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 25 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 155 149
Rank change year-on-year +30 -6 -28
Contract jobs citing User Stories 818 412 595
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.05% 1.68% 1.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.41% 1.84% 1.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 575 261 417
10th Percentile £351 £356 £361
25th Percentile £413 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -5.56% +2.86%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £661
UK median daily rate £498 £500 £538
% change year-on-year -0.45% -6.98% +3.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 2 7
10th Percentile £39.16 £54.90 £31.71
25th Percentile £48.86 £57.00 £32.36
Median hourly rate £70.00 £61.75 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.36% +17.62% -18.60%
75th Percentile £74.26 £67.75 £59.88
90th Percentile - £70.60 £68.60
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £53.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +30.84% +1.90% -18.60%

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 33,939 22,408 32,216
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.13% 91.13% 86.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,724 14,703 21,181
10th Percentile £316 £310 £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 -4.72% -0.05% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,107 917 2,235
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.73 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.51 £15.97
Median hourly rate £42.69 £30.45 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.18% -13.00% -8.74%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £59.44
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £29.07 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.60% -16.94% -6.67%

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 25 April 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 25 April 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 25 April 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 +55 463 £500 -4.76% 52
North of England +8 140 £467 -1.74% 37
Midlands -2 90 £492 +6.38% 29
West Midlands -12 68 £492 +3.58% 18
South East -59 66 £454 -12.19% 52
North West -1 64 £389 -22.25% 15
Yorkshire -24 52 £510 +20.00% 16
South West -33 28 £475 -17.39% 16
North East -3 24 £454 +13.50% 7
East Midlands -18 22 £463 +17.01% 11
East of England -31 22 £525 +40.00% 12
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
1 158 (19.32%) Confluence
2 21 (2.57%) SharePoint
3 17 (2.08%) CMS
4 9 (1.10%) SAS
5 5 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.49%) Jupyter
7 3 (0.37%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.37%) Camunda
8 2 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.24%) Drupal
8 2 (0.24%) JBoss
8 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
8 2 (0.24%) WordPress
9 1 (0.12%) Apache
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Solr
9 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 48 (5.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (5.38%) MS Visio
3 26 (3.18%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.49%) Adobe XD
5 4 (0.49%) Sketch
6 3 (0.37%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.37%) InVision
6 3 (0.37%) Notion
6 3 (0.37%) Zeplin
7 2 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (2.20%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.98%) NetSuite
3 7 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (0.73%) Adobe Campaign
5 4 (0.49%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.49%) Eloqua
5 4 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.49%) Oracle Receivables
5 4 (0.49%) ProductWriter
6 3 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
6 3 (0.37%) Dynamics SL
6 3 (0.37%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
6 3 (0.37%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.37%) Temenos T24
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.24%) SAP BPC
7 2 (0.24%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 134 (16.38%) Azure
