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 2 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 178 139
Rank change year-on-year +45 -39 -19
Contract jobs citing User Stories 729 388 659
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.06% 1.53% 1.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.37% 1.70% 1.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 528 257 463
10th Percentile £352 £350 £377
25th Percentile £411 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £490 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 1 8
10th Percentile £48.86 - £31.71
25th Percentile £51.80 £67.50 £45.43
Median hourly rate £74.26 £70.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.09% +33.33% -17.97%
75th Percentile - £72.50 £66.39
90th Percentile £80.11 - £69.04
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £29.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +156.07% -44.76% -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 30,728 22,863 33,081
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.02% 90.30% 87.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,671 14,434 21,926
10th Percentile £313 £306 £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 £615 £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 1,917 775 2,089
10th Percentile £15.24 £15.50 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £28.91 £35.00 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year -17.40% +2.31% -3.42%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £59.92
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.95 £72.07
UK median hourly rate £27.61 £32.50 £33.03
% change year-on-year -15.06% -1.61% -5.62%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +49 413 £500 -4.76% 87
North of England +15 130 £494 +12.33% 74
South East -30 70 £454 -13.52% 82
North West +9 66 £440 -9.74% 40
Midlands -16 65 £475 - 29
West Midlands -20 47 £475 -1.66% 18
Yorkshire -23 47 £513 +28.13% 20
South West -14 24 £475 -17.39% 13
North East -1 19 £488 +21.88% 15
East Midlands -20 18 £414 +16.15% 11
East of England -30 14 £513 +46.50% 24
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
1 159 (21.81%) Confluence
2 23 (3.16%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.65%) CMS
4 11 (1.51%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (1.23%) SAS
6 3 (0.41%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.27%) Apache
7 2 (0.27%) Drupal
7 2 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.27%) Traefik
7 2 (0.27%) WordPress
8 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.14%) Camunda
8 1 (0.14%) Kentico
8 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 43 (5.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (4.53%) MS Visio
3 28 (3.84%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.69%) Adobe XD
5 5 (0.69%) Sketch
6 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.55%) Notion
6 4 (0.55%) Trello
7 3 (0.41%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.41%) InVision
7 3 (0.41%) Zeplin
8 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 19 (2.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.82%) Adobe Campaign
2 6 (0.82%) NetSuite
2 6 (0.82%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.82%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.55%) Eloqua
4 3 (0.41%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.27%) Actimize
5 2 (0.27%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.27%) Endur
5 2 (0.27%) Exchequer
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.27%) Primavera
5 2 (0.27%) ProductWriter
5 2 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.27%) Shopify
6 1 (0.14%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 122 (16.74%) Azure
2 76 (10.43%) AWS
3 65 (8.92%) Power Platform
4 50 (6.86%) Azure DevOps
5 30 (4.12%) GCP
6 26 (3.57%) GitHub
7 24 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
8 20 (2.74%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (2.74%) PowerApps
8 20 (2.74%) Salesforce Service Cloud
