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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 173 142
Rank change year-on-year +38 -31 -20
Contract jobs citing User Stories 757 389 637
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.05% 1.58% 1.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.38% 1.75% 1.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 543 255 445
10th Percentile £350 £350 £388
25th Percentile £409 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £573 £600 £600
90th Percentile £638 £666 £675
UK median daily rate £490 £500 £530
% change year-on-year -2.00% -5.66% +0.95%
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 31,848 22,266 32,932
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.46% 90.63% 86.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,386 14,474 21,796
10th Percentile £313 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £640 £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 1,978 815 2,152
10th Percentile £15.29 £15.18 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.79 £34.11 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.73% +4.95% -12.87%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +60 429 £500 -4.76% 157
North of England +4 131 £488 +10.80% 69
Midlands -10 71 £475 +1.33% 36
North West +10 69 £433 -11.28% 35
South East -38 68 £475 -6.86% 104
West Midlands -28 54 £492 +1.86% 22
Yorkshire -23 45 £510 +27.50% 21
South West -16 29 £475 -17.39% 25
North East -1 19 £488 +21.88% 14
East of England -27 18 £475 +35.79% 33
East Midlands -20 17 £402 +12.92% 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 (21.00%) Confluence
2 25 (3.30%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.72%) CMS
4 11 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (1.19%) SAS
6 3 (0.40%) Anypoint
7 2 (0.26%) Apache
7 2 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.26%) Camunda
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%) Kentico
8 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 43 (5.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (5.15%) MS Visio
3 28 (3.70%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.66%) Adobe XD
5 5 (0.66%) Sketch
6 4 (0.53%) Notion
7 3 (0.40%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.40%) InVision
7 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.40%) Trello
7 3 (0.40%) Zeplin
8 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 19 (2.51%) 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 (0.53%) Eloqua
4 3 (0.40%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.40%) 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%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.26%) Shopify
6 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 123 (16.25%) Azure
2 70 (9.25%) AWS
3 68 (8.98%) Power Platform
4 52 (6.87%) Azure DevOps
5 29 (3.83%) GCP
6 24 (3.17%) Microsoft 365
7 21 (2.77%) GitHub
8 20 (2.64%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (2.64%) PowerApps
9 19 (2.51%) Power Automate
9 19 (2.51%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 18 (2.38%) SaaS
11 13 (1.72%) Entra ID
11 13 (1.72%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
11 13 (1.72%) Snowflake
12 12 (1.59%) Figma
12 12 (1.59%) Lucidchart
13 10 (1.32%) Azure Data Factory
13 10 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (1.32%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.45%) WebEx
2 9 (1.19%) Firewall
3 8 (1.06%) Network Security
4 5 (0.66%) DNS
5 4 (0.53%) FTP
5 4 (0.53%) HTTP
6 3 (0.40%) BGP
6 3 (0.40%) 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 53 (7.00%) Power BI
2 28 (3.70%) Data Warehouse
3 20 (2.64%) Tableau
4 15 (1.98%) BigQuery
4 15 (1.98%) Metadata
5 12 (1.59%) SQL Server
6 11 (1.45%) PostgreSQL
7 10 (1.32%) NoSQL
7 10 (1.32%) Relational Database
8 7 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
9 6 (0.79%) Data Lake
10 4 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (0.53%) Big Data
11 3 (0.40%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.40%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.40%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.40%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.40%) OLAP
11 3 (0.40%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 201 (26.55%) JIRA
2 23 (3.04%) Jenkins
3 14 (1.85%) Postman
4 13 (1.72%) GitLab
5 12 (1.59%) Git
6 11 (1.45%) Cucumber
7 10 (1.32%) Selenium
8 8 (1.06%) JUnit
8 8 (1.06%) Zephyr
9 6 (0.79%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.66%) Axure RP
10 5 (0.66%) Balsamiq
10 5 (0.66%) JMeter
10 5 (0.66%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.66%) TeamCity
10 5 (0.66%) TestRail
11 4 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.53%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 3 (0.40%) Cypress.io
12 3 (0.40%) SpecFlow
General
1 312 (41.22%) Social Skills
2 202 (26.68%) Finance
3 184 (24.31%) Analytical Skills
4 103 (13.61%) Public Sector
5 76 (10.04%) Banking
6 62 (8.19%) Documentation Skills
7 40 (5.28%) Presentation Skills
8 38 (5.02%) Retail
9 31 (4.10%) Marketing
10 29 (3.83%) Legal
11 23 (3.04%) Influencing Skills
12 14 (1.85%) Front Office
12 14 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
13 13 (1.72%) Financial Institution
13 13 (1.72%) Military
14 10 (1.32%) Investment Banking
