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 21 February 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 379 330 310
Rank change year-on-year -49 -20 +82
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 232 204 312
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.66% 0.70%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.62% 0.71% 0.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 114 208
10th Percentile £413 £461 £409
25th Percentile £463 £513 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £675 £650
90th Percentile £736 £713 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £575 £525
% change year-on-year -13.04% +9.52% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 4 1
10th Percentile £47.10 £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 £68.08 £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 37,575 28,553 41,560
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 92.90% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,586 17,823 27,337
10th Percentile £306 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,283 827 2,341
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.50
Median hourly rate £31.49 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.38% -2.86% -10.26%
75th Percentile £63.75 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.95
% change year-on-year -7.69% -9.60% +0.42%

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 21 February 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 -51 215 £525 -12.50% 81
UK excluding London -25 119 £500 -13.04% 67
London -69 92 £570 -10.94% 31
Work from Home -24 65 £525 -19.23% 50
North of England -9 60 £475 -20.83% 23
South East -39 31 £550 -4.35% 24
North West -10 28 £488 -18.75% 16
Yorkshire -38 26 £486 -18.96% 3
Midlands -40 21 £520 +28.00% 12
East Midlands -16 12 £525 +47.47% 4
West Midlands -48 9 £516 +10.13% 8
North East - 4 £475 - 4
South West - 4 £449 - 6
Scotland +2 2 - - 2
Wales - 1 £450 -

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

For the 6 months to 21 February 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.

1 130 (56.03%) Agile
2 114 (49.14%) Roadmaps
3 82 (35.34%) Product Backlog
4 79 (34.05%) Stakeholder Management
4 79 (34.05%) User Stories
5 54 (23.28%) Backlog Management
6 53 (22.84%) Product Vision
7 50 (21.55%) Product Roadmap
8 49 (21.12%) Scrum
9 48 (20.69%) Backlog Prioritisation
9 48 (20.69%) Security Cleared
10 42 (18.10%) Acceptance Criteria
10 42 (18.10%) Continuous Improvement
11 36 (15.52%) Sprint Planning
12 35 (15.09%) JIRA
13 33 (14.22%) Decision-Making
14 31 (13.36%) Product Strategy
15 30 (12.93%) SC Cleared
16 29 (12.50%) Product Management
17 28 (12.07%) User Experience
18 27 (11.64%) Problem-Solving
19 26 (11.21%) Customer Experience
19 26 (11.21%) DevOps
20 25 (10.78%) Microsoft
21 24 (10.34%) AWS
21 24 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 23 (9.91%) Confluence
22 23 (9.91%) Scaled Agile Framework
23 22 (9.48%) Sprint Retrospective
24 19 (8.19%) Azure