9 19 (2.61%) Power Automate
10 17 (2.33%) SaaS
11 15 (2.06%) GitHub Actions
12 14 (1.92%) Figma
12 14 (1.92%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 13 (1.78%) Entra ID
13 13 (1.78%) Lucidchart
13 13 (1.78%) Snowflake
14 12 (1.65%) Miro
15 10 (1.37%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.51%) WebEx
2 8 (1.10%) Firewall
3 5 (0.69%) DNS
4 4 (0.55%) FTP
4 4 (0.55%) HTTP
4 4 (0.55%) Network Security
5 3 (0.41%) BGP
5 3 (0.41%) VLAN
6 2 (0.27%) Software-Defined Networking
6 2 (0.27%) VPN
7 1 (0.14%) Calico
7 1 (0.14%) Cisco IPT
7 1 (0.14%) LAN
7 1 (0.14%) SD-WAN
7 1 (0.14%) WAN
7 1 (0.14%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (6.86%) Power BI
2 28 (3.84%) Data Warehouse
3 17 (2.33%) Tableau
4 15 (2.06%) Metadata
5 14 (1.92%) BigQuery
5 14 (1.92%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (1.65%) SQL Server
7 11 (1.51%) NoSQL
8 9 (1.23%) Relational Database
9 7 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
9 7 (0.96%) Data Lake
10 5 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.69%) Big Data
10 5 (0.69%) Data Vault
10 5 (0.69%) Star Schema
11 4 (0.55%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
12 3 (0.41%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.41%) OLAP
12 3 (0.41%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 200 (27.43%) JIRA
2 28 (3.84%) Jenkins
3 15 (2.06%) GitLab
4 14 (1.92%) Cucumber
4 14 (1.92%) Git
5 13 (1.78%) Postman
6 11 (1.51%) JUnit
6 11 (1.51%) Selenium
7 8 (1.10%) Zephyr
8 7 (0.96%) JMeter
8 7 (0.96%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.82%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (0.69%) Axure RP
10 5 (0.69%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.69%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.69%) TeamCity
10 5 (0.69%) TestRail
11 4 (0.55%) ER Studio
11 4 (0.55%) ERwin
11 4 (0.55%) PowerDesigner
General
1 296 (40.60%) Social Skills
2 200 (27.43%) Finance
3 163 (22.36%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (13.44%) Public Sector
5 69 (9.47%) Banking
6 55 (7.54%) Documentation Skills
7 35 (4.80%) Presentation Skills
8 34 (4.66%) Retail
9 28 (3.84%) Legal
9 28 (3.84%) Marketing
10 24 (3.29%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.92%) Military
11 14 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
12 12 (1.65%) Financial Institution
12 12 (1.65%) Front Office
13 11 (1.51%) Investment Banking
14 10 (1.37%) Retail Banking
15 9 (1.23%) Back Office
15 9 (1.23%) Telecoms
16 8 (1.10%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 379 (51.99%) Analyst
2 357 (48.97%) Business Analyst
3 112 (15.36%) Senior
4 80 (10.97%) Product Owner
5 72 (9.88%) Senior Analyst
6 63 (8.64%) Senior Business Analyst
7 51 (7.00%) Developer
8 38 (5.21%) Technical Analyst
9 36 (4.94%) Product Manager
9 36 (4.94%) Technical Business Analyst
10 30 (4.12%) Lead
11 29 (3.98%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 27 (3.70%) Salesforce Analyst
13 24 (3.29%) Data Analyst
13 24 (3.29%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
14 22 (3.02%) Designer
15 21 (2.88%) Data Business Analyst
16 19 (2.61%) Financial Analyst
17 18 (2.47%) Test Analyst
18 17 (2.33%) Digital Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.02%) REST
2 18 (2.47%) React
3 16 (2.19%) XML
4 15 (2.06%) ADO
4 15 (2.06%) JSON
5 14 (1.92%) Spring
6 13 (1.78%) Spring Boot
7 11 (1.51%) Kafka
7 11 (1.51%) RESTful
7 11 (1.51%) XMPP
8 10 (1.37%) HTML
8 10 (1.37%) Node.js
9 9 (1.23%) Lightning Web Components
9 9 (1.23%) Web Services
10 8 (1.10%) Apache NiFi
10 8 (1.10%) CSS
10 8 (1.10%) VML
11 7 (0.96%) Playwright
12 6 (0.82%) AngularJS
12 6 (0.82%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 223 (30.59%) Product Ownership
2 22 (3.02%) Analytical Mindset
3 19 (2.61%) Onboarding
4 17 (2.33%) PMI
5 15 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (1.78%) CMDB
6 13 (1.78%) Data Structures
7 12 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
8 11 (1.51%) Cloud Native
