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 8 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 163 144
Rank change year-on-year +31 -19 -20
Contract jobs citing User Stories 806 416 612
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.06% 1.71% 1.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.40% 1.88% 1.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 569 264 426
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.90% -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £668 £650
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £538
% change year-on-year -1.55% -6.98% +2.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 2 7
10th Percentile £48.86 £54.90 £31.71
25th Percentile £60.61 £57.00 £32.36
Median hourly rate £70.00 £61.75 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.36% +17.62% -18.60%
75th Percentile £74.26 £67.75 £59.88
90th Percentile - £70.60 £68.60
UK median hourly rate £71.25 £53.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +33.18% +1.90% -18.60%

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 33,535 22,134 32,375
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.78% 90.89% 86.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,490 14,584 21,356
10th Percentile £313 £313 £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 £614 £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 2,083 869 2,177
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.99 £12.92
25th Percentile £19.72 £19.00 £15.89
Median hourly rate £39.00 £32.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -1.71% -11.83%
75th Percentile £65.60 £65.00 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.65 £70.43
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £31.51 £33.00
% change year-on-year +14.25% -4.52% -11.17%

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 8 April 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 8 April 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 8 April 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 +53 452 £500 -4.76% 93
North of England +12 148 £475 +5.56% 73
Midlands -9 81 £475 +1.33% 22
North West +15 74 £409 -18.15% 37
South East -41 70 £475 -2.56% 55
West Midlands -24 61 £492 +2.71% 14
Yorkshire -15 53 £510 +20.00% 20
South West -24 28 £475 -17.39% 14
North East -3 23 £475 +18.75% 16
East Midlands -17 20 £402 +1.71% 7
East of England -25 20 £476 +26.80% 9
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 (20.10%) Confluence
2 29 (3.60%) SharePoint
3 16 (1.99%) CMS
4 11 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (1.12%) SAS
6 3 (0.37%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.37%) Camunda
6 3 (0.37%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.25%) Drupal
7 2 (0.25%) JBoss
7 2 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.25%) WordPress
8 1 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.12%) Apache
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 48 (5.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (5.58%) MS Visio
3 27 (3.35%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.62%) Adobe XD
5 5 (0.62%) Sketch
6 4 (0.50%) Notion
7 3 (0.37%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.37%) InVision
7 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.37%) Zeplin
8 2 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 16 (1.99%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.74%) Adobe Campaign
2 6 (0.74%) NetSuite
2 6 (0.74%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.50%) Eloqua
4 3 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.37%) ProductWriter
4 3 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.37%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.25%) Actimize
5 2 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.25%) Exchequer
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.25%) Primavera
5 2 (0.25%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.25%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 128 (15.88%) Azure
2 71 (8.81%) Power Platform
3 70 (8.68%) AWS
4 53 (6.58%) Azure DevOps
5 26 (3.23%) GCP
