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

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 177 140
Rank change year-on-year +42 -37 -19
Contract jobs citing User Stories 750 392 643
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.07% 1.55% 1.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.37% 1.71% 1.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 542 261 447
10th Percentile £353 £350 £385
25th Percentile £413 £416 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.51% -2.38% -1.87%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -1.70% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 2 8
10th Percentile £48.86 £54.90 £31.71
25th Percentile £51.80 £57.00 £45.43
Median hourly rate £74.26 £61.75 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.26% +17.62% -17.97%
75th Percentile - £67.75 £66.39
90th Percentile £80.11 £70.60 £69.04
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 31,583 22,934 32,620
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.97% 90.41% 87.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,210 14,556 21,603
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £618 £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 1,944 784 2,086
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.50 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.32 £35.00 £33.78
Median % change year-on-year -16.23% +3.63% -5.26%
75th Percentile £63.81 £65.00 £59.33
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.18 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £32.50 £32.85
% change year-on-year -13.85% -1.05% -6.16%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 +52 424 £500 -5.21% 122
North of England +16 131 £489 +11.02% 68
South East -35 75 £475 -9.52% 91
North West +8 67 £435 -10.77% 38
Midlands -17 66 £475 +1.33% 37
West Midlands -23 48 £475 -1.66% 18
Yorkshire -28 47 £513 +28.13% 18
South West -22 25 £475 -17.39% 20
North East 0 19 £488 +21.88% 13
East Midlands -17 18 £414 +16.15% 18
East of England -28 15 £513 +46.50% 30
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
1 161 (21.47%) Confluence
2 23 (3.07%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.73%) CMS
4 11 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (1.20%) SAS
6 3 (0.40%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.27%) Apache
7 2 (0.27%) Drupal
7 2 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.27%) Traefik
7 2 (0.27%) WordPress
8 1 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.13%) Camunda
8 1 (0.13%) Kentico
8 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 43 (5.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (4.53%) MS Visio
3 28 (3.73%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.67%) Adobe XD
5 5 (0.67%) Sketch
6 4 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.53%) Notion
6 4 (0.53%) Trello
7 3 (0.40%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.40%) InVision
7 3 (0.40%) Zeplin
8 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 19 (2.53%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.80%) Adobe Campaign
3 6 (0.80%) NetSuite
3 6 (0.80%) Payment Gateway
4 4 (0.53%) Eloqua
5 3 (0.40%) Oracle Financials
5 3 (0.40%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.40%) ProductWriter
6 2 (0.27%) Actimize
6 2 (0.27%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.27%) Endur
6 2 (0.27%) Exchequer
6 2 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.27%) Primavera
6 2 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.27%) SAP BPC
6 2 (0.27%) Shopify
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 123 (16.40%) Azure
2 77 (10.27%) AWS
3 66 (8.80%) Power Platform
4 51 (6.80%) Azure DevOps
5 30 (4.00%) GCP
6 26 (3.47%) GitHub
7 24 (3.20%) Microsoft 365
8 21 (2.80%) Salesforce Service Cloud
9 20 (2.67%) Dynamics 365
9 20 (2.67%) PowerApps
10 19 (2.53%) Power Automate
11 18 (2.40%) SaaS
12 15 (2.00%) GitHub Actions
