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 12 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 143 172
Rank change year-on-year +16 +29 -27
Contract jobs citing User Stories 1,005 570 478
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.17% 2.04% 1.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.56% 2.25% 1.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 654 400 310
10th Percentile £363 £355 £354
25th Percentile £420 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £580 £600 £612
90th Percentile £650 £725 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £523
% change year-on-year - -4.31% -0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 4 1
10th Percentile £50.90 £30.45 -
25th Percentile £54.38 £31.12 -
Median hourly rate £77.37 £31.49 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +145.68% -4.78% -37.60%
75th Percentile £87.98 £34.37 -
90th Percentile £98.68 £39.55 -
UK median hourly rate £74.93 £31.49 £33.07
% change year-on-year +137.96% -4.78% -37.60%

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 39,254 25,364 27,855
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.86% 90.88% 86.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,668 16,092 16,994
10th Percentile £325 £293 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,012 1,593 1,122
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.87 £20.14
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -5.56%
75th Percentile £67.47 £44.81 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.45 £74.40
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -9.60%

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 12 October 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 12 October 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 12 October 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 +12 604 £525 - 420
Midlands +13 123 £450 +5.88% 86
North of England -41 117 £474 -5.20% 134
West Midlands +21 95 £450 - 51
South East -58 64 £450 -5.26% 125
North West -26 58 £500 +9.89% 68
Yorkshire -27 48 £463 -11.06% 46
South West -8 45 £475 -5.00% 37
East of England +4 34 £495 +10.00% 46
East Midlands -12 28 £455 +26.39% 35
North East -34 12 £408 -17.47% 20
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
1 191 (19.00%) Confluence
2 28 (2.79%) CMS
3 14 (1.39%) SharePoint
4 10 (1.00%) Camunda
5 5 (0.50%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 5 (0.50%) Kentico
6 4 (0.40%) Headless CMS
7 3 (0.30%) Cloud Foundry
7 3 (0.30%) Jupyter
7 3 (0.30%) Umbraco
8 2 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
8 2 (0.20%) Smallworld
8 2 (0.20%) Traefik
9 1 (0.100%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.100%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.100%) Drupal
9 1 (0.100%) EPiServer
9 1 (0.100%) Moodle
9 1 (0.100%) SAS
9 1 (0.100%) Totara
Applications
1 41 (4.08%) MS Visio
2 32 (3.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
4 11 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.70%) Notion
6 5 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.30%) Productboard
8 2 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.100%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.100%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.100%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.100%) Trello
Business Applications
1 24 (2.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.50%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.40%) ProductWriter
5 3 (0.30%) Aladdin
5 3 (0.30%) NetSuite
5 3 (0.30%) SAP SD
6 2 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
6 2 (0.20%) Dynamics SL
6 2 (0.20%) Infor CloudSuite
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.20%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.20%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.20%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 204 (20.30%) Azure
2 121 (12.04%) Power Platform
3 104 (10.35%) Azure DevOps
4 96 (9.55%) AWS
5 41 (4.08%) Dynamics 365
