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

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 177 145
Rank change year-on-year +49 -32 -24
Contract jobs citing User Stories 762 390 636
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.06% 1.59% 1.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.38% 1.76% 1.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 542 254 442
10th Percentile £350 £350 £388
25th Percentile £409 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.40% -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £638 £656 £675
UK median daily rate £491 £500 £534
% change year-on-year -1.80% -6.32% +1.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 2 9
10th Percentile £48.86 £54.90 £31.71
25th Percentile £60.61 £57.00 £33.00
Median hourly rate £74.26 £61.75 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.26% +17.62% -17.97%
75th Percentile - £67.75 £66.00
90th Percentile £82.06 £70.60 £68.55
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £53.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +38.80% +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 31,979 22,196 32,870
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.42% 90.71% 86.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,491 14,461 21,766
10th Percentile £313 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £504 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.05% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 1,970 819 2,143
10th Percentile £15.34 £15.08 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £31.45 £33.40 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.84% +2.77% -10.41%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.63
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.12
% change year-on-year -7.69% +1.20% -8.24%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +71 431 £500 -4.76% 114
North of England 0 132 £488 +8.44% 75
Midlands -20 72 £475 +2.70% 32
North West +9 69 £433 -13.50% 36
South East -46 67 £475 -6.86% 87
West Midlands -21 55 £492 +1.86% 17
Yorkshire -23 47 £515 +28.75% 25
South West -11 30 £475 -17.39% 22
North East +1 18 £475 +18.75% 15
East of England -19 18 £475 +35.79% 26
East Midlands -25 17 £402 +8.50% 14
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 (20.87%) Confluence
2 25 (3.28%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.84%) CMS
4 11 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (1.18%) SAS
6 3 (0.39%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.39%) Camunda
7 2 (0.26%) Apache
7 2 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.26%) Drupal
7 2 (0.26%) JBoss
7 2 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.26%) WordPress
8 1 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.13%) Kentico
8 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 44 (5.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (5.25%) MS Visio
3 28 (3.67%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.66%) Adobe XD
5 5 (0.66%) Sketch
6 4 (0.52%) Notion
7 3 (0.39%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.39%) InVision
7 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.39%) Zeplin
8 2 (0.26%) Trello
9 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 18 (2.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.79%) Adobe Campaign
2 6 (0.79%) NetSuite
2 6 (0.79%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.52%) Eloqua
4 3 (0.39%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.39%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.26%) Actimize
5 2 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.26%) Exchequer
5 2 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.26%) Primavera
5 2 (0.26%) ProductWriter
5 2 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.26%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.26%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 126 (16.54%) Azure
2 71 (9.32%) AWS
3 67 (8.79%) Power Platform
4 53 (6.96%) Azure DevOps
5 30 (3.94%) GCP
6 24 (3.15%) Microsoft 365
7 21 (2.76%) GitHub