9 10 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 9 (1.23%) Management Information System
11 8 (1.10%) Greenfield Project
11 8 (1.10%) NHS
12 7 (0.96%) Low-Code
12 7 (0.96%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 6 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
13 6 (0.82%) Marketing Technology
13 6 (0.82%) Mobile App
14 5 (0.69%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 20 (2.74%) Windows
2 17 (2.33%) Linux
3 8 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (1.10%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.55%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 497 (68.18%) Agile
2 272 (37.31%) Acceptance Criteria
3 231 (31.69%) Stakeholder Management
4 184 (25.24%) Scrum
5 180 (24.69%) Requirements Gathering
6 172 (23.59%) Workshop Facilitation
7 159 (21.81%) Business Analysis
8 136 (18.66%) Problem-Solving
9 134 (18.38%) DevOps
10 127 (17.42%) User Acceptance Testing
11 125 (17.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 110 (15.09%) Roadmaps
13 101 (13.85%) Migration
14 100 (13.72%) Data Modelling
15 93 (12.76%) Sprint Planning
16 90 (12.35%) Use Case
17 87 (11.93%) Product Backlog
18 86 (11.80%) Backlog Management
19 81 (11.11%) Analytics
20 79 (10.84%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 95 (13.03%) SQL
2 58 (7.96%) Python
3 34 (4.66%) Java
4 19 (2.61%) JavaScript
4 19 (2.61%) PowerShell
5 16 (2.19%) C#
6 14 (1.92%) Bash
7 10 (1.37%) TypeScript
8 9 (1.23%) Perl
9 8 (1.10%) Scala
10 6 (0.82%) Korn
11 5 (0.69%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.55%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.55%) VBA
13 3 (0.41%) Go
13 3 (0.41%) XPath
14 2 (0.27%) Google Apps Script
14 2 (0.27%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.27%) PHP
14 2 (0.27%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 140 (19.20%) Security Cleared
2 115 (15.78%) SC Cleared
3 86 (11.80%) Degree
4 41 (5.62%) CBAP
5 31 (4.25%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (4.25%) IIBA
6 22 (3.02%) PMI Certification
7 20 (2.74%) CSPO
8 9 (1.23%) Master's Degree
9 6 (0.82%) CCDP
9 6 (0.82%) CCNA
9 6 (0.82%) CCNP
9 6 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (0.82%) ISEB
9 6 (0.82%) MBA
9 6 (0.82%) PMP
10 5 (0.69%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.69%) DV Cleared
11 4 (0.55%) ISTQB
11 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (12.76%) QA
2 39 (5.35%) Accessibility
3 33 (4.53%) Data Quality
4 21 (2.88%) GDPR
5 14 (1.92%) WCAG
6 10 (1.37%) PSD2
6 10 (1.37%) SLA
7 6 (0.82%) ISO 8583
7 6 (0.82%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.55%) HL7
8 4 (0.55%) ISO 20022
9 3 (0.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.41%) GxP
9 3 (0.41%) SEPA
10 2 (0.27%) Basel III
10 2 (0.27%) EU AI Act
10 2 (0.27%) GMP
10 2 (0.27%) NCSC
10 2 (0.27%) NIST
10 2 (0.27%) PMO
System Software
1 26 (3.57%) Docker
2 13 (1.78%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.14%) etcd
4 1 (0.14%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 30 (4.12%) Kubernetes
2 17 (2.33%) Terraform
3 12 (1.65%) Ansible
4 7 (0.96%) NetBackup
5 5 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (0.69%) Grafana
5 5 (0.69%) HP Quality Center
5 5 (0.69%) Progress Chef
5 5 (0.69%) SCCM
6 4 (0.55%) Puppet
7 2 (0.27%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.27%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.27%) Istio
8 1 (0.14%) Argo
8 1 (0.14%) CASB
8 1 (0.14%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.14%) Kibana
8 1 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 114 (15.64%) Microsoft
2 79 (10.84%) Salesforce
3 42 (5.76%) ServiceNow
4 31 (4.25%) SAP
5 30 (4.12%) Oracle
6 19 (2.61%) Databricks
7 18 (2.47%) Cisco
8 15 (2.06%) Adobe
8 15 (2.06%) Red Hat
9 14 (1.92%) VMware
10 13 (1.78%) Citrix
11 12 (1.65%) MuleSoft
12 10 (1.37%) Google
13 7 (0.96%) Commvault
13 7 (0.96%) Pega
13 7 (0.96%) Splunk
13 7 (0.96%) Workday
14 6 (0.82%) Guidewire
14 6 (0.82%) Zuora
15 5 (0.69%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud