User Stories Contract Job Trends in England

User Story
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring User Stories skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 157 141
Rank change year-on-year +27 -16 -19
Contract jobs citing User Stories 788 419 623
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.07% 1.71% 1.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.40% 1.89% 1.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 559 274 437
10th Percentile £350 £350 £375
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £668 £661
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £530
% change year-on-year -1.60% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 2 7
10th Percentile £48.86 £54.90 £31.71
25th Percentile £65.31 £57.00 £32.36
Median hourly rate £72.50 £61.75 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.41% +17.62% -17.97%
75th Percentile £74.26 £67.75 £59.88
90th Percentile - £70.60 £68.60
UK median hourly rate £73.38 £53.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +37.16% +1.90% -17.97%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

User Stories falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 32,791 22,195 32,688
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.18% 90.78% 86.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,993 14,632 21,603
10th Percentile £313 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,006 863 2,155
10th Percentile £15.36 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £20.24 £15.97
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% -1.52% -12.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.86 £58.24
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £32.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +9.38% -1.54% -10.34%

User Stories
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing User Stories relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

User Stories job vacancy trend in England

User Stories
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing User Stories.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing User Stories

User Stories
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Stories in England over the 6 months to 29 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for User Stories in England

User Stories
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing User Stories.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing User Stories

User Stories
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing User Stories in England over the 6 months to 29 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for User Stories in England

User Stories
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing User Stories within the England region over the 6 months to 29 March 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
London +57 444 £500 -4.76% 93
North of England +9 141 £475 +5.56% 73
Midlands -19 79 £475 +2.70% 22
North West +3 72 £409 -16.05% 37
South East -42 71 £475 -5.00% 55
West Midlands -16 59 £492 +2.71% 14
Yorkshire -25 50 £510 +20.00% 20
South West -21 28 £475 -17.39% 14
North East +1 21 £475 +18.75% 16
East Midlands -20 20 £401 +4.16% 7
East of England -27 18 £475 +31.10% 9
User Stories
UK