2 71 (8.68%) AWS
3 68 (8.31%) Power Platform
4 48 (5.87%) Azure DevOps
5 25 (3.06%) Dynamics 365
5 25 (3.06%) Salesforce Service Cloud
6 23 (2.81%) GitHub
6 23 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
7 22 (2.69%) GCP
8 20 (2.44%) SaaS
9 17 (2.08%) Power Automate
9 17 (2.08%) PowerApps
10 14 (1.71%) Figma
11 13 (1.59%) Lucidchart
11 13 (1.59%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 12 (1.47%) Azure Data Factory
12 12 (1.47%) Miro
13 9 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (0.98%) OpenShift
15 7 (0.86%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.98%) Network Security
2 7 (0.86%) Firewall
3 6 (0.73%) HTTP
4 5 (0.61%) DNS
4 5 (0.61%) WebEx
5 4 (0.49%) FTP
6 2 (0.24%) Wireless
7 1 (0.12%) BGP
7 1 (0.12%) Cisco IPT
7 1 (0.12%) NGFW
7 1 (0.12%) VLAN
7 1 (0.12%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (6.48%) Power BI
2 23 (2.81%) Data Warehouse
3 20 (2.44%) Metadata
4 14 (1.71%) Tableau
5 13 (1.59%) SQL Server
6 11 (1.34%) BigQuery
7 10 (1.22%) NoSQL
7 10 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
7 10 (1.22%) Relational Database
8 7 (0.86%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.73%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.49%) Big Data
11 3 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.37%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.37%) Data Vault
11 3 (0.37%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.37%) OLAP
11 3 (0.37%) Parquet
12 2 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 209 (25.55%) JIRA
2 23 (2.81%) Postman
3 22 (2.69%) Jenkins
4 15 (1.83%) Git
5 11 (1.34%) GitLab
5 11 (1.34%) Selenium
6 10 (1.22%) Cucumber
7 9 (1.10%) Zephyr
8 8 (0.98%) JUnit
9 6 (0.73%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.61%) Balsamiq
10 5 (0.61%) JMeter
10 5 (0.61%) TeamCity
10 5 (0.61%) TestRail
11 4 (0.49%) Axure RP
11 4 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.49%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 3 (0.37%) Artifactory
12 3 (0.37%) REST Assured
12 3 (0.37%) SpecFlow
General
1 332 (40.59%) Social Skills
2 218 (26.65%) Finance
3 204 (24.94%) Analytical Skills
4 114 (13.94%) Public Sector
5 93 (11.37%) Banking
6 62 (7.58%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (5.62%) Presentation Skills
8 45 (5.50%) Retail
9 33 (4.03%) Marketing
10 23 (2.81%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (2.57%) Legal
12 16 (1.96%) Financial Institution
12 16 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
13 15 (1.83%) Military
14 13 (1.59%) Front Office
15 12 (1.47%) Investment Banking
15 12 (1.47%) Retail Banking
16 8 (0.98%) General Ledger
16 8 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
17 7 (0.86%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 457 (55.87%) Analyst
2 428 (52.32%) Business Analyst
3 137 (16.75%) Senior
4 93 (11.37%) Senior Analyst
5 87 (10.64%) Product Owner
6 85 (10.39%) Senior Business Analyst
7 54 (6.60%) Developer
8 53 (6.48%) Technical Analyst
9 50 (6.11%) Product Manager
9 50 (6.11%) Technical Business Analyst
10 42 (5.13%) Salesforce Business Analyst
11 41 (5.01%) Salesforce Analyst
12 27 (3.30%) Lead
13 26 (3.18%) Data Analyst
14 25 (3.06%) Implementation Analyst
14 25 (3.06%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
15 24 (2.93%) Data Business Analyst
15 24 (2.93%) Designer
16 23 (2.81%) Banking Analyst
17 22 (2.69%) Financial Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (3.67%) REST
2 15 (1.83%) ADO
2 15 (1.83%) React
3 14 (1.71%) RESTful
4 13 (1.59%) XML
5 12 (1.47%) VML
6 11 (1.34%) Kafka
7 10 (1.22%) JSON
8 9 (1.10%) HTML
8 9 (1.10%) Node.js
9 8 (0.98%) Spring
10 7 (0.86%) AngularJS
10 7 (0.86%) CSS
10 7 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
10 7 (0.86%) Spring Boot
11 6 (0.73%) .NET
11 6 (0.73%) FHIR
12 5 (0.61%) Middleware
12 5 (0.61%) Oracle Fusion
12 5 (0.61%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 263 (32.15%) Product Ownership
2 22 (2.69%) Analytical Mindset
2 22 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