6 36 (3.58%) SaaS
7 29 (2.89%) GCP
7 29 (2.89%) GitHub
7 29 (2.89%) Power Automate
8 28 (2.79%) PowerApps
9 25 (2.49%) Microsoft 365
10 22 (2.19%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
11 18 (1.79%) Lucidchart
11 18 (1.79%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 18 (1.79%) Snowflake
12 17 (1.69%) Entra ID
13 14 (1.39%) Figma
14 12 (1.19%) Serverless
15 11 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
15 11 (1.09%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.40%) Wi-Fi
2 3 (0.30%) Broadband
2 3 (0.30%) Internet
2 3 (0.30%) Intranet
3 2 (0.20%) HTTP
3 2 (0.20%) SD-WAN
3 2 (0.20%) WAN
3 2 (0.20%) Wireless
4 1 (0.100%) 5G
4 1 (0.100%) CTI
4 1 (0.100%) Network Security
4 1 (0.100%) NFC
4 1 (0.100%) PBX
4 1 (0.100%) SSH
4 1 (0.100%) SSL
4 1 (0.100%) Unified Communications
4 1 (0.100%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (7.96%) Power BI
2 39 (3.88%) Metadata
3 37 (3.68%) Data Warehouse
4 27 (2.69%) Relational Database
5 22 (2.19%) SQL Server
6 20 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (0.90%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.70%) Big Data
9 6 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
9 6 (0.60%) Parquet
9 6 (0.60%) Tableau
10 5 (0.50%) BigQuery
10 5 (0.50%) ClickHouse
10 5 (0.50%) Data Hub
10 5 (0.50%) Delta Lake
10 5 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (0.50%) Star Schema
11 3 (0.30%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.30%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.30%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 254 (25.27%) JIRA
2 38 (3.78%) Git
3 25 (2.49%) Jenkins
4 24 (2.39%) Maven
5 23 (2.29%) GitLab
5 23 (2.29%) Gradle
6 20 (1.99%) JUnit
7 17 (1.69%) Mockito
7 17 (1.69%) SonarQube
8 14 (1.39%) Postman
9 12 (1.19%) REST Assured
9 12 (1.19%) Selenium
10 10 (1.00%) Cucumber
10 10 (1.00%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.90%) Bitbucket Server
12 6 (0.60%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.60%) Team Foundation Server
13 5 (0.50%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 3 (0.30%) Balsamiq
14 3 (0.30%) Gatling
General
1 411 (40.90%) Social Skills
2 291 (28.96%) Finance
3 264 (26.27%) Analytical Skills
4 149 (14.83%) Banking
5 137 (13.63%) Public Sector
6 74 (7.36%) Documentation Skills
7 64 (6.37%) Retail
8 41 (4.08%) Influencing Skills
9 38 (3.78%) Investment Banking
10 37 (3.68%) Legal
11 31 (3.08%) Marketing
12 25 (2.49%) Manufacturing
12 25 (2.49%) Organisational Skills
13 22 (2.19%) Telecoms
14 21 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 21 (2.09%) Presentation Skills
15 19 (1.89%) Front Office
16 17 (1.69%) Retail Banking
17 16 (1.59%) Local Government
17 16 (1.59%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 510 (50.75%) Analyst
2 457 (45.47%) Business Analyst
3 148 (14.73%) Senior
4 116 (11.54%) Product Owner
5 111 (11.04%) Developer
6 79 (7.86%) Product Manager
7 78 (7.76%) Senior Analyst
8 77 (7.66%) Senior Business Analyst
9 67 (6.67%) Technical Analyst
10 63 (6.27%) Lead
11 50 (4.98%) Technical Business Analyst
12 34 (3.38%) Consultant
13 30 (2.99%) Salesforce Analyst
14 29 (2.89%) Salesforce Business Analyst
14 29 (2.89%) Senior Developer
15 26 (2.59%) Data Business Analyst
16 25 (2.49%) Data Analyst
17 22 (2.19%) Financial Analyst
17 22 (2.19%) Java Developer
18 19 (1.89%) Finance Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (4.78%) REST
2 40 (3.98%) JSON
3 34 (3.38%) Spring Boot
4 25 (2.49%) SOAP
4 25 (2.49%) Spring
5 24 (2.39%) RESTful
6 22 (2.19%) Terraform
7 21 (2.09%) HTML
7 21 (2.09%) Kafka
7 21 (2.09%) React
8 20 (1.99%) AngularJS
8 20 (1.99%) Hibernate
8 20 (1.99%) JPA
9 16 (1.59%) .NET
9 16 (1.59%) CSS
10 14 (1.39%) Lightning Web Components
11 12 (1.19%) Middleware
11 12 (1.19%) OAuth
11 12 (1.19%) OpenAPI
11 12 (1.19%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 352 (35.02%) Product Ownership
2 44 (4.38%) Onboarding
3 31 (3.08%) Analytical Mindset
3 31 (3.08%) Cloud Native
4 29 (2.89%) Data Structures
