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 10 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 156 152
Rank change year-on-year +30 -4 -33
Contract jobs citing User Stories 839 411 577
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.06% 1.68% 1.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.42% 1.84% 1.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 584 268 400
10th Percentile £356 £357 £350
25th Percentile £413 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% +1.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 2 6
10th Percentile £40.54 £54.90 £31.71
25th Percentile £48.86 £57.00 £32.03
Median hourly rate £70.00 £61.75 £42.75
Median % change year-on-year +13.36% +44.44% -33.72%
75th Percentile £74.26 £67.75 £62.94
90th Percentile £98.01 £70.60 £69.25
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £53.50 £42.75
% change year-on-year +30.84% +25.15% -33.72%

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 34,606 22,325 31,829
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.80% 91.23% 86.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,091 14,613 20,852
10th Percentile £319 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £501 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.75% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,151 936 2,252
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.56 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £46.80 £29.15 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.55% -20.14% -2.14%
75th Percentile £67.84 £63.29 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £28.75 £36.50
% change year-on-year +46.09% -21.23% +1.39%

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 10 May 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 10 May 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 10 May 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 +60 474 £518 -1.27% 120
North of England +2 131 £466 +3.56% 55
Midlands -7 98 £475 +2.70% 35
West Midlands -10 72 £484 +1.79% 23
North West -2 64 £392 -21.70% 28
South East -57 63 £450 -12.96% 60
Yorkshire -25 48 £510 +20.00% 16
South West -22 34 £500 -13.04% 15
East of England -19 28 £510 +31.61% 11
East Midlands -20 26 £463 +17.01% 12
North East -8 20 £450 +12.50% 11
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
1 162 (19.31%) Confluence
2 17 (2.03%) CMS
3 16 (1.91%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.07%) SAS
5 4 (0.48%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.36%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.36%) Camunda
6 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.24%) Drupal
7 2 (0.24%) JBoss
7 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.24%) WordPress
8 1 (0.12%) Apache
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 50 (5.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (5.13%) MS Visio
3 26 (3.10%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.60%) Notion
6 3 (0.36%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.36%) InVision
6 3 (0.36%) Sketch
6 3 (0.36%) Zeplin
7 2 (0.24%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (2.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (1.31%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.95%) NetSuite
4 6 (0.72%) Adobe Campaign
5 5 (0.60%) ProductWriter
5 5 (0.60%) Teamcenter
6 4 (0.48%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.48%) Eloqua
6 4 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
7 3 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
7 3 (0.36%) Dynamics SL
7 3 (0.36%) Infor CloudSuite
7 3 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.36%) Oracle Financials
7 3 (0.36%) Sage X3
7 3 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.36%) Temenos T24
8 2 (0.24%) Exchequer
8 2 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 144 (17.16%) Azure
2 72 (8.58%) AWS
3 70 (8.34%) Power Platform
4 51 (6.08%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (2.86%) Dynamics 365