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 (9.91%) Confluence
2 6 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.72%) SharePoint
4 3 (1.29%) CMS
5 1 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.43%) Appian
5 1 (0.43%) Mule
5 1 (0.43%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.43%) nginx
5 1 (0.43%) WebSphere
Applications
1 2 (0.86%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.43%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Excel
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 4 (1.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.86%) Finacle
2 2 (0.86%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.43%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.43%) Oracle Payroll
3 1 (0.43%) ProductWriter
3 1 (0.43%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.43%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 24 (10.34%) AWS
2 19 (8.19%) Azure
3 10 (4.31%) GCP
4 7 (3.02%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (2.59%) Dynamics 365
5 6 (2.59%) Power Platform
5 6 (2.59%) SaaS
6 4 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (1.72%) OpenShift
7 3 (1.29%) Amazon Bedrock
7 3 (1.29%) Amazon S3
7 3 (1.29%) AWS Lambda
7 3 (1.29%) Power Automate
7 3 (1.29%) Serverless
7 3 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
8 2 (0.86%) Amazon ECR
8 2 (0.86%) Amazon EKS
8 2 (0.86%) Amazon EventBridge
8 2 (0.86%) Amazon OpenSearch
8 2 (0.86%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.72%) DNS
2 1 (0.43%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.16%) Power BI
2 2 (0.86%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.86%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (0.86%) Delta Lake
2 2 (0.86%) Pinecone
2 2 (0.86%) SAP HANA
2 2 (0.86%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (0.43%) Big Data
3 1 (0.43%) Metadata
3 1 (0.43%) MySQL
3 1 (0.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 35 (15.09%) JIRA
2 1 (0.43%) Cucumber
2 1 (0.43%) Git
2 1 (0.43%) JUnit
2 1 (0.43%) Postman
2 1 (0.43%) REST Assured
2 1 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
2 1 (0.43%) Vite
General
1 78 (33.62%) Finance
1 78 (33.62%) Social Skills
2 34 (14.66%) Analytical Skills
3 23 (9.91%) Banking
4 14 (6.03%) Public Sector
5 10 (4.31%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (3.88%) Marketing
7 8 (3.45%) Legal
8 7 (3.02%) Law
8 7 (3.02%) Retail
9 5 (2.16%) Military
9 5 (2.16%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.72%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.72%) Police
11 3 (1.29%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.86%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.43%) Documentation Skills
13 1 (0.43%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.43%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.43%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.72%) JSON
1 4 (1.72%) XML
2 3 (1.29%) Flutter
2 3 (1.29%) REST
3 2 (0.86%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.86%) CSS
3 2 (0.86%) Faiss
3 2 (0.86%) HTML
3 2 (0.86%) LangChain
3 2 (0.86%) LangGraph
3 2 (0.86%) React
3 2 (0.86%) RESTful
4 1 (0.43%) .NET
4 1 (0.43%) ADO
4 1 (0.43%) Django
4 1 (0.43%) J2EE
4 1 (0.43%) OAuth
4 1 (0.43%) SOAP
4 1 (0.43%) Web Services
4 1 (0.43%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 232 (100.00%) Product Ownership
2 16 (6.90%) Onboarding
3 10 (4.31%) Mobile App
4 9 (3.88%) Cloud Native
4 9 (3.88%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (3.88%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (3.02%) CMDB
6 6 (2.59%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (2.59%) Public Cloud
7 5 (2.16%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.29%) AI Agents
9 3 (1.29%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 3 (1.29%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 2 (0.86%) Credit Risk
10 2 (0.86%) Low-Code
10 2 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
11 1 (0.43%) FMCG
11 1 (0.43%) Learning Management System
11 1 (0.43%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 11 (4.74%) Windows
2 6 (2.59%) Windows Server
3 5 (2.16%) Linux
4 1 (0.43%) Android
4 1 (0.43%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.43%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.43%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (56.03%) Agile
2 114 (49.14%) Roadmaps
3 82 (35.34%) Product Backlog
4 79 (34.05%) Stakeholder Management
4 79 (34.05%) User Stories
5 54 (23.28%) Backlog Management
6 53 (22.84%) Product Vision
7 50 (21.55%) Product Roadmap
8 49 (21.12%) Scrum
9 48 (20.69%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 42 (18.10%) Acceptance Criteria
10 42 (18.10%) Continuous Improvement
11 36 (15.52%) Sprint Planning
12 33 (14.22%) Decision-Making
13 31 (13.36%) Product Strategy
14 29 (12.50%) Product Management
15 28 (12.07%) User Experience
16 27 (11.64%) Problem-Solving
17 26 (11.21%) Customer Experience
17 26 (11.21%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 12 (5.17%) SQL
2 5 (2.16%) Python
3 4 (1.72%) JavaScript
4 3 (1.29%) Java
5 2 (0.86%) C#
5 2 (0.86%) Korn
5 2 (0.86%) Kotlin
6 1 (0.43%) Bash
6 1 (0.43%) PHP
6 1 (0.43%) PL/SQL
6 1 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 48 (20.69%) Security Cleared
2 30 (12.93%) SC Cleared
3 14 (6.03%) CSPO
4 10 (4.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (3.88%) Degree
6 5 (2.16%) DV Cleared
7 3 (1.29%) CBAP
7 3 (1.29%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.86%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.43%) ACCA
9 1 (0.43%) APMP
9 1 (0.43%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.43%) OCP
9 1 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
9 1 (0.43%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.43%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.33%) QA
2 8 (3.45%) Data Quality
3 7 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (3.02%) SLA
4 6 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 6 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27005
4 6 (2.59%) NCSC
5 5 (2.16%) GDPR
6 3 (1.29%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.43%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.43%) NIST
7 1 (0.43%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.43%) PERC
7 1 (0.43%) SEPA
System Software
1 6 (2.59%) Active Directory
2 5 (2.16%) Docker
3 4 (1.72%) Hyper-V
3 4 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
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 25 (10.78%) Microsoft
2 14 (6.03%) SAP
3 11 (4.74%) Salesforce
4 8 (3.45%) ServiceNow
5 6 (2.59%) Databricks
6 4 (1.72%) VMware
6 4 (1.72%) Workday
7 3 (1.29%) Oracle
8 2 (0.86%) CA Agile Central
8 2 (0.86%) Cognizant
8 2 (0.86%) IBM
8 2 (0.86%) IBM Sterling
9 1 (0.43%) Adobe
9 1 (0.43%) Apple
9 1 (0.43%) DocuSign
9 1 (0.43%) Epicor
9 1 (0.43%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.43%) Netskope
9 1 (0.43%) Xero
9 1 (0.43%) Zscaler