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 5 February 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 372 324 315
Rank change year-on-year -48 -9 +93
Contract jobs requiring a Product Owner 232 208 299
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.59% 0.67% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.65% 0.72% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 147 111 204
10th Percentile £410 £460 £420
25th Percentile £462 £513 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £675 £675
90th Percentile £680 £713 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £486 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -15.43% +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 35,817 28,937 41,417
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.49% 92.92% 93.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,569 17,745 27,379
10th Percentile £300 £292 £275
25th Percentile £405 £408 £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 £475 £477 £490
% change year-on-year -0.42% -2.65% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,156 846 2,282
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.92 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.57 £21.25 £16.54
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -5.71% -
75th Percentile £61.31 £62.50 £61.52
90th Percentile £71.25 £75.00 £72.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £32.13 £35.98
% change year-on-year -12.85% -10.69% +10.69%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -47 213 £525 -12.50% 128
UK excluding London +1 117 £486 -15.43% 87
London -68 93 £561 -12.30% 54
Work from Home -25 60 £525 -19.23% 75
North of England -14 52 £475 -20.83% 28
South East -34 32 £525 -8.70% 31
Midlands -37 26 £500 +6.67% 16
North West -5 25 £469 -21.83% 16
Yorkshire -37 21 £486 -18.96% 8
East Midlands -12 14 £506 - 4
West Midlands -33 12 £500 +6.67% 12
South West - 4 £449 - 6
North East - 4 £475 - 4
Scotland +10 3 - - 4
Wales - 1 £450 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 5 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.

1 146 (62.93%) Agile
2 113 (48.71%) Roadmaps
3 93 (40.09%) Product Backlog
4 86 (37.07%) User Stories
5 80 (34.48%) Stakeholder Management
6 63 (27.16%) Backlog Management
7 61 (26.29%) Scrum
8 58 (25.00%) Product Vision
9 53 (22.84%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 50 (21.55%) Product Roadmap
11 44 (18.97%) Acceptance Criteria
12 42 (18.10%) Security Cleared
13 41 (17.67%) Continuous Improvement
14 38 (16.38%) Sprint Planning
15 37 (15.95%) JIRA
16 33 (14.22%) Product Strategy
17 32 (13.79%) Problem-Solving
18 30 (12.93%) Decision-Making
19 28 (12.07%) Product Management
20 27 (11.64%) DevOps
20 27 (11.64%) Scaled Agile Framework
21 26 (11.21%) Microsoft
21 26 (11.21%) SC Cleared
21 26 (11.21%) Sprint Retrospective
22 25 (10.78%) Customer Experience
22 25 (10.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 25 (10.78%) User Experience
23 24 (10.34%) Confluence
24 23 (9.91%) AWS
25 22 (9.48%) 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 24 (10.34%) Confluence
2 4 (1.72%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.29%) CMS
4 2 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.86%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.43%) Appian
5 1 (0.43%) nginx
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 5 (2.16%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.72%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.86%) Finacle
3 2 (0.86%) Oracle EBS
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 19 (8.19%) Azure
3 10 (4.31%) GCP
4 8 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
4 8 (3.45%) Dynamics 365
5 6 (2.59%) SaaS
6 5 (2.16%) Power Platform
7 4 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
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
9 2 (0.86%) OCI
10 1 (0.43%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.43%) Entra ID
10 1 (0.43%) Kong
10 1 (0.43%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 1 (0.43%) Serverless
10 1 (0.43%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 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%) 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
Development Applications
1 37 (15.95%) 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 86 (37.07%) Social Skills
2 81 (34.91%) Finance
3 40 (17.24%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (11.64%) Banking
5 15 (6.47%) Public Sector
6 9 (3.88%) Legal
7 8 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (3.02%) Law
8 7 (3.02%) Marketing
9 5 (2.16%) Retail
9 5 (2.16%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.72%) Police
11 2 (0.86%) Back Office
11 2 (0.86%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.86%) Games
11 2 (0.86%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.43%) Electronics
12 1 (0.43%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.43%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.29%) HTML
2 2 (0.86%) AngularJS
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%) Django
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 15 (6.47%) Onboarding
3 10 (4.31%) Data Protection Act
3 10 (4.31%) Mobile App
4 9 (3.88%) Cloud Native
5 8 (3.45%) Analytical Mindset
6 7 (3.02%) CMDB
7 6 (2.59%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.72%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.86%) AI Agents
10 2 (0.86%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 2 (0.86%) Low-Code
10 2 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.86%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 1 (0.43%) Fixed Income
11 1 (0.43%) Freedom of Information
11 1 (0.43%) Management Information System
11 1 (0.43%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 7 (3.02%) Windows
2 2 (0.86%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.43%) Android
3 1 (0.43%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.43%) Linux
3 1 (0.43%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.43%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (62.93%) Agile
2 113 (48.71%) Roadmaps
3 93 (40.09%) Product Backlog
4 86 (37.07%) User Stories
5 80 (34.48%) Stakeholder Management
6 63 (27.16%) Backlog Management
7 61 (26.29%) Scrum
8 58 (25.00%) Product Vision
9 53 (22.84%) Backlog Prioritisation
10 50 (21.55%) Product Roadmap
11 44 (18.97%) Acceptance Criteria
12 41 (17.67%) Continuous Improvement
13 38 (16.38%) Sprint Planning
14 33 (14.22%) Product Strategy
15 32 (13.79%) Problem-Solving
16 30 (12.93%) Decision-Making
17 28 (12.07%) Product Management
18 27 (11.64%) DevOps
18 27 (11.64%) Scaled Agile Framework
19 26 (11.21%) Sprint Retrospective
Programming Languages
1 15 (6.47%) SQL
2 6 (2.59%) Python
3 5 (2.16%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.86%) C#
4 2 (0.86%) Korn
5 1 (0.43%) Bash
5 1 (0.43%) Java
5 1 (0.43%) Kotlin
5 1 (0.43%) PHP
5 1 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 42 (18.10%) Security Cleared
2 26 (11.21%) SC Cleared
3 16 (6.90%) CSPO
4 10 (4.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (3.02%) Degree
6 4 (1.72%) DV Cleared
7 3 (1.29%) CBAP
8 2 (0.86%) AWS Certification
8 2 (0.86%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.86%) OCP
8 2 (0.86%) Oracle Certification
9 1 (0.43%) ACCA
9 1 (0.43%) APMP
9 1 (0.43%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.43%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.43%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.33%) QA
2 7 (3.02%) Data Quality
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 5 (2.16%) GDPR
5 3 (1.29%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.86%) Accessibility
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 2 (0.86%) 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 26 (11.21%) Microsoft
2 15 (6.47%) SAP
3 10 (4.31%) Salesforce
4 8 (3.45%) ServiceNow
5 5 (2.16%) Databricks
6 4 (1.72%) Workday
7 2 (0.86%) CA Agile Central
7 2 (0.86%) Cognizant
7 2 (0.86%) IBM
7 2 (0.86%) IBM Sterling
7 2 (0.86%) Oracle
8 1 (0.43%) Adobe
8 1 (0.43%) Apple
8 1 (0.43%) Cisco
8 1 (0.43%) DocuSign
8 1 (0.43%) Google
8 1 (0.43%) Guidewire
8 1 (0.43%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.43%) Netskope
8 1 (0.43%) Splunk