7 21 (2.76%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 20 (2.62%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (2.62%) PowerApps
9 19 (2.49%) Power Automate
10 18 (2.36%) SaaS
11 13 (1.71%) Entra ID
11 13 (1.71%) Snowflake
12 12 (1.57%) Figma
12 12 (1.57%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 11 (1.44%) Lucidchart
13 11 (1.44%) Miro
14 10 (1.31%) Azure Data Factory
14 10 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.44%) WebEx
2 9 (1.18%) Firewall
3 8 (1.05%) Network Security
4 5 (0.66%) DNS
5 4 (0.52%) FTP
5 4 (0.52%) HTTP
6 3 (0.39%) BGP
6 3 (0.39%) VLAN
7 2 (0.26%) Software-Defined Networking
8 1 (0.13%) Cisco IPT
8 1 (0.13%) LAN
8 1 (0.13%) NGFW
8 1 (0.13%) SD-WAN
8 1 (0.13%) VPN
8 1 (0.13%) WAN
8 1 (0.13%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (6.82%) Power BI
2 28 (3.67%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (2.36%) Tableau
4 16 (2.10%) Metadata
5 15 (1.97%) BigQuery
6 13 (1.71%) SQL Server
7 12 (1.57%) PostgreSQL
8 10 (1.31%) NoSQL
8 10 (1.31%) Relational Database
9 7 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
10 6 (0.79%) Data Lake
11 4 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (0.52%) Big Data
12 3 (0.39%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.39%) Data Vault
12 3 (0.39%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.39%) MongoDB
12 3 (0.39%) OLAP
12 3 (0.39%) Oracle Database
12 3 (0.39%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 205 (26.90%) JIRA
2 23 (3.02%) Jenkins
3 15 (1.97%) Postman
4 13 (1.71%) Git
5 11 (1.44%) Cucumber
5 11 (1.44%) GitLab
5 11 (1.44%) Selenium
6 9 (1.18%) Zephyr
7 8 (1.05%) JUnit
8 6 (0.79%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.66%) Axure RP
9 5 (0.66%) Balsamiq
9 5 (0.66%) JMeter
9 5 (0.66%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.66%) TeamCity
9 5 (0.66%) TestRail
10 4 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.52%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.39%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.39%) SpecFlow
General
1 315 (41.34%) Social Skills
2 201 (26.38%) Finance
3 188 (24.67%) Analytical Skills
4 108 (14.17%) Public Sector
5 76 (9.97%) Banking
6 62 (8.14%) Documentation Skills
7 41 (5.38%) Presentation Skills
8 38 (4.99%) Retail
9 31 (4.07%) Marketing
10 30 (3.94%) Legal
11 23 (3.02%) Influencing Skills
12 14 (1.84%) Front Office
12 14 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
13 13 (1.71%) Financial Institution
13 13 (1.71%) Military
14 10 (1.31%) Investment Banking
14 10 (1.31%) Retail Banking
15 8 (1.05%) Back Office
15 8 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
15 8 (1.05%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 418 (54.86%) Analyst
2 385 (50.52%) Business Analyst
3 111 (14.57%) Senior
4 81 (10.63%) Product Owner
5 73 (9.58%) Senior Analyst
6 63 (8.27%) Senior Business Analyst
7 51 (6.69%) Developer
8 43 (5.64%) Technical Analyst
9 42 (5.51%) Product Manager
10 41 (5.38%) Technical Business Analyst
11 31 (4.07%) Salesforce Analyst
11 31 (4.07%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 28 (3.67%) Lead
13 27 (3.54%) Data Analyst
14 25 (3.28%) Data Business Analyst
14 25 (3.28%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
15 22 (2.89%) Financial Analyst
16 21 (2.76%) Designer
17 19 (2.49%) Implementation Analyst
17 19 (2.49%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.28%) REST
2 17 (2.23%) ADO
3 16 (2.10%) React
3 16 (2.10%) XML
4 12 (1.57%) JSON
5 11 (1.44%) XMPP
6 10 (1.31%) HTML
6 10 (1.31%) Spring
7 9 (1.18%) Kafka
7 9 (1.18%) Node.js
7 9 (1.18%) RESTful
7 9 (1.18%) Spring Boot
8 8 (1.05%) AngularJS
8 8 (1.05%) Apache NiFi
8 8 (1.05%) CSS
8 8 (1.05%) Lightning Web Components
8 8 (1.05%) VML
9 7 (0.92%) Web Services
10 6 (0.79%) FHIR
11 5 (0.66%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 238 (31.23%) Product Ownership
2 23 (3.02%) Analytical Mindset
3 21 (2.76%) Onboarding
4 16 (2.10%) PMI
5 15 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
6 14 (1.84%) CMDB
7 13 (1.71%) Cloud Native
7 13 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (1.71%) Data Structures
7 13 (1.71%) Management Information System