5 24 (2.86%) SaaS
5 24 (2.86%) Salesforce Service Cloud
6 23 (2.74%) GitHub
7 22 (2.62%) Microsoft 365
8 21 (2.50%) GCP
9 14 (1.67%) Power Automate
9 14 (1.67%) PowerApps
10 13 (1.55%) Azure Data Factory
10 13 (1.55%) Figma
10 13 (1.55%) Lucidchart
11 12 (1.43%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 10 (1.19%) Miro
13 8 (0.95%) Entra ID
13 8 (0.95%) OpenShift
14 7 (0.83%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.95%) Network Security
2 7 (0.83%) Firewall
3 4 (0.48%) HTTP
4 3 (0.36%) DNS
4 3 (0.36%) FTP
4 3 (0.36%) WebEx
5 2 (0.24%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (0.24%) Wireless
6 1 (0.12%) BGP
6 1 (0.12%) NFC
6 1 (0.12%) NGFW
6 1 (0.12%) VLAN
6 1 (0.12%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (6.44%) Power BI
2 22 (2.62%) Data Warehouse
2 22 (2.62%) Metadata
3 16 (1.91%) Tableau
4 13 (1.55%) SQL Server
5 10 (1.19%) Relational Database
6 9 (1.07%) BigQuery
6 9 (1.07%) NoSQL
6 9 (1.07%) PostgreSQL
7 8 (0.95%) Data Lake
7 8 (0.95%) Delta Lake
8 5 (0.60%) Parquet
9 3 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.36%) Big Data
9 3 (0.36%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.36%) Data Vault
9 3 (0.36%) OLAP
10 2 (0.24%) Metadata Repository
10 2 (0.24%) Oracle OLAP
10 2 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 216 (25.74%) JIRA
2 22 (2.62%) Postman
3 18 (2.15%) Git
4 17 (2.03%) Jenkins
5 16 (1.91%) GitLab
6 9 (1.07%) Selenium
7 7 (0.83%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.83%) JUnit
7 7 (0.83%) Zephyr
8 6 (0.72%) Gradle
8 6 (0.72%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.60%) Balsamiq
10 4 (0.48%) JMeter
10 4 (0.48%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.36%) Axure RP
11 3 (0.36%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.36%) TeamCity
11 3 (0.36%) TestRail
12 2 (0.24%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 328 (39.09%) Social Skills
2 238 (28.37%) Finance
3 217 (25.86%) Analytical Skills
4 109 (12.99%) Public Sector
5 108 (12.87%) Banking
6 64 (7.63%) Documentation Skills
7 54 (6.44%) Retail
8 44 (5.24%) Presentation Skills
9 31 (3.69%) Marketing
10 24 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
11 23 (2.74%) Legal
12 18 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
13 17 (2.03%) Investment Banking
13 17 (2.03%) Retail Banking
14 16 (1.91%) Financial Institution
15 15 (1.79%) Military
16 13 (1.55%) Front Office
17 10 (1.19%) Manufacturing
18 8 (0.95%) Back Office
18 8 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 462 (55.07%) Analyst
2 434 (51.73%) Business Analyst
3 144 (17.16%) Senior
4 97 (11.56%) Product Owner
5 95 (11.32%) Senior Analyst
6 88 (10.49%) Senior Business Analyst
7 61 (7.27%) Developer
8 56 (6.67%) Product Manager
8 56 (6.67%) Technical Analyst
9 53 (6.32%) Technical Business Analyst
10 43 (5.13%) Salesforce Business Analyst
11 42 (5.01%) Salesforce Analyst
12 31 (3.69%) Lead
13 27 (3.22%) Data Analyst
13 27 (3.22%) Implementation Analyst
14 25 (2.98%) Data Business Analyst
15 23 (2.74%) Banking Analyst
16 22 (2.62%) Financial Analyst
16 22 (2.62%) Senior Salesforce Analyst
16 22 (2.62%) Senior Salesforce Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (3.58%) REST
2 16 (1.91%) ADO
3 15 (1.79%) React
3 15 (1.79%) RESTful
4 12 (1.43%) VML
5 11 (1.31%) XML
6 9 (1.07%) HTML
6 9 (1.07%) JSON
6 9 (1.07%) Kafka
6 9 (1.07%) Node.js
6 9 (1.07%) Spring
6 9 (1.07%) Spring Boot
7 8 (0.95%) Lightning Web Components
8 7 (0.83%) AngularJS
8 7 (0.83%) CSS
9 6 (0.72%) .NET
9 6 (0.72%) SOAP
10 5 (0.60%) ASP.NET
10 5 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
10 5 (0.60%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 277 (33.02%) Product Ownership
2 26 (3.10%) Data Protection Act
2 26 (3.10%) Onboarding
3 22 (2.62%) Analytical Mindset
3 22 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
4 20 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
5 16 (1.91%) CMDB
