Product Owner: Top Skills and Hourly Rates

What product owners must be able to do

Lastly, we took a closer look at the Job profile of the project manager dealt with. Today we are looking at a related role: the product owner. Although this role has some overlap with the Scrum Master and Project Manager, its core competence is unique. In addition to the core skills, we analyse the hourly rates of product owners in this article.

The skills most in demand

A product owner (PO) is part of every Scrum process by default. It is therefore not surprising that knowledge of Scrum is at the top of the demand for skills in IT projects. A PO is probably generally assumed to be proficient in Scrum, so this is not explicitly listed in every project. The same applies to managing the product backlog. Here, product owners are called upon in their role as business value maximisers. The project management software JIRA is often used for this, which is explicitly listed in 26% of the PO projects.

Closely related to the product backlog are the requirements and interests that affect a software product. Requirements Management (12%), Requirements Analysis (10%) and Requirements Engineering (9%) are among the top PO skills in demand. As software solutions are increasingly developed in a user-centred way, the method of user stories is also increasingly in demand (21%). Freelancers who describe themselves as product owners, however, only list user stories at 10% in their profiles. This results in a gap between supply and demand. Freelancers who can demonstrate knowledge of the method are therefore potentially highly sought after by companies.

What do product owners earn?

With an average of €97.19/hour, POs are among the top earners among IT freelancers. Around 38% earn between €75 and €100 per hour, 42% even between €100 and €125. Just under 10% of POs each earn under 75€/h and over 125€/h.

Are you a product owner looking for freelance projects? Apply today at Lyncronize for one of the projects that we update every day. Here you will also find further analyses of the most sought-after skills, hourly rates and much more.