Backlog Refinement Job Trends

Backlog Refinement (Backlog Grooming)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Backlog Refinement skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 546 667 619
Rank change year-on-year +121 -48 +11
Permanent jobs citing Backlog Refinement 107 32 102
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.060% 0.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.22% 0.066% 0.20%
Number of salaries quoted 51 20 77
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £42,750
25th Percentile £48,125 £43,500 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £56,250 £85,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.56% -33.82% +36.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £64,063 £88,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,125 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £52,250
% change year-on-year +9.09% +5.26% -9.13%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 48,596 48,532 50,084
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 81.00% 90.69% 89.94%
Number of salaries quoted 28,664 23,590 38,164
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £77,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £52,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +5.77% -5.45%

Backlog Refinement
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Backlog Refinement job vacancy trend in the UK

Backlog Refinement
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Backlog Refinement.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Backlog Refinement

Backlog Refinement
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Backlog Refinement over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Backlog Refinement in the UK

Backlog Refinement
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Backlog Refinement within the UK over the 6 months to 14 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
England +113 82 £65,000 +13.04% 60
UK excluding London +115 73 £60,000 +9.09% 58
Work from Home +114 53 £65,000 +13.04% 53
London +68 30 £75,000 +30.43% 5
Scotland - 22 - - 2
South East +51 19 £47,500 -5.00% 19
Midlands +36 15 £57,500 -24.05% 14
North of England +15 13 £75,000 +30.43% 10
West Midlands - 8 £71,250 - 10
North West +23 7 £75,000 +30.43% 3
East Midlands -1 7 £42,500 -43.86% 4
Yorkshire -8 6 £62,500 - 2
South West +12 4 £51,000 -15.00% 2
North East - 2 £65,000 - 5
Wales - 1 £45,000 - 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 1