6 25 (3.10%) Microsoft 365
6 25 (3.10%) Salesforce Service Cloud
7 22 (2.73%) Dynamics 365
7 22 (2.73%) GitHub
8 21 (2.61%) PowerApps
9 20 (2.48%) Power Automate
10 19 (2.36%) SaaS
11 15 (1.86%) Figma
12 13 (1.61%) Entra ID
12 13 (1.61%) Lucidchart
12 13 (1.61%) Miro
12 13 (1.61%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 10 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
13 10 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
14 9 (1.12%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.36%) WebEx
2 9 (1.12%) Firewall
3 8 (0.99%) Network Security
4 5 (0.62%) DNS
4 5 (0.62%) HTTP
5 4 (0.50%) FTP
6 3 (0.37%) BGP
6 3 (0.37%) VLAN
7 2 (0.25%) Software-Defined Networking
8 1 (0.12%) Cisco IPT
8 1 (0.12%) NGFW
8 1 (0.12%) VPN
8 1 (0.12%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (6.70%) Power BI
2 27 (3.35%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (2.36%) Tableau
4 18 (2.23%) Metadata
5 15 (1.86%) BigQuery
6 13 (1.61%) SQL Server
7 11 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
8 10 (1.24%) Relational Database
9 9 (1.12%) NoSQL
10 6 (0.74%) Amazon Athena
10 6 (0.74%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.74%) Delta Lake
11 4 (0.50%) Big Data
12 3 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.37%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.37%) MongoDB
12 3 (0.37%) OLAP
12 3 (0.37%) Parquet
13 2 (0.25%) Oracle OLAP
13 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 205 (25.43%) JIRA
2 22 (2.73%) Postman
3 21 (2.61%) Jenkins
4 14 (1.74%) Git
5 11 (1.36%) Selenium
6 10 (1.24%) Cucumber
7 9 (1.12%) GitLab
7 9 (1.12%) Zephyr
8 8 (0.99%) JUnit
9 6 (0.74%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.62%) Axure RP
10 5 (0.62%) Balsamiq
10 5 (0.62%) JMeter
10 5 (0.62%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.62%) TeamCity
10 5 (0.62%) TestRail
11 4 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.50%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 3 (0.37%) Artifactory
12 3 (0.37%) SpecFlow
General
1 327 (40.57%) Social Skills
2 214 (26.55%) Analytical Skills
3 207 (25.68%) Finance
4 111 (13.77%) Public Sector
5 80 (9.93%) Banking
6 67 (8.31%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (5.46%) Presentation Skills
8 42 (5.21%) Retail
9 32 (3.97%) Marketing
10 30 (3.72%) Legal
11 23 (2.85%) Influencing Skills
12 16 (1.99%) Organisational Skills
13 15 (1.86%) Front Office
14 13 (1.61%) Financial Institution
14 13 (1.61%) Military
15 10 (1.24%) Investment Banking
15 10 (1.24%) Retail Banking
16 9 (1.12%) Back Office
17 8 (0.99%) Pharmaceutical
17 8 (0.99%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 439 (54.47%) Analyst
2 408 (50.62%) Business Analyst
3 122 (15.14%) Senior
4 86 (10.67%) Product Owner
5 82 (10.17%) Senior Analyst
6 71 (8.81%) Senior Business Analyst
7 55 (6.82%) Developer
8 43 (5.33%) Technical Analyst
9 42 (5.21%) Product Manager
10 41 (5.09%) Technical Business Analyst
11 39 (4.84%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 38 (4.71%) Salesforce Analyst
13 29 (3.60%) Lead
14 27 (3.35%) Data Analyst
15 25 (3.10%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
16 23 (2.85%) Data Business Analyst
17 22 (2.73%) Designer
17 22 (2.73%) Financial Analyst
18 21 (2.61%) Implementation Analyst
19 19 (2.36%) Banking Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.85%) REST
2 16 (1.99%) ADO
2 16 (1.99%) XML
3 15 (1.86%) React
3 15 (1.86%) RESTful
4 11 (1.36%) JSON
4 11 (1.36%) XMPP
5 10 (1.24%) HTML
5 10 (1.24%) VML
6 9 (1.12%) Kafka
6 9 (1.12%) Node.js
7 8 (0.99%) Apache NiFi
7 8 (0.99%) CSS
7 8 (0.99%) Spring
8 7 (0.87%) AngularJS
8 7 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
8 7 (0.87%) Spring Boot
8 7 (0.87%) Web Services
9 6 (0.74%) FHIR
10 5 (0.62%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 263 (32.63%) Product Ownership
2 23 (2.85%) Analytical Mindset
2 23 (2.85%) Onboarding
3 21 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
4 19 (2.36%) Data Protection Act
5 18 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
6 15 (1.86%) CMDB
6 15 (1.86%) PMI
7 13 (1.61%) Management Information System
