London Product Management: Product Strategy, Stakeholder Management, Agile Lead 355 Roles -- January 2026

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London's product management market in January 2026 featured 355 direct-hire roles across 269 employers, with fintech leading industry demand at 32% and a 97% flexibility rate among tracked roles. Senior positions made up 58% of openings, while AI/ML product management gained share month-over-month.

This report analyzes 355 Product Management job postings from 267+ companies tracked via direct employer career pages and job board aggregators. Our coverage skews toward tech-forward and scaling companies; large enterprises using enterprise hiring platforms may be underrepresented. Coverage varies by section and is noted throughout.

Key Takeaways for Hiring Managers

1.0Expect competition for senior product talent With 58% of tracked roles targeting senior-level candidates, the market for experienced PMs is crowded on the employer side. Consider differentiating your offer with clear career progression, compelling product vision, or above-market flexibility -- average UK PM salaries range from GBP 68,667 to GBP 114,500 at top firms (Robert Half/Glassdoor, 2026).

1.1Flexible working is now table stakes Among tracked ATS roles, 97% offer non-onsite arrangements. Requiring full onsite attendance may substantially narrow your candidate pool. With the UK Employment Rights Bill strengthening day-one flexible working rights from April 2026, offering hybrid or flexible options is likely becoming a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator (UK Parliament, 2026).

1.2AI/ML product expertise is in rising demand AI/ML PM roles grew to 10% of tracked positions in January, based on a single month's movement. If you are hiring for AI-related product work, be prepared for potential competition from other employers in this niche. Spelling out the AI/ML scope and impact in job descriptions may help attract specialized candidates.

1.3The digital skills gap may constrain technical PM hiring With SQL, Python, and data analysis appearing in 11-16% of tracked role requirements, and UK employers broadly citing a shortage of qualified digital candidates (LSE, 2026), hiring managers seeking technically proficient product managers may need to invest in onboarding programs or consider candidates with adjacent technical backgrounds.

Compensation

Compensation data excluded due to low disclosure rates in markets without pay transparency legislation.

Employers Hiring for Product Management Roles

Low

High

vs December 2025

Biggest Gainer

JPMorgan Chase

+1pp

New This Month

Wise, Rightmove, Ebury

Market interpretation: Wise leads among tracked employers with 13 open product roles, followed by JPMorganChase at 12. Rightmove appears under two listings (Rightmovecareers with 9 and Rightmove Careers with 3) for a combined 12 roles, making it effectively tied for second. Ebury contributes 9 roles, and MagicSchool rounds out the top 5 with 5. Wise, Rightmovecareers, and Ebury are all new entrants compared to December 2025. The top 5 hold just 14% of total postings, and the market averages 1.32 jobs per employer, indicating a fragmented landscape where no single company exerts outsized influence on product hiring. Note that S Merrick Ltd (3 roles) may be a small consultancy, so its listings could represent contract or embedded product positions rather than permanent direct-hire roles.

Industry Distribution

44% of roles with industry data

Low

High

vs December 2025

Biggest Gainer

Fintech

+9pp

Biggest Decline

Productivity Software

-3pp

Based on 44% of roles with industry data among tracked employers, fintech leads London product hiring at 32%, followed by financial services at 14%. Together, finance-adjacent sectors likely account for nearly half of classified demand. This concentration is consistent with projections of a 37% year-over-year rise in London fintech hiring, which may account for 70% of UK fintech roles (Morgan McKinley, January 2026). Fintech gained 9 percentage points from December 2025, based on a single month's movement, while productivity software declined 3 percentage points. PropTech (6%), AI and ML (5%), and data infrastructure (4%) round out the top sectors, suggesting product demand is also distributed across emerging technology verticals.

Role Specialization

Low

High

vs December 2025

Biggest Gainer

ai_ml_pm

+3pp

Biggest Decline

technical_pm

-4pp

Core product management accounts for 67% of tracked roles, confirming that generalist PM positions remain the backbone of London's product market. Technical PM (12%) and AI/ML PM (10%) together make up roughly one-fifth of roles, suggesting a meaningful layer of demand for product managers with deeper technical or domain-specific expertise. Platform PM (8%) and growth PM (3%) fill out the remaining specializations. Month-over-month, AI/ML PM gained 3 percentage points while technical PM declined 4 percentage points, based on a single month's movement -- this may indicate some reallocation of demand toward AI-focused product work, though one month is insufficient to confirm a lasting shift.

Seniority Distribution

Junior: 0-2 years | Mid-Level: 3-5 years | Senior: 6-10 years | Staff/Principal: 11+ years (IC track) | Director+: Management track

Low

High

vs December 2025

Biggest Gainer

Junior

+6pp

Biggest Decline

Mid-Level

-5pp

Senior-to-Junior Ratio

9:1

Senior+ roles per Junior role

Entry Accessibility Rate

24%

Junior + Mid-Level roles combined

Senior roles make up 58% of tracked positions, producing a 9:1 senior-to-junior ratio. Mid-level (15%), Director+ (10%), Junior (9%), and Staff/Principal (8%) fill out the distribution. Entry accessibility at 24% (junior and mid-level combined) suggests the market is competitive but not closed to earlier-career candidates. Junior roles gained 6 percentage points from December 2025 while mid-level declined 5 percentage points, based on a single month's movement -- this may reflect seasonal hiring patterns or a shift in employer targeting rather than a sustained change. The UK digital skills gap (LSE, 2026) may also be pushing some employers to open junior pipelines and invest in developing less experienced hires.