User Stories
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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
1 163 (20.69%) Confluence
2 27 (3.43%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.90%) CMS
4 11 (1.40%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (1.14%) SAS
6 3 (0.38%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.38%) Camunda
7 2 (0.25%) Drupal
7 2 (0.25%) JBoss
7 2 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.25%) WordPress
8 1 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.13%) Apache
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.13%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.13%) Kentico
8 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 50 (6.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (5.71%) MS Visio
3 28 (3.55%) Microsoft Office
4 22 (2.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.63%) Adobe XD
5 5 (0.63%) Sketch
6 4 (0.51%) Notion
7 3 (0.38%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.38%) InVision
7 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.38%) Zeplin
8 2 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (2.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.76%) Adobe Campaign
2 6 (0.76%) NetSuite
2 6 (0.76%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.51%) Eloqua
4 3 (0.38%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.38%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.25%) Actimize
5 2 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.25%) Exchequer
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.25%) Primavera
5 2 (0.25%) ProductWriter
5 2 (0.25%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.25%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 130 (16.50%) Azure
2 72 (9.14%) AWS
3 70 (8.88%) Power Platform
4 55 (6.98%) Azure DevOps
5 28 (3.55%) GCP
6 26 (3.30%) Microsoft 365
7 22 (2.79%) GitHub
7 22 (2.79%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 21 (2.66%) Dynamics 365
8 21 (2.66%) PowerApps
9 20 (2.54%) Power Automate
10 19 (2.41%) SaaS
11 14 (1.78%) Figma
12 13 (1.65%) Entra ID
12 13 (1.65%) Lucidchart
13 12 (1.52%) Miro
13 12 (1.52%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
14 11 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
15 10 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
15 10 (1.27%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.40%) WebEx
2 9 (1.14%) Firewall
3 8 (1.02%) Network Security
4 5 (0.63%) DNS
5 4 (0.51%) FTP
5 4 (0.51%) HTTP
6 3 (0.38%) BGP
6 3 (0.38%) VLAN
7 2 (0.25%) Software-Defined Networking
8 1 (0.13%) Cisco IPT
8 1 (0.13%) NGFW
8 1 (0.13%) VPN
8 1 (0.13%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (6.73%) Power BI
2 28 (3.55%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (2.41%) Tableau
4 16 (2.03%) Metadata
5 15 (1.90%) BigQuery
6 13 (1.65%) SQL Server
7 11 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
8 10 (1.27%) Relational Database
9 9 (1.14%) NoSQL
10 7 (0.89%) Amazon Athena
11 6 (0.76%) Data Lake
12 4 (0.51%) Big Data
12 4 (0.51%) Delta Lake
13 3 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
13 3 (0.38%) Data Mining
13 3 (0.38%) MongoDB
13 3 (0.38%) OLAP
13 3 (0.38%) Oracle Database
14 2 (0.25%) Oracle OLAP
14 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 209 (26.52%) JIRA
2 23 (2.92%) Jenkins
3 20 (2.54%) Postman
4 13 (1.65%) Git
5 11 (1.40%) Selenium
6 10 (1.27%) Cucumber
7 9 (1.14%) GitLab
7 9 (1.14%) Zephyr
8 8 (1.02%) JUnit
9 6 (0.76%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.63%) Axure RP
10 5 (0.63%) Balsamiq
10 5 (0.63%) JMeter
10 5 (0.63%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.63%) TeamCity
10 5 (0.63%) TestRail
11 4 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.51%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 3 (0.38%) Artifactory
12 3 (0.38%) SpecFlow
General
1 322 (40.86%) Social Skills
2 207 (26.27%) Finance
3 201 (25.51%) Analytical Skills
4 108 (13.71%) Public Sector
5 82 (10.41%) Banking
6 64 (8.12%) Documentation Skills
7 42 (5.33%) Presentation Skills
8 40 (5.08%) Retail
9 31 (3.93%) Marketing
10 30 (3.81%) Legal
11 22 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
12 15 (1.90%) Front Office
12 15 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
13 13 (1.65%) Financial Institution
13 13 (1.65%) Military
14 10 (1.27%) Investment Banking
14 10 (1.27%) Retail Banking
15 8 (1.02%) Back Office
15 8 (1.02%) Pharmaceutical
15 8 (1.02%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 435 (55.20%) Analyst
2 401 (50.89%) Business Analyst
3 116 (14.72%) Senior
4 82 (10.41%) Product Owner
5 77 (9.77%) Senior Analyst
6 66 (8.38%) Senior Business Analyst
7 51 (6.47%) Developer
8 45 (5.71%) Technical Analyst
9 43 (5.46%) Technical Business Analyst
10 41 (5.20%) Product Manager
11 35 (4.44%) Salesforce Analyst
11 35 (4.44%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 28 (3.55%) Lead
13 27 (3.43%) Data Analyst
14 25 (3.17%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