12 15 (2.00%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 14 (1.87%) Figma
13 14 (1.87%) Snowflake
14 13 (1.73%) Entra ID
14 13 (1.73%) Lucidchart
15 12 (1.60%) Miro
16 10 (1.33%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.47%) WebEx
2 10 (1.33%) Firewall
3 8 (1.07%) Network Security
4 5 (0.67%) DNS
5 4 (0.53%) FTP
5 4 (0.53%) HTTP
6 3 (0.40%) BGP
6 3 (0.40%) VLAN
7 2 (0.27%) Software-Defined Networking
7 2 (0.27%) VPN
8 1 (0.13%) Calico
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%) WAN
8 1 (0.13%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (6.80%) Power BI
2 28 (3.73%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (2.40%) Tableau
4 15 (2.00%) Metadata
5 14 (1.87%) BigQuery
5 14 (1.87%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (1.60%) SQL Server
7 11 (1.47%) NoSQL
8 9 (1.20%) Relational Database
9 7 (0.93%) Amazon Athena
9 7 (0.93%) Data Lake
10 5 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.67%) Big Data
10 5 (0.67%) Data Vault
10 5 (0.67%) Star Schema
11 4 (0.53%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
12 3 (0.40%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.40%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.40%) OLAP
Development Applications
1 202 (26.93%) JIRA
2 28 (3.73%) Jenkins
3 15 (2.00%) GitLab
4 14 (1.87%) Cucumber
4 14 (1.87%) Git
4 14 (1.87%) Postman
5 11 (1.47%) JUnit
5 11 (1.47%) Selenium
6 8 (1.07%) Zephyr
7 7 (0.93%) JMeter
7 7 (0.93%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.80%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.67%) Axure RP
9 5 (0.67%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.67%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.67%) TeamCity
9 5 (0.67%) TestRail
10 4 (0.53%) ER Studio
10 4 (0.53%) ERwin
10 4 (0.53%) PowerDesigner
General
1 300 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 206 (27.47%) Finance
3 172 (22.93%) Analytical Skills
4 99 (13.20%) Public Sector
5 72 (9.60%) Banking
6 56 (7.47%) Documentation Skills
7 35 (4.67%) Presentation Skills
7 35 (4.67%) Retail
8 31 (4.13%) Marketing
9 28 (3.73%) Legal
10 24 (3.20%) Influencing Skills
11 15 (2.00%) Military
12 14 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
13 13 (1.73%) Financial Institution
13 13 (1.73%) Front Office
14 12 (1.60%) Investment Banking
15 10 (1.33%) Retail Banking
16 9 (1.20%) Back Office
16 9 (1.20%) Telecoms
17 8 (1.07%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 392 (52.27%) Analyst
2 368 (49.07%) Business Analyst
3 112 (14.93%) Senior
4 81 (10.80%) Product Owner
5 72 (9.60%) Senior Analyst
6 63 (8.40%) Senior Business Analyst
7 53 (7.07%) Developer
8 40 (5.33%) Product Manager
9 39 (5.20%) Technical Analyst
10 37 (4.93%) Technical Business Analyst
11 30 (4.00%) Lead
11 30 (4.00%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 28 (3.73%) Salesforce Analyst
13 25 (3.33%) Data Analyst
14 24 (3.20%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
15 22 (2.93%) Data Business Analyst
15 22 (2.93%) Designer
16 20 (2.67%) Financial Analyst
17 18 (2.40%) Test Analyst
18 17 (2.27%) Banking Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (2.93%) REST
2 18 (2.40%) React
3 16 (2.13%) ADO
3 16 (2.13%) XML
4 15 (2.00%) JSON
5 14 (1.87%) Spring
6 13 (1.73%) Spring Boot
7 11 (1.47%) Kafka
7 11 (1.47%) RESTful
7 11 (1.47%) XMPP
8 10 (1.33%) HTML
8 10 (1.33%) Node.js
9 9 (1.20%) Lightning Web Components
9 9 (1.20%) Web Services
10 8 (1.07%) Apache NiFi
10 8 (1.07%) CSS
10 8 (1.07%) VML
11 7 (0.93%) Playwright
12 6 (0.80%) AngularJS
12 6 (0.80%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 229 (30.53%) Product Ownership
2 23 (3.07%) Analytical Mindset
3 19 (2.53%) Onboarding
4 17 (2.27%) PMI
5 15 (2.00%) Data Structures
5 15 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (1.73%) CMDB
7 12 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
8 11 (1.47%) Cloud Native
9 10 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (1.20%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 9 (1.20%) Management Information System