Company Maturity

37% of roles with company age data

50%Growth Stage

Growth (6-15 yrs)50%

Mature (>15 yrs)41%

Young (<=5 yrs)9%

Among the 37% of tracked roles with company age data, growth-stage companies (6-15 years) lead at 50%, followed closely by mature firms (over 15 years) at 41%. Young companies (5 years or under) account for just 9%. This distribution likely reflects London's product market as one where established and scaling businesses generate the bulk of hiring activity, while early-stage startups contribute a smaller but still present share of demand.

Ownership Type

41% of roles with ownership data

45%Private

Private45%

Public45%

Subsidiary10%

Acquired1%

Among the 41% of tracked roles with ownership data, private and public companies each account for 45% of product roles, with subsidiaries at 10%. This even split between private and public employers suggests that product management demand in London spans both venture-backed or privately held firms and publicly traded enterprises, offering candidates a range of organizational environments from high-growth startups to established corporate structures.

Employer Size Distribution

37% of roles with company size data

44%Enterprise

Scale-up (50-1,000)47%

Enterprise (1,000+)44%

Startup (<50)9%

Among the 37% of tracked roles with company size data, scale-ups (50-1,000 employees) lead at 47%, closely followed by enterprises (1,000+) at 44%. Startups under 50 employees account for 9%. The near-parity between scale-ups and enterprises likely reflects London's position as both a scale-up hub and a major centre for large financial and technology firms. Candidates may find that scale-ups offer broader product ownership, while enterprises tend to provide more specialized roles and structured career paths.

Working Arrangement

Onsite: office full-time | Hybrid: mix of office and remote | Remote: work from anywhere | Flexible: employee chooses arrangement

100% of roles with known working arrangement

25%Remote

Hybrid42%

Flexible30%

Remote25%

Onsite3%

Among 76 ATS-sourced roles with full job descriptions, hybrid (42%) is the most common arrangement, followed by flexible (30%) and remote (25%). Only 3% of roles require full onsite attendance, yielding a 97% flexibility rate. This is consistent with UK-wide survey data showing 28% of employees working hybrid and 85% of companies offering hybrid options (Advent Communications, 2026). The upcoming UK Employment Rights Bill, effective April 2026, strengthens the right to request flexible working from day one of employment (UK Parliament, 2026), which may further entrench these patterns. Note that this analysis is based on ATS-sourced roles only, as Adzuna listings have truncated descriptions that do not reliably capture working arrangement details.

Skills Demand

39% of roles with skills data

Low

High

Skills insight: Based on 39% of roles with skills data (138 roles) among tracked employers, stakeholder management and product strategy tie for the most-requested skills at 21% each, followed by agile at 19%. The presence of data analysis (16%), SQL (16%), and Python (11%) in the top ten indicates a growing technical baseline expected of London product managers. AI appears in 14% of roles, consistent with the month-over-month rise in AI/ML PM specializations. Skill pair analysis shows that data analysis plus stakeholder management (12%) and agile plus stakeholder management (11%) are the most common co-occurrences, suggesting employers value candidates who combine analytical rigour with cross-functional communication. The UK digital skills gap (LSE, 2026) may make candidates proficient in both strategic and technical skills particularly sought after.

Market Context

1.London fintech hiring projected to rise 37% year-over-year London fintech hiring is projected to grow 37% in 2026 compared to 2025, potentially accounting for 70% of all UK fintech roles. This is consistent with fintech leading product hiring at 32% among tracked employers in this report (Morgan McKinley, January 2026).

2.UK Employment Rights Bill strengthens flexible working from day one The UK Employment Rights Bill, effective April 2026, will strengthen employees' right to request flexible working arrangements from their first day of employment. With 97% of tracked product roles already offering non-onsite arrangements, this legislation may further solidify flexibility as a baseline expectation in London's product market (UK Parliament, 2026).

3.Hybrid and remote work now standard across UK employers UK-wide data shows 28% of employees currently work hybrid and 16% fully remote, with 85% of companies offering hybrid options. The 97% flexibility rate among tracked London product roles appears to exceed the national average, which may reflect the technology sector's earlier adoption of distributed work models (Advent Communications, 2026).

4.UK product manager salaries range from GBP 68,667 to GBP 114,500 Average UK product manager salaries sit at approximately GBP 68,667, rising to GBP 76,250-114,500 at top firms. While compensation data is excluded from this report due to low disclosure rates in London, these benchmarks provide useful context for candidates evaluating offers (Robert Half/Glassdoor, 2026).

5.UK digital skills gap may constrain hiring for technical PM roles UK employers continue to cite a shortage of digitally qualified candidates. With SQL (16%), data analysis (16%), and Python (11%) appearing frequently among tracked product roles, the digital skills gap may make technically proficient product managers particularly competitive in the current market (LSE, 2026).

Methodology

This report analyzes direct employer job postings for Product Management roles in London during January 2026.

Data collection:

1.Over 300 roles from 269+ employers aggregated from multiple sources
2.Recruitment agency postings identified and excluded (5% of raw data)
3.Jobs deduplicated across sources to avoid double-counting

Classification:

1.Roles classified using an LLM-powered taxonomy
2.Subfamily, seniority, skills, and working arrangement extracted
3.Employer metadata enriched from company databases where available

Limitations:

1.Not a complete census of the market - some roles may not be captured
2.Skills analysis based on 138 roles with skill data (39% coverage)
3.Salary data not included due to low disclosure rates
4.Working arrangement based on 76 ATS-sourced roles (Adzuna excluded due to truncated descriptions)

Data coverage:

66%

Seniority coverage

Roles with seniority level classified

100%

Arrangement coverage

Roles with working arrangement known

39%

Skills coverage

Roles with skills extracted from description

57%

Employer metadata

Roles with enriched company data

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