15 23 (2.92%) Data Business Analyst
15 23 (2.92%) Financial Analyst
16 22 (2.79%) Designer
17 20 (2.54%) Finance Business Analyst
17 20 (2.54%) Implementation Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (3.81%) REST
2 17 (2.16%) ADO
3 16 (2.03%) XML
4 15 (1.90%) React
5 14 (1.78%) RESTful
6 12 (1.52%) JSON
7 11 (1.40%) XMPP
8 10 (1.27%) HTML
9 9 (1.14%) Kafka
9 9 (1.14%) VML
10 8 (1.02%) AngularJS
10 8 (1.02%) Apache NiFi
10 8 (1.02%) CSS
10 8 (1.02%) Node.js
11 7 (0.89%) Lightning Web Components
11 7 (0.89%) Spring
11 7 (0.89%) Web Services
12 6 (0.76%) FHIR
12 6 (0.76%) Spring Boot
13 5 (0.63%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 255 (32.36%) Product Ownership
2 23 (2.92%) Analytical Mindset
2 23 (2.92%) Onboarding
3 20 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
4 16 (2.03%) Legacy Systems
5 15 (1.90%) CMDB
5 15 (1.90%) PMI
6 14 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (1.65%) Cloud Native
7 13 (1.65%) Data Structures
7 13 (1.65%) Management Information System
8 11 (1.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 9 (1.14%) NHS
10 8 (1.02%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 7 (0.89%) Low-Code
11 7 (0.89%) Marketing Technology
11 7 (0.89%) Reinsurance
11 7 (0.89%) Virtual Team
12 6 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
12 6 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 20 (2.54%) Windows
2 13 (1.65%) Linux
3 8 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (1.02%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 516 (65.48%) Agile
2 315 (39.97%) Acceptance Criteria
3 245 (31.09%) Stakeholder Management
4 201 (25.51%) Requirements Gathering
5 199 (25.25%) Workshop Facilitation
6 198 (25.13%) Scrum
7 182 (23.10%) Business Analysis
8 154 (19.54%) Problem-Solving
9 153 (19.42%) User Acceptance Testing
10 147 (18.65%) DevOps
11 138 (17.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 128 (16.24%) Roadmaps
13 116 (14.72%) Sprint Planning
14 107 (13.58%) Migration
15 106 (13.45%) Data Modelling
16 101 (12.82%) Backlog Management
17 94 (11.93%) Product Backlog
18 88 (11.17%) Continuous Improvement
19 86 (10.91%) Analytics
20 84 (10.66%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 99 (12.56%) SQL
2 60 (7.61%) Python
3 32 (4.06%) Java
4 21 (2.66%) JavaScript
5 17 (2.16%) PowerShell
6 14 (1.78%) C#
7 13 (1.65%) Bash
8 9 (1.14%) Perl
9 8 (1.02%) Scala
9 8 (1.02%) TypeScript
10 7 (0.89%) Korn
11 5 (0.63%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.51%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.51%) VBA
13 3 (0.38%) XPath
14 2 (0.25%) Google Apps Script
14 2 (0.25%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.25%) PHP
14 2 (0.25%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.13%) Go
Qualifications
1 158 (20.05%) Security Cleared
2 131 (16.62%) SC Cleared
3 89 (11.29%) Degree
4 40 (5.08%) CBAP
5 31 (3.93%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (3.93%) IIBA
6 21 (2.66%) PMI Certification
7 19 (2.41%) CSPO
8 11 (1.40%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.89%) DV Cleared
9 7 (0.89%) PMP
10 6 (0.76%) CCDP
10 6 (0.76%) CCNA
10 6 (0.76%) CCNP
10 6 (0.76%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.76%) ISEB
10 6 (0.76%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.76%) MBA
11 5 (0.63%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (14.21%) QA
2 41 (5.20%) Accessibility
3 39 (4.95%) Data Quality
4 25 (3.17%) GDPR
5 14 (1.78%) SLA
6 13 (1.65%) WCAG
7 9 (1.14%) PSD2
8 7 (0.89%) NIST
8 7 (0.89%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.76%) GxP
9 6 (0.76%) HL7
9 6 (0.76%) ISO 8583
10 3 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.38%) GMP
10 3 (0.38%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.38%) SNOMED CT
11 2 (0.25%) EU AI Act
11 2 (0.25%) NCSC
11 2 (0.25%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 19 (2.41%) Docker
2 13 (1.65%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.13%) IAG
4 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 24 (3.05%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.65%) Terraform
3 9 (1.14%) Ansible
4 7 (0.89%) SCCM
5 6 (0.76%) NetBackup
6 5 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (0.63%) HP Quality Center
7 4 (0.51%) Grafana
7 4 (0.51%) Puppet
8 3 (0.38%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.25%) CASB
9 2 (0.25%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.25%) HP ALM
9 2 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.13%) CloudHub
10 1 (0.13%) Kibana
10 1 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 125 (15.86%) Microsoft
2 84 (10.66%) Salesforce
3 46 (5.84%) ServiceNow
4 38 (4.82%) SAP
5 30 (3.81%) Oracle
6 21 (2.66%) Cisco
7 18 (2.28%) Databricks
8 16 (2.03%) Adobe
9 14 (1.78%) Google
9 14 (1.78%) Red Hat
10 13 (1.65%) Citrix
11 11 (1.40%) VMware
12 10 (1.27%) MuleSoft
13 9 (1.14%) Pega
13 9 (1.14%) Splunk
14 8 (1.02%) Workday
14 8 (1.02%) Zscaler
15 6 (0.76%) Guidewire
15 6 (0.76%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
15 6 (0.76%) Zuora