5 27 (2.69%) Management Information System
6 24 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
7 21 (2.09%) CMDB
7 21 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
8 20 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
9 19 (1.89%) AI Agents
10 16 (1.59%) Virtual Team
11 15 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
12 14 (1.39%) Mobile App
13 12 (1.19%) NHS
14 11 (1.09%) FMCG
14 11 (1.09%) Life Science
15 10 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
15 10 (1.00%) Low-Code
16 9 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 15 (1.49%) Linux
2 8 (0.80%) Unix
3 5 (0.50%) Android
3 5 (0.50%) Apple iOS
3 5 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (0.50%) Windows
4 2 (0.20%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 704 (70.05%) Agile
2 453 (45.07%) Stakeholder Management
3 436 (43.38%) Acceptance Criteria
4 344 (34.23%) Requirements Gathering
5 292 (29.05%) Workshop Facilitation
6 269 (26.77%) Business Analysis
7 268 (26.67%) Scrum
8 253 (25.17%) User Acceptance Testing
9 218 (21.69%) Continuous Improvement
10 213 (21.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 198 (19.70%) DevOps
12 195 (19.40%) Problem-Solving
12 195 (19.40%) Roadmaps
13 186 (18.51%) Product Backlog
14 182 (18.11%) Sprint Planning
15 173 (17.21%) Backlog Management
16 170 (16.92%) Backlog Prioritisation
17 155 (15.42%) Backlog Refinement
17 155 (15.42%) Validation
18 154 (15.32%) AI
Programming Languages
1 163 (16.22%) SQL
2 65 (6.47%) Java
3 63 (6.27%) Python
4 57 (5.67%) JavaScript
5 22 (2.19%) C#
6 13 (1.29%) TypeScript
7 12 (1.19%) Apex Code
8 10 (1.00%) Scala
9 8 (0.80%) Kotlin
10 7 (0.70%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (0.50%) Korn
12 3 (0.30%) SOQL
12 3 (0.30%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.20%) Bash
13 2 (0.20%) Magik
13 2 (0.20%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.20%) R
13 2 (0.20%) Ruby
13 2 (0.20%) SOSL
14 1 (0.100%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 169 (16.82%) Security Cleared
2 139 (13.83%) SC Cleared
3 92 (9.15%) Degree
4 35 (3.48%) BPSS Clearance
5 23 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
6 19 (1.89%) IIBA
6 19 (1.89%) Microsoft Certification
7 15 (1.49%) CBAP
7 15 (1.49%) PMI Certification
8 14 (1.39%) CSPO
9 13 (1.29%) PMP
10 11 (1.09%) DV Cleared
11 8 (0.80%) CISSP
12 5 (0.50%) AWS Certification
12 5 (0.50%) ISEB
12 5 (0.50%) ISTQB
13 3 (0.30%) Azure Certification
13 3 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.30%) Master's Degree
14 2 (0.20%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (10.55%) QA
2 73 (7.26%) Data Quality
3 44 (4.38%) Accessibility
4 15 (1.49%) GDPR
5 13 (1.29%) GRC
6 10 (1.00%) WCAG
7 9 (0.90%) ISO 20022
8 7 (0.70%) GxP
9 6 (0.60%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 5 (0.50%) NIST
10 5 (0.50%) PMO
10 5 (0.50%) SEPA
11 4 (0.40%) ISO 15022
11 4 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 3 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.30%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.30%) Solvency II
13 2 (0.20%) Basel III
13 2 (0.20%) Def Stans
13 2 (0.20%) SLA
System Software
1 43 (4.28%) Docker
2 14 (1.39%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (0.40%) IAG
5 1 (0.100%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 25 (2.49%) Kubernetes
2 11 (1.09%) Ansible
3 10 (1.00%) Grafana
4 8 (0.80%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.30%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.20%) Argo
7 2 (0.20%) Istio
8 1 (0.100%) Check_MK
8 1 (0.100%) Kibana
8 1 (0.100%) Podman
Vendors
1 158 (15.72%) Microsoft
2 79 (7.86%) Salesforce
3 42 (4.18%) SAP
4 41 (4.08%) ServiceNow
5 21 (2.09%) Databricks
6 19 (1.89%) Google
7 18 (1.79%) Oracle
8 11 (1.09%) IBM
9 10 (1.00%) Veracode
10 9 (0.90%) CyberArk
10 9 (0.90%) Pega
11 7 (0.70%) Adobe
11 7 (0.70%) Zscaler
12 6 (0.60%) Guidewire
12 6 (0.60%) Okta
12 6 (0.60%) Splunk
13 5 (0.50%) Alteryx
13 5 (0.50%) Atlassian
13 5 (0.50%) MuleSoft
13 5 (0.50%) Planview