11 8 (1.07%) Greenfield Project
11 8 (1.07%) NHS
12 7 (0.93%) Low-Code
12 7 (0.93%) Marketing Technology
12 7 (0.93%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 6 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
13 6 (0.80%) Mobile App
14 5 (0.67%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 20 (2.67%) Windows
2 17 (2.27%) Linux
3 8 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (1.07%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.53%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 505 (67.33%) Agile
2 279 (37.20%) Acceptance Criteria
3 236 (31.47%) Stakeholder Management
4 188 (25.07%) Scrum
5 181 (24.13%) Requirements Gathering
6 173 (23.07%) Workshop Facilitation
7 164 (21.87%) Business Analysis
8 139 (18.53%) Problem-Solving
9 136 (18.13%) DevOps
10 132 (17.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 132 (17.60%) User Acceptance Testing
11 116 (15.47%) Roadmaps
12 102 (13.60%) Data Modelling
12 102 (13.60%) Migration
13 95 (12.67%) Sprint Planning
14 90 (12.00%) Backlog Management
14 90 (12.00%) Use Case
15 88 (11.73%) Product Backlog
16 85 (11.33%) Analytics
17 82 (10.93%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 97 (12.93%) SQL
2 60 (8.00%) Python
3 35 (4.67%) Java
4 19 (2.53%) JavaScript
4 19 (2.53%) PowerShell
5 16 (2.13%) C#
6 14 (1.87%) Bash
7 10 (1.33%) TypeScript
8 9 (1.20%) Perl
9 8 (1.07%) Scala
10 6 (0.80%) Korn
11 5 (0.67%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.53%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.53%) VBA
13 3 (0.40%) Go
13 3 (0.40%) XPath
14 2 (0.27%) Google Apps Script
14 2 (0.27%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.27%) PHP
14 2 (0.27%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 143 (19.07%) Security Cleared
2 118 (15.73%) SC Cleared
3 89 (11.87%) Degree
4 41 (5.47%) CBAP
5 31 (4.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (4.13%) IIBA
6 22 (2.93%) PMI Certification
7 21 (2.80%) CSPO
8 10 (1.33%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.93%) DV Cleared
10 6 (0.80%) CCDP
10 6 (0.80%) CCNA
10 6 (0.80%) CCNP
10 6 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.80%) ISEB
10 6 (0.80%) MBA
10 6 (0.80%) PMP
11 5 (0.67%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.53%) ISTQB
12 4 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (12.53%) QA
2 39 (5.20%) Accessibility
3 33 (4.40%) Data Quality
4 21 (2.80%) GDPR
5 14 (1.87%) WCAG
6 13 (1.73%) SLA
7 10 (1.33%) PSD2
8 7 (0.93%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.80%) ISO 8583
9 6 (0.80%) NIST
10 4 (0.53%) HL7
10 4 (0.53%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.40%) GxP
11 3 (0.40%) SEPA
12 2 (0.27%) Basel III
12 2 (0.27%) EU AI Act
12 2 (0.27%) GMP
12 2 (0.27%) NCSC
12 2 (0.27%) PMO
System Software
1 26 (3.47%) Docker
2 13 (1.73%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.13%) etcd
4 1 (0.13%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 30 (4.00%) Kubernetes
2 17 (2.27%) Terraform
3 12 (1.60%) Ansible
4 7 (0.93%) NetBackup
5 6 (0.80%) SCCM
6 5 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (0.67%) Grafana
6 5 (0.67%) HP Quality Center
6 5 (0.67%) Progress Chef
7 4 (0.53%) Puppet
8 2 (0.27%) CASB
8 2 (0.27%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.27%) HP ALM
8 2 (0.27%) Istio
9 1 (0.13%) Argo
9 1 (0.13%) CloudHub
9 1 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.13%) Kibana
9 1 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 117 (15.60%) Microsoft
2 80 (10.67%) Salesforce
3 48 (6.40%) ServiceNow
4 32 (4.27%) SAP
5 31 (4.13%) Oracle
6 21 (2.80%) Cisco
7 19 (2.53%) Databricks
8 15 (2.00%) Adobe
8 15 (2.00%) Red Hat
9 14 (1.87%) VMware
10 13 (1.73%) Citrix
11 12 (1.60%) MuleSoft
12 11 (1.47%) Google
13 10 (1.33%) Splunk
14 8 (1.07%) Workday
14 8 (1.07%) Zscaler
15 7 (0.93%) Commvault
15 7 (0.93%) Pega
16 6 (0.80%) Fortinet
16 6 (0.80%) Zuora