14 10 (1.32%) Retail Banking
15 8 (1.06%) Back Office
15 8 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
15 8 (1.06%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 414 (54.69%) Analyst
2 384 (50.73%) Business Analyst
3 110 (14.53%) Senior
4 81 (10.70%) Product Owner
5 72 (9.51%) Senior Analyst
6 62 (8.19%) Senior Business Analyst
7 50 (6.61%) Developer
8 41 (5.42%) Technical Analyst
9 40 (5.28%) Product Manager
10 39 (5.15%) Technical Business Analyst
11 31 (4.10%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 30 (3.96%) Salesforce Analyst
13 27 (3.57%) Data Analyst
13 27 (3.57%) Lead
13 27 (3.57%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
14 24 (3.17%) Data Business Analyst
15 21 (2.77%) Designer
15 21 (2.77%) Financial Analyst
16 19 (2.51%) Implementation Analyst
16 19 (2.51%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.17%) REST
2 16 (2.11%) ADO
2 16 (2.11%) React
2 16 (2.11%) XML
3 13 (1.72%) JSON
4 11 (1.45%) Spring Boot
4 11 (1.45%) XMPP
5 10 (1.32%) HTML
5 10 (1.32%) Spring
6 9 (1.19%) Kafka
6 9 (1.19%) Lightning Web Components
6 9 (1.19%) Node.js
7 8 (1.06%) Apache NiFi
7 8 (1.06%) CSS
7 8 (1.06%) RESTful
7 8 (1.06%) VML
8 7 (0.92%) AngularJS
8 7 (0.92%) Web Services
9 6 (0.79%) FHIR
10 5 (0.66%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 236 (31.18%) Product Ownership
2 24 (3.17%) Analytical Mindset
3 21 (2.77%) Onboarding
4 17 (2.25%) PMI
5 15 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
6 14 (1.85%) CMDB
7 13 (1.72%) Management Information System
8 12 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
8 12 (1.59%) Data Structures
8 12 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
9 10 (1.32%) Cloud Native
9 10 (1.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 9 (1.19%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 8 (1.06%) NHS
11 8 (1.06%) Reinsurance
12 7 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
12 7 (0.92%) Low-Code
12 7 (0.92%) Marketing Technology
13 6 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
13 6 (0.79%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 20 (2.64%) Windows
2 13 (1.72%) Linux
3 8 (1.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (1.06%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 501 (66.18%) Agile
2 296 (39.10%) Acceptance Criteria
3 241 (31.84%) Stakeholder Management
4 190 (25.10%) Workshop Facilitation
5 189 (24.97%) Requirements Gathering
6 188 (24.83%) Scrum
7 175 (23.12%) Business Analysis
8 144 (19.02%) Problem-Solving
8 144 (19.02%) User Acceptance Testing
9 138 (18.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 137 (18.10%) DevOps
11 124 (16.38%) Roadmaps
12 107 (14.13%) Sprint Planning
13 104 (13.74%) Data Modelling
14 101 (13.34%) Migration
15 98 (12.95%) Backlog Management
16 94 (12.42%) Product Backlog
17 86 (11.36%) Use Case
18 82 (10.83%) Continuous Improvement
19 80 (10.57%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 98 (12.95%) SQL
2 54 (7.13%) Python
3 32 (4.23%) Java
4 18 (2.38%) JavaScript
5 17 (2.25%) PowerShell
6 14 (1.85%) C#
7 13 (1.72%) Bash
8 9 (1.19%) Perl
9 8 (1.06%) Scala
9 8 (1.06%) TypeScript
10 7 (0.92%) Korn
11 4 (0.53%) Apex Code
11 4 (0.53%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.53%) VBA
12 3 (0.40%) XPath
13 2 (0.26%) Google Apps Script
13 2 (0.26%) Kotlin
13 2 (0.26%) PHP
13 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.13%) Go
Qualifications
1 151 (19.95%) Security Cleared
2 125 (16.51%) SC Cleared
3 91 (12.02%) Degree
4 42 (5.55%) CBAP
5 31 (4.10%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (4.10%) IIBA
6 23 (3.04%) PMI Certification
7 19 (2.51%) CSPO
8 10 (1.32%) 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
1 103 (13.61%) QA
2 43 (5.68%) Accessibility
3 37 (4.89%) Data Quality
4 23 (3.04%) GDPR
5 14 (1.85%) SLA
6 13 (1.72%) WCAG
7 9 (1.19%) 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 (0.53%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.40%) GMP
11 3 (0.40%) SNOMED CT
12 2 (0.26%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 2 (0.26%) EU AI Act
12 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 2 (0.26%) NCSC
System Software
1 22 (2.91%) Docker
2 13 (1.72%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.13%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (3.43%) Kubernetes
2 15 (1.98%) Terraform
3 9 (1.19%) Ansible
4 6 (0.79%) NetBackup
4 6 (0.79%) SCCM
5 5 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (0.66%) HP Quality Center
6 4 (0.53%) Grafana
6 4 (0.53%) Puppet
7 3 (0.40%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.26%) CASB
8 2 (0.26%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.26%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.13%) CloudHub
9 1 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.13%) Kibana
9 1 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 118 (15.59%) Microsoft
2 81 (10.70%) Salesforce
3 47 (6.21%) ServiceNow
4 36 (4.76%) SAP
5 30 (3.96%) Oracle
6 21 (2.77%) Cisco
7 18 (2.38%) Databricks
8 15 (1.98%) Adobe
9 14 (1.85%) Red Hat
10 13 (1.72%) Citrix
11 12 (1.59%) Google
12 11 (1.45%) MuleSoft
12 11 (1.45%) VMware
13 9 (1.19%) Pega
13 9 (1.19%) Splunk
14 8 (1.06%) Workday
14 8 (1.06%) Zscaler
15 6 (0.79%) Guidewire
15 6 (0.79%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
15 6 (0.79%) Zuora