8 12 (1.49%) Cloud Native
8 12 (1.49%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 11 (1.36%) Data Structures
10 9 (1.12%) NHS
11 8 (0.99%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 8 (0.99%) Virtual Team
12 7 (0.87%) Low-Code
12 7 (0.87%) Marketing Technology
12 7 (0.87%) Mobile App
12 7 (0.87%) Reinsurance
13 6 (0.74%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 20 (2.48%) Windows
2 14 (1.74%) Linux
3 8 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (0.99%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.12%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 525 (65.14%) Agile
2 323 (40.07%) Acceptance Criteria
3 254 (31.51%) Stakeholder Management
4 202 (25.06%) Workshop Facilitation
5 201 (24.94%) Requirements Gathering
6 195 (24.19%) Scrum
7 188 (23.33%) Business Analysis
8 159 (19.73%) Problem-Solving
9 157 (19.48%) User Acceptance Testing
10 148 (18.36%) DevOps
11 142 (17.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 132 (16.38%) Roadmaps
13 120 (14.89%) Sprint Planning
14 110 (13.65%) Migration
15 108 (13.40%) Data Modelling
16 101 (12.53%) Backlog Management
17 95 (11.79%) Product Backlog
18 90 (11.17%) Analytics
18 90 (11.17%) Continuous Improvement
19 87 (10.79%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 101 (12.53%) SQL
2 60 (7.44%) Python
3 35 (4.34%) Java
4 22 (2.73%) JavaScript
5 17 (2.11%) PowerShell
6 14 (1.74%) C#
7 11 (1.36%) Bash
8 9 (1.12%) Perl
8 9 (1.12%) TypeScript
9 8 (0.99%) Scala
10 6 (0.74%) Korn
11 5 (0.62%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.50%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.50%) VBA
13 3 (0.37%) Kotlin
13 3 (0.37%) XPath
14 2 (0.25%) Google Apps Script
14 2 (0.25%) PHP
14 2 (0.25%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.25%) R
Qualifications
1 160 (19.85%) Security Cleared
2 132 (16.38%) SC Cleared
3 89 (11.04%) Degree
4 40 (4.96%) CBAP
5 31 (3.85%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (3.85%) IIBA
6 22 (2.73%) PMI Certification
7 20 (2.48%) CSPO
8 11 (1.36%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.99%) PMP
10 7 (0.87%) DV Cleared
11 6 (0.74%) CCDP
11 6 (0.74%) CCNA
11 6 (0.74%) CCNP
11 6 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (0.74%) ISEB
11 6 (0.74%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.74%) MBA
12 5 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
13 4 (0.50%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (14.02%) QA
2 43 (5.33%) Data Quality
3 41 (5.09%) Accessibility
4 23 (2.85%) GDPR
5 14 (1.74%) SLA
6 13 (1.61%) WCAG
7 9 (1.12%) PSD2
8 7 (0.87%) NIST
8 7 (0.87%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.74%) GxP
9 6 (0.74%) HL7
9 6 (0.74%) ISO 8583
10 4 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.37%) GMP
11 3 (0.37%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.37%) SNOMED CT
12 2 (0.25%) EU AI Act
12 2 (0.25%) NCSC
12 2 (0.25%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 19 (2.36%) Docker
2 13 (1.61%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.12%) Ceph
4 1 (0.12%) IAG
4 1 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 25 (3.10%) Kubernetes
2 12 (1.49%) Terraform
3 11 (1.36%) Ansible
4 7 (0.87%) SCCM
5 5 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (0.62%) HP Quality Center
6 4 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.37%) Grafana
7 3 (0.37%) NetBackup
7 3 (0.37%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.25%) CASB
8 2 (0.25%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.25%) HP ALM
8 2 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (0.25%) Puppet
9 1 (0.12%) Argo
9 1 (0.12%) CloudHub
9 1 (0.12%) Kibana
Vendors
1 123 (15.26%) Microsoft
2 84 (10.42%) Salesforce
3 46 (5.71%) ServiceNow
4 39 (4.84%) SAP
5 28 (3.47%) Oracle
6 21 (2.61%) Cisco
7 17 (2.11%) Databricks
8 16 (1.99%) Adobe
9 15 (1.86%) Google
10 13 (1.61%) Citrix
11 12 (1.49%) VMware
12 11 (1.36%) Red Hat
13 9 (1.12%) MuleSoft
13 9 (1.12%) Pega
13 9 (1.12%) Splunk
14 8 (0.99%) Workday
14 8 (0.99%) Zscaler
15 7 (0.87%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
16 6 (0.74%) Guidewire
16 6 (0.74%) Zuora