Backlog Refinement
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 31 (28.97%) Confluence
2 1 (0.93%) Appian
Applications
1 8 (7.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.87%) Windchill
3 1 (0.93%) Siemens NX
3 1 (0.93%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 2 (1.87%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 50 (46.73%) Azure
2 34 (31.78%) Azure DevOps
3 24 (22.43%) Power Platform
4 11 (10.28%) AWS
4 11 (10.28%) Figma
4 11 (10.28%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
4 11 (10.28%) Salesforce Service Cloud
5 10 (9.35%) GitHub
5 10 (9.35%) GitHub Copilot
6 8 (7.48%) Snowflake
7 7 (6.54%) Dynamics 365
7 7 (6.54%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (5.61%) Power Automate
8 6 (5.61%) PowerApps
9 5 (4.67%) Amazon S3
9 5 (4.67%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (4.67%) CloudFront
9 5 (4.67%) Serverless
10 4 (3.74%) SaaS
11 3 (2.80%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.93%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.93%) RFID
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (13.08%) Data Warehouse
2 11 (10.28%) Power BI
3 8 (7.48%) Tableau
4 1 (0.93%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.93%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.93%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 41 (38.32%) JIRA
2 5 (4.67%) Bitbucket
2 5 (4.67%) Cypress.io
2 5 (4.67%) Git
2 5 (4.67%) Vite
3 2 (1.87%) GitLab
3 2 (1.87%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.87%) Robot Framework
3 2 (1.87%) Selenium
3 2 (1.87%) TestRail
4 1 (0.93%) Balsamiq
4 1 (0.93%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 65 (60.75%) Social Skills
2 36 (33.64%) Finance
3 29 (27.10%) Analytical Skills
3 29 (27.10%) Marketing
4 10 (9.35%) Public Sector
5 9 (8.41%) Law
6 2 (1.87%) Aerospace
6 2 (1.87%) Banking
6 2 (1.87%) Legal
6 2 (1.87%) Local Government
7 1 (0.93%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.93%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 26 (24.30%) Analyst
2 20 (18.69%) Senior
3 19 (17.76%) Developer
4 16 (14.95%) Product Owner
5 15 (14.02%) Senior Manager
6 14 (13.08%) Lead
7 13 (12.15%) Business Analyst
8 7 (6.54%) Lead Developer
8 7 (6.54%) Project Manager
8 7 (6.54%) Senior Project Manager
8 7 (6.54%) Systems Analyst
8 7 (6.54%) Technical Leader
9 5 (4.67%) Product Manager
9 5 (4.67%) Senior Technical Manager
9 5 (4.67%) ServiceNow Developer
9 5 (4.67%) Technical Analyst
9 5 (4.67%) Technical Manager
10 4 (3.74%) Agile Product Owner
10 4 (3.74%) Agile Project Manager
10 4 (3.74%) Data Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (15.89%) REST
2 16 (14.95%) SOAP
3 10 (9.35%) Lightning Web Components
4 9 (8.41%) .NET
5 7 (6.54%) Spring
5 7 (6.54%) Spring Boot
6 6 (5.61%) React
7 5 (4.67%) Jest
7 5 (4.67%) Next.js
8 4 (3.74%) HTML
8 4 (3.74%) RESTful
9 2 (1.87%) .NET Core
9 2 (1.87%) CSS
9 2 (1.87%) Elastic Stack
9 2 (1.87%) Node.js
10 1 (0.93%) AngularJS
10 1 (0.93%) GraphQL
10 1 (0.93%) OAuth2
10 1 (0.93%) OpenID
10 1 (0.93%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 59 (55.14%) Product Ownership
2 14 (13.08%) Analytical Mindset
3 13 (12.15%) Management Information System
4 11 (10.28%) Onboarding
5 6 (5.61%) AI Agents
5 6 (5.61%) Virtual Team
6 5 (4.67%) Cloud Native
6 5 (4.67%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (3.74%) Low-Code
8 3 (2.80%) Life Science
9 2 (1.87%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.93%) Data Structures
10 1 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.93%) Mobile App
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (89.72%) Agile
2 80 (74.77%) Sprint Planning
3 45 (42.06%) DevOps
4 40 (37.38%) Continuous Improvement
5 34 (31.78%) Sprint Retrospective
6 33 (30.84%) AI
7 29 (27.10%) Coaching
7 29 (27.10%) Roadmaps
7 29 (27.10%) Scrum
8 28 (26.17%) User Experience
9 25 (23.36%) CI/CD
9 25 (23.36%) User Stories
10 24 (22.43%) Stakeholder Management
11 22 (20.56%) Asset Management
12 20 (18.69%) Acceptance Criteria
12 20 (18.69%) Mentoring
13 19 (17.76%) Data Modelling
13 19 (17.76%) Technical Leadership
14 18 (16.82%) Test Automation
15 17 (15.89%) Product Backlog
Programming Languages
1 18 (16.82%) JavaScript
2 16 (14.95%) Python
3 11 (10.28%) SQL
4 10 (9.35%) Apex Code
5 9 (8.41%) Java
5 9 (8.41%) TypeScript
6 6 (5.61%) C#
7 2 (1.87%) Bash
7 2 (1.87%) Kotlin
7 2 (1.87%) Scala
8 1 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.93%) Go
8 1 (0.93%) Perl
8 1 (0.93%) PHP
Qualifications
1 16 (14.95%) Degree
2 12 (11.21%) Computer Science Degree
3 6 (5.61%) Master's Degree
3 6 (5.61%) Security Cleared
4 5 (4.67%) AWS Certification
4 5 (4.67%) AWS Certified Developer
4 5 (4.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 4 (3.74%) SC Cleared
6 3 (2.80%) DV Cleared
7 2 (1.87%) ISTQB
7 2 (1.87%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.93%) OCA
8 1 (0.93%) OCP
8 1 (0.93%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (20.56%) QA
2 17 (15.89%) Accessibility
3 3 (2.80%) PMO
System Software
1 7 (6.54%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (1.87%) Grafana
1 2 (1.87%) Kubernetes
1 2 (1.87%) Nessus
1 2 (1.87%) Prometheus
1 2 (1.87%) Terraform
2 1 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 24 (22.43%) Microsoft
2 13 (12.15%) Salesforce
3 5 (4.67%) ServiceNow
4 4 (3.74%) CrowdStrike
4 4 (3.74%) Fortinet
4 4 (3.74%) Palo Alto
5 2 (1.87%) Foundry
6 1 (0.93%) MuleSoft
6 1 (0.93%) Oracle
6 1 (0.93%) Siemens
6 1 (0.93%) SnapLogic