Backlog Refinement Job Trends in the South East

Backlog Refinement (Backlog Grooming)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Backlog Refinement skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 250 299 281
Rank change year-on-year +49 -18 +56
Permanent jobs citing Backlog Refinement 22 4 8
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 0.21% 0.044% 0.092%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.26% 0.050% 0.10%
Number of salaries quoted 7 3 6
10th Percentile - - £57,125
25th Percentile £46,250 £47,500 £59,688
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £50,000 £71,250
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -29.82% +18.75%
75th Percentile £65,000 £53,750 £77,500
90th Percentile - £54,500 -
England median annual salary £65,000 £56,250 £75,000
% change year-on-year +15.56% -25.00% +20.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

Backlog Refinement falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 8,337 7,968 7,686
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 80.36% 88.02% 88.22%
Number of salaries quoted 4,949 3,830 5,339
10th Percentile £27,750 £32,975 £30,000
25th Percentile £34,250 £45,000 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £58,000 £52,550
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +10.37% -4.45%
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Backlog Refinement
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Backlog Refinement relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Backlog Refinement job vacancy trend in the South East

Backlog Refinement
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Backlog Refinement.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Backlog Refinement

Backlog Refinement
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Backlog Refinement in the South East over the 6 months to 10 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Backlog Refinement in the South East

Backlog Refinement
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Backlog Refinement within the South East region over the 6 months to 10 January 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Thames Valley +28 14 £47,500 -13.64% 4
Buckinghamshire +10 8 £47,500 -13.64% 2
Hampshire - 8 - - 5
Berkshire - 6 - - 1
Backlog Refinement
England

Backlog Refinement
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 6 (27.27%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 6 (27.27%) Azure
2 4 (18.18%) AWS
2 4 (18.18%) GCP
3 3 (13.64%) Azure AI
3 3 (13.64%) Miro
3 3 (13.64%) Vertex AI
4 2 (9.09%) AWS CloudFormation
4 2 (9.09%) Azure DevOps
Development Applications
1 8 (36.36%) JIRA
2 2 (9.09%) GitLab
2 2 (9.09%) Jenkins
2 2 (9.09%) Robot Framework
2 2 (9.09%) Selenium
2 2 (9.09%) TestRail
General
1 16 (72.73%) Social Skills
2 6 (27.27%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (27.27%) Marketing
3 3 (13.64%) Law
3 3 (13.64%) Legal
4 2 (9.09%) Aerospace
5 1 (4.55%) Banking
5 1 (4.55%) Finance
Job Titles
1 7 (31.82%) Product Manager
2 6 (27.27%) Product Owner
2 6 (27.27%) Senior
2 6 (27.27%) Senior Manager
3 3 (13.64%) Product Delivery Manager
3 3 (13.64%) Project Manager
3 3 (13.64%) Senior Project Manager
4 2 (9.09%) Manual Tester
4 2 (9.09%) Tester
5 1 (4.55%) Analyst
5 1 (4.55%) Infrastructure Tester
5 1 (4.55%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (9.09%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (4.55%) OAuth
2 1 (4.55%) OAuth2
2 1 (4.55%) OpenID
2 1 (4.55%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (59.09%) Product Ownership
2 4 (18.18%) Management Information System
3 3 (13.64%) AI Agents
3 3 (13.64%) Life Science
3 3 (13.64%) Onboarding
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (100.00%) Agile
2 13 (59.09%) Roadmaps
2 13 (59.09%) Sprint Planning
3 10 (45.45%) Requirements Gathering
4 9 (40.91%) Backlog Prioritisation
4 9 (40.91%) Business Analysis
4 9 (40.91%) Continuous Improvement
4 9 (40.91%) User Stories
5 7 (31.82%) PLM
5 7 (31.82%) Product Management
5 7 (31.82%) Scrum
5 7 (31.82%) User Experience
6 6 (27.27%) Acceptance Criteria
6 6 (27.27%) Change Management
6 6 (27.27%) Decision-Making
6 6 (27.27%) Kanban
7 5 (22.73%) Scaled Agile Framework
7 5 (22.73%) Sprint Backlog
7 5 (22.73%) Sprint Retrospective
7 5 (22.73%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (9.09%) Bash
1 2 (9.09%) Python
Qualifications
1 7 (31.82%) Degree
2 4 (18.18%) Computer Science Degree
2 4 (18.18%) Master's Degree
3 2 (9.09%) DV Cleared
3 2 (9.09%) ISTQB
3 2 (9.09%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 2 (9.09%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (13.64%) PMO
System Software
1 2 (9.09%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (9.09%) Grafana
1 2 (9.09%) Kubernetes
1 2 (9.09%) Nessus
1 2 (9.09%) Prometheus
1 2 (9.09%) Terraform
2 1 (4.55%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 3 (13.64%) Foundry
1 3 (13.64%) Google