3 21 (2.57%) Onboarding
3 21 (2.57%) Self-Motivation
4 20 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (1.96%) CMDB
6 14 (1.71%) Data Structures
6 14 (1.71%) Management Information System
7 13 (1.59%) Cloud Native
8 12 (1.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 11 (1.34%) Virtual Team
10 10 (1.22%) PMI
11 9 (1.10%) NHS
12 8 (0.98%) Marketing Technology
12 8 (0.98%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 7 (0.86%) AI Agents
13 7 (0.86%) Reinsurance
14 6 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
14 6 (0.73%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 13 (1.59%) Windows
2 12 (1.47%) Linux
3 4 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.24%) CentOS
4 2 (0.24%) Unix
4 2 (0.24%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 529 (64.67%) Agile
2 331 (40.46%) Acceptance Criteria
3 257 (31.42%) Stakeholder Management
4 208 (25.43%) Workshop Facilitation
5 191 (23.35%) Requirements Gathering
6 185 (22.62%) Business Analysis
7 183 (22.37%) Scrum
8 166 (20.29%) User Acceptance Testing
9 153 (18.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 149 (18.22%) DevOps
11 147 (17.97%) Problem-Solving
12 138 (16.87%) Roadmaps
13 121 (14.79%) Sprint Planning
14 117 (14.30%) Data Modelling
15 112 (13.69%) Migration
16 101 (12.35%) Product Backlog
17 100 (12.22%) Backlog Management
18 98 (11.98%) Analytics
19 94 (11.49%) Continuous Improvement
20 84 (10.27%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 98 (11.98%) SQL
2 53 (6.48%) Python
3 35 (4.28%) Java
4 22 (2.69%) JavaScript
5 15 (1.83%) C#
6 9 (1.10%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.10%) TypeScript
7 6 (0.73%) Korn
8 5 (0.61%) Apex Code
8 5 (0.61%) Scala
9 4 (0.49%) Kotlin
9 4 (0.49%) R
9 4 (0.49%) T-SQL
9 4 (0.49%) VBA
10 3 (0.37%) XPath
11 2 (0.24%) Google Apps Script
11 2 (0.24%) PHP
11 2 (0.24%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.24%) Ruby
12 1 (0.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 153 (18.70%) Security Cleared
2 120 (14.67%) SC Cleared
3 83 (10.15%) Degree
4 36 (4.40%) CBAP
5 34 (4.16%) BPSS Clearance
6 31 (3.79%) IIBA
7 21 (2.57%) CSPO
8 14 (1.71%) PMI Certification
9 11 (1.34%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.86%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (0.73%) ISEB
11 6 (0.73%) MBA
12 4 (0.49%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.49%) DV Cleared
12 4 (0.49%) PMP
13 2 (0.24%) Azure Certification
13 2 (0.24%) DBS Check
13 2 (0.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 108 (13.20%) QA
2 48 (5.87%) Data Quality
3 41 (5.01%) Accessibility
4 25 (3.06%) GDPR
5 14 (1.71%) SLA
6 12 (1.47%) WCAG
7 7 (0.86%) NIST
8 6 (0.73%) GxP
8 6 (0.73%) HL7
9 5 (0.61%) PSD2
10 4 (0.49%) ISO 20022
10 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.37%) GMP
11 3 (0.37%) GRC
11 3 (0.37%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.37%) SNOMED CT
11 3 (0.37%) Solvency II
12 2 (0.24%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 2 (0.24%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 24 (2.93%) Docker
2 7 (0.86%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.24%) IAG
5 1 (0.12%) Ceph
5 1 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 27 (3.30%) Kubernetes
2 12 (1.47%) Terraform
3 11 (1.34%) Ansible
4 7 (0.86%) SCCM
5 5 (0.61%) HP Quality Center
5 5 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.37%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.24%) CASB
7 2 (0.24%) Grafana
7 2 (0.24%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.12%) Argo
8 1 (0.12%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.12%) Kibana
Vendors
1 115 (14.06%) Microsoft
2 85 (10.39%) Salesforce
3 44 (5.38%) SAP
3 44 (5.38%) ServiceNow
4 24 (2.93%) Oracle
5 18 (2.20%) Databricks
6 16 (1.96%) Adobe
6 16 (1.96%) Google
7 13 (1.59%) Cisco
8 10 (1.22%) Splunk
8 10 (1.22%) Workday
9 9 (1.10%) Pega
10 8 (0.98%) MuleSoft
10 8 (0.98%) Zscaler
10 8 (0.98%) Zuora
11 7 (0.86%) Citrix
11 7 (0.86%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
12 6 (0.73%) Fortinet
12 6 (0.73%) Guidewire
12 6 (0.73%) VMware