7 13 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
8 11 (1.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 9 (1.18%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 8 (1.05%) NHS
10 8 (1.05%) Reinsurance
11 7 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
11 7 (0.92%) Low-Code
11 7 (0.92%) Marketing Technology
12 6 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
12 6 (0.79%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 20 (2.62%) Windows
2 13 (1.71%) Linux
3 8 (1.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (1.05%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 502 (65.88%) Agile
2 298 (39.11%) Acceptance Criteria
3 238 (31.23%) Stakeholder Management
4 193 (25.33%) Workshop Facilitation
5 192 (25.20%) Requirements Gathering
6 190 (24.93%) Scrum
7 176 (23.10%) Business Analysis
8 146 (19.16%) Problem-Solving
9 145 (19.03%) User Acceptance Testing
10 143 (18.77%) DevOps
11 138 (18.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 128 (16.80%) Roadmaps
13 108 (14.17%) Sprint Planning
14 105 (13.78%) Data Modelling
14 105 (13.78%) Migration
15 97 (12.73%) Backlog Management
16 93 (12.20%) Product Backlog
17 86 (11.29%) Use Case
18 84 (11.02%) Continuous Improvement
19 80 (10.50%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 98 (12.86%) SQL
2 57 (7.48%) Python
3 34 (4.46%) Java
4 21 (2.76%) JavaScript
5 17 (2.23%) PowerShell
6 14 (1.84%) C#
7 13 (1.71%) Bash
8 9 (1.18%) Perl
9 8 (1.05%) Scala
9 8 (1.05%) TypeScript
10 7 (0.92%) Korn
11 5 (0.66%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.52%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.52%) VBA
13 3 (0.39%) XPath
14 2 (0.26%) Google Apps Script
14 2 (0.26%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.26%) PHP
14 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.13%) Go
Qualifications
1 155 (20.34%) Security Cleared
2 127 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 90 (11.81%) Degree
4 42 (5.51%) CBAP
5 31 (4.07%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (4.07%) IIBA
6 22 (2.89%) PMI Certification
7 18 (2.36%) CSPO
8 11 (1.44%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.92%) DV Cleared
9 7 (0.92%) PMP
10 6 (0.79%) CCDP
10 6 (0.79%) CCNA
10 6 (0.79%) CCNP
10 6 (0.79%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.79%) ISEB
10 6 (0.79%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.79%) MBA
11 5 (0.66%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (14.04%) QA
2 42 (5.51%) Accessibility
3 35 (4.59%) Data Quality
4 24 (3.15%) GDPR
5 14 (1.84%) SLA
6 13 (1.71%) WCAG
7 9 (1.18%) PSD2
8 7 (0.92%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.79%) GxP
9 6 (0.79%) HL7
9 6 (0.79%) ISO 8583
9 6 (0.79%) NIST
10 4 (0.52%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.39%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.39%) GMP
11 3 (0.39%) SNOMED CT
12 2 (0.26%) EU AI Act
12 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 2 (0.26%) NCSC
12 2 (0.26%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 20 (2.62%) Docker
2 13 (1.71%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.13%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (3.41%) Kubernetes
2 14 (1.84%) Terraform
3 9 (1.18%) Ansible
4 7 (0.92%) SCCM
5 6 (0.79%) NetBackup
6 5 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (0.66%) HP Quality Center
7 4 (0.52%) Grafana
7 4 (0.52%) Puppet
8 3 (0.39%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.26%) CASB
9 2 (0.26%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.26%) HP ALM
9 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.13%) CloudHub
10 1 (0.13%) Kibana
10 1 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 119 (15.62%) Microsoft
2 82 (10.76%) Salesforce
3 48 (6.30%) ServiceNow
4 37 (4.86%) SAP
5 31 (4.07%) Oracle
6 21 (2.76%) Cisco
7 18 (2.36%) Databricks
8 15 (1.97%) Adobe
9 14 (1.84%) Red Hat
10 13 (1.71%) Citrix
11 12 (1.57%) Google
11 12 (1.57%) VMware
12 11 (1.44%) MuleSoft
13 9 (1.18%) Pega
13 9 (1.18%) Splunk
14 8 (1.05%) Workday
14 8 (1.05%) Zscaler
15 6 (0.79%) Guidewire
15 6 (0.79%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
15 6 (0.79%) Zuora