Data Lake
4 5 (1.53%) DTS
5 3 (0.92%) Big Data
5 3 (0.92%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.61%) GIS
6 2 (0.61%) Pinecone
7 1 (0.31%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.31%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.31%) Geospatial Data
7 1 (0.31%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.31%) Looker
7 1 (0.31%) Semantic Layer
7 1 (0.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.31%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 61 (18.65%) JIRA
2 2 (0.61%) Postman
General
1 92 (28.13%) Social Skills
2 85 (25.99%) Finance
3 49 (14.98%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (12.54%) Banking
5 27 (8.26%) Marketing
5 27 (8.26%) Retail
6 22 (6.73%) Public Sector
7 17 (5.20%) Legal
8 16 (4.89%) Aerospace
8 16 (4.89%) Influencing Skills
9 14 (4.28%) Pharmaceutical
10 13 (3.98%) Retail Banking
11 11 (3.36%) Manufacturing
12 10 (3.06%) Corporate Banking
13 9 (2.75%) Investment Banking
14 5 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
15 3 (0.92%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.92%) Military
15 3 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.92%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (3.06%) SailPoint
2 8 (2.45%) OAuth
3 5 (1.53%) OpenID
3 5 (1.53%) SAML
4 4 (1.22%) LDAP
5 3 (0.92%) 802.1X
6 2 (0.61%) Azure Blueprints
6 2 (0.61%) Faiss
6 2 (0.61%) FHIR
6 2 (0.61%) Gherkin
6 2 (0.61%) LangChain
6 2 (0.61%) LangGraph
7 1 (0.31%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.31%) cloud-init
7 1 (0.31%) JSON
7 1 (0.31%) Keycloak
7 1 (0.31%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.31%) REST
7 1 (0.31%) Ruby on Rails
7 1 (0.31%) WebAuthn
Miscellaneous
1 325 (99.39%) Product Ownership
2 21 (6.42%) Onboarding
3 13 (3.98%) Data Protection Act
4 12 (3.67%) Analytical Mindset
5 11 (3.36%) Life Science
5 11 (3.36%) Marketing Technology
6 10 (3.06%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (2.75%) Distributed Computing
8 6 (1.83%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.53%) Cloud Native
9 5 (1.53%) Credit Risk
9 5 (1.53%) Data Fabric
9 5 (1.53%) FMCG
9 5 (1.53%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.53%) Social Media
9 5 (1.53%) Virtual Team
10 4 (1.22%) AI Agents
10 4 (1.22%) CCTV
10 4 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.53%) Linux
2 4 (1.22%) Windows
3 3 (0.92%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 190 (58.10%) Agile
2 171 (52.29%) Roadmaps
3 135 (41.28%) Stakeholder Management
3 135 (41.28%) User Stories
4 128 (39.14%) Product Backlog
5 114 (34.86%) Backlog Prioritisation
6 95 (29.05%) Product Roadmap
7 90 (27.52%) Backlog Management
8 85 (25.99%) Acceptance Criteria
9 78 (23.85%) Product Vision
10 74 (22.63%) Continuous Improvement
11 65 (19.88%) Decision-Making
12 62 (18.96%) Scrum
13 58 (17.74%) Sprint Planning
14 52 (15.90%) AI
15 46 (14.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 45 (13.76%) Epics
16 45 (13.76%) Product Management
17 43 (13.15%) Analytics
18 42 (12.84%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 22 (6.73%) SQL
2 19 (5.81%) Python
3 2 (0.61%) ABAP
4 1 (0.31%) Java
4 1 (0.31%) PHP
4 1 (0.31%) R
Qualifications
1 57 (17.43%) Security Cleared
2 49 (14.98%) SC Cleared
3 17 (5.20%) Degree
4 15 (4.59%) CSPO
5 7 (2.14%) CISSP
5 7 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.22%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.22%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.92%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.61%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.61%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.31%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (7.65%) Data Quality
2 22 (6.73%) QA
3 10 (3.06%) GxP
4 8 (2.45%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 5 (1.53%) GDPR
5 5 (1.53%) GRC
6 4 (1.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (1.22%) NIST
7 3 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 3 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.61%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.61%) EU AI Act
8 2 (0.61%) SLA
8 2 (0.61%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.31%) Basel II
9 1 (0.31%) PERC
9 1 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 6 (1.83%) Active Directory
1 6 (1.83%) Ceph
1 6 (1.83%) Virtual Machines
2 5 (1.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.92%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.31%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 4 (1.22%) Terraform
2 3 (0.92%) Ansible
2 3 (0.92%) CASB
2 3 (0.92%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (0.61%) Argo
4 1 (0.31%) PingFederate
4 1 (0.31%) PowerCLI
4 1 (0.31%) vCenter Server
4 1 (0.31%) vRealize
4 1 (0.31%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 27 (8.26%) Microsoft
2 24 (7.34%) Salesforce
3 11 (3.36%) Adobe
3 11 (3.36%) SAP
4 9 (2.75%) Atlassian
4 9 (2.75%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
4 9 (2.75%) ServiceNow
5 6 (1.83%) Okta
5 6 (1.83%) Ping Identity
6 5 (1.53%) ForgeRock
6 5 (1.53%) Google
6 5 (1.53%) VMware
7 4 (1.22%) Cisco
7 4 (1.22%) ForeScout
7 4 (1.22%) Fortinet
7 4 (1.22%) Infoblox
7 4 (1.22%) Oracle
7 4 (1.22%) Splunk
7 4 (1.22%) Zscaler
8 3 (0.92%) Epicor