5 16 (1.91%) Data Structures
5 16 (1.91%) Management Information System
6 14 (1.67%) Cloud Native
7 13 (1.55%) Virtual Team
8 12 (1.43%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 12 (1.43%) PMI
9 10 (1.19%) AI Agents
10 9 (1.07%) NHS
11 8 (0.95%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 7 (0.83%) Low-Code
12 7 (0.83%) Marketing Technology
12 7 (0.83%) Mobile App
12 7 (0.83%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 14 (1.67%) Linux
2 12 (1.43%) Windows
3 5 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.36%) CentOS
4 3 (0.36%) Unix
5 2 (0.24%) Android
5 2 (0.24%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.24%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 552 (65.79%) Agile
2 331 (39.45%) Acceptance Criteria
3 275 (32.78%) Stakeholder Management
4 205 (24.43%) Workshop Facilitation
5 198 (23.60%) Requirements Gathering
6 186 (22.17%) Scrum
7 183 (21.81%) Business Analysis
8 166 (19.79%) User Acceptance Testing
9 157 (18.71%) DevOps
10 154 (18.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 151 (18.00%) Roadmaps
12 148 (17.64%) Problem-Solving
13 125 (14.90%) Sprint Planning
14 121 (14.42%) Data Modelling
15 115 (13.71%) Migration
16 114 (13.59%) Product Backlog
17 105 (12.51%) Backlog Management
18 103 (12.28%) Analytics
19 101 (12.04%) Continuous Improvement
20 95 (11.32%) Epics
Programming Languages
1 105 (12.51%) SQL
2 54 (6.44%) Python
3 36 (4.29%) Java
4 23 (2.74%) JavaScript
5 13 (1.55%) C#
6 9 (1.07%) TypeScript
7 7 (0.83%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.72%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.72%) Korn
9 5 (0.60%) Kotlin
10 4 (0.48%) R
10 4 (0.48%) T-SQL
10 4 (0.48%) VBA
11 2 (0.24%) Google Apps Script
11 2 (0.24%) PHP
11 2 (0.24%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.24%) Ruby
11 2 (0.24%) Scala
12 1 (0.12%) SOQL
12 1 (0.12%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 156 (18.59%) Security Cleared
2 123 (14.66%) SC Cleared
3 88 (10.49%) Degree
4 39 (4.65%) CBAP
5 33 (3.93%) IIBA
6 32 (3.81%) BPSS Clearance
7 18 (2.15%) CSPO
8 16 (1.91%) PMI Certification
9 11 (1.31%) Master's Degree
10 8 (0.95%) ISTQB
11 7 (0.83%) ISEB
12 6 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (0.72%) MBA
13 5 (0.60%) DV Cleared
14 4 (0.48%) PMP
15 3 (0.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 2 (0.24%) AWS Certification
16 2 (0.24%) CompTIA Security+
16 2 (0.24%) DBS Check
16 2 (0.24%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (13.35%) QA
2 52 (6.20%) Data Quality
3 39 (4.65%) Accessibility
4 25 (2.98%) GDPR
5 14 (1.67%) SLA
6 9 (1.07%) NIST
7 7 (0.83%) WCAG
8 6 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.60%) GxP
9 5 (0.60%) ISO 20022
9 5 (0.60%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.60%) PSD2
10 4 (0.48%) HL7
11 3 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.36%) GMP
11 3 (0.36%) GRC
11 3 (0.36%) Solvency II
12 2 (0.24%) EU AI Act
12 2 (0.24%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.24%) NCSC
System Software
1 19 (2.26%) Docker
2 6 (0.72%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.60%) 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 22 (2.62%) Kubernetes
2 17 (2.03%) Ansible
3 11 (1.31%) Terraform
4 7 (0.83%) SCCM
5 5 (0.60%) HP Quality Center
5 5 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.36%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.24%) CASB
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%) Grafana
8 1 (0.12%) Kibana
Vendors
1 116 (13.83%) Microsoft
2 86 (10.25%) Salesforce
3 51 (6.08%) SAP
4 44 (5.24%) ServiceNow
5 22 (2.62%) Oracle
6 21 (2.50%) Databricks
7 16 (1.91%) Google
8 14 (1.67%) Adobe
9 11 (1.31%) Cisco
10 10 (1.19%) Splunk
10 10 (1.19%) Workday
11 9 (1.07%) Pega
12 8 (0.95%) Zscaler
12 8 (0.95%) Zuora
13 7 (0.83%) MuleSoft
13 7 (0.83%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
14 6 (0.72%) Fortinet
14 6 (0.72%) Guidewire
14 6 (0.72%) VMware
15 5 (0.60%) Citrix