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 22 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 150 156
Rank change year-on-year +23 +6 -38
Contract jobs citing User Stories 882 476 580
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.04% 1.91% 1.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.39% 2.09% 1.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 600 309 395
10th Percentile £355 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -5.12% +2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £619 £589
90th Percentile £650 £725 £638
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% +1.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 2 6
10th Percentile £35.00 £54.90 £31.71
25th Percentile £67.50 £57.00 £32.03
Median hourly rate £72.50 £61.75 £33.04
Median % change year-on-year +17.41% +86.92% -48.38%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.75 £57.77
90th Percentile £90.57 £70.60 £69.25
UK median hourly rate £73.38 £53.50 £33.04
% change year-on-year +37.16% +61.95% -48.38%

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 36,902 22,811 32,109
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.25% 91.37% 85.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,326 14,743 20,763
10th Percentile £325 £300 £303
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £730 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £502 £525
% change year-on-year +2.04% -4.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,306 1,092 2,399
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.12 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.50 £27.06 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +75.52% -29.01% +8.82%
75th Percentile £68.75 £55.25 £61.47
90th Percentile £82.25 £74.88 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +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 22 June 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 22 June 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 22 June 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 +20 506 £517 -3.87% 73
North of England -29 123 £469 +1.41% 45
Midlands -5 99 £475 +2.70% 27
West Midlands -3 77 £475 +1.33% 17
South East -36 72 £450 -10.00% 56
North West -11 63 £403 -23.70% 23
South West -12 42 £480 -1.54% 21
Yorkshire -39 41 £518 +18.29% 17
East of England -8 28 £538 +34.38% 6
East Midlands -18 22 £459 +6.07% 10
North East -29 20 £425 -2.02% 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
1 155 (17.57%) Confluence
2 23 (2.61%) CMS
3 16 (1.81%) SharePoint
4 10 (1.13%) SAS
5 5 (0.57%) Camunda
5 5 (0.57%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.34%) Cloud Foundry
6 3 (0.34%) Drupal
6 3 (0.34%) Kentico
6 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.23%) JBoss
7 2 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.23%) WordPress
8 1 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 41 (4.65%) MS Visio
2 39 (4.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (3.06%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (2.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.68%) Notion
6 3 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.11%) InVision
7 1 (0.11%) Sketch
7 1 (0.11%) Trello
7 1 (0.11%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 14 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.68%) Adobe Campaign
3 6 (0.68%) ProductWriter
4 5 (0.57%) Teamcenter
5 4 (0.45%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.45%) Eloqua
5 4 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.45%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.34%) Actimize
6 3 (0.34%) Dynamics GP
6 3 (0.34%) Dynamics SL
6 3 (0.34%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.34%) NetSuite
6 3 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.34%) Oracle Financials
6 3 (0.34%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.23%) Exchequer
7 2 (0.23%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 184 (20.86%) Azure
2 76 (8.62%) AWS
3 70 (7.94%) Azure DevOps
4 64 (7.26%) Power Platform
5 24 (2.72%) GitHub
6 22 (2.49%) SaaS
7 21 (2.38%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 20 (2.27%) GCP
9 19 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
10 14 (1.59%) Entra ID
10 14 (1.59%) Microsoft 365
10 14 (1.59%) PowerApps
11 13 (1.47%) Power Automate
11 13 (1.47%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 12 (1.36%) Azure Data Factory
12 12 (1.36%) Figma
12 12 (1.36%) Lucidchart
13 9 (1.02%) Miro
14 8 (0.91%) Snowflake
15 6 (0.68%) Fivetran
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.91%) Network Security
2 6 (0.68%) Firewall
3 3 (0.34%) DNS
3 3 (0.34%) WebEx
3 3 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (0.23%) HTTP
4 2 (0.23%) Wireless
5 1 (0.11%) 5G
5 1 (0.11%) BGP
5 1 (0.11%) FTP
5 1 (0.11%) NFC
5 1 (0.11%) NGFW
5 1 (0.11%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (4.88%) Power BI
2 29 (3.29%) Metadata
3 26 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (1.70%) Relational Database
5 11 (1.25%) Tableau
6 10 (1.13%) NoSQL
6 10 (1.13%) SQL Server
7 9 (1.02%) Data Lake
8 8 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
9 7 (0.79%) BigQuery
9 7 (0.79%) Delta Lake
10 6 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (0.68%) Parquet
11 5 (0.57%) Big Data
11 5 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.45%) Data Mining
13 3 (0.34%) OLAP
13 3 (0.34%) Redis
14 2 (0.23%) DynamoDB
14 2 (0.23%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 224 (25.40%) JIRA
2 27 (3.06%) Postman
3 23 (2.61%) Git
4 19 (2.15%) GitLab
5 11 (1.25%) Jenkins
6 10 (1.13%) Selenium
7 9 (1.02%) Gradle
8 7 (0.79%) Team Foundation Server
9 6 (0.68%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.57%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 5 (0.57%) Balsamiq
10 5 (0.57%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.57%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.45%) JUnit
11 4 (0.45%) Zephyr
12 3 (0.34%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 2 (0.23%) Artifactory
13 2 (0.23%) Maven
13 2 (0.23%) Terragrunt
13 2 (0.23%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 332 (37.64%) Social Skills
2 229 (25.96%) Analytical Skills
3 227 (25.74%) Finance
4 114 (12.93%) Banking
5 109 (12.36%) Public Sector
6 72 (8.16%) Documentation Skills
7 59 (6.69%) Retail
8 37 (4.20%) Presentation Skills
9 31 (3.51%) Marketing
10 27 (3.06%) Legal
11 22 (2.49%) Influencing Skills
12 20 (2.27%) Investment Banking
13 19 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
14 18 (2.04%) Military
14 18 (2.04%) Retail Banking
15 15 (1.70%) Manufacturing
16 14 (1.59%) Aerospace
17 13 (1.47%) Financial Institution
17 13 (1.47%) Front Office
18 12 (1.36%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 466 (52.83%) Analyst
2 428 (48.53%) Business Analyst
3 134 (15.19%) Senior
4 113 (12.81%) Product Owner
5 82 (9.30%) Senior Analyst
6 80 (9.07%) Developer
7 75 (8.50%) Senior Business Analyst
8 59 (6.69%) Product Manager
9 58 (6.58%) Technical Analyst
10 52 (5.90%) Technical Business Analyst
11 38 (4.31%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 37 (4.20%) Lead
12 37 (4.20%) Salesforce Analyst
13 30 (3.40%) Implementation Analyst
14 29 (3.29%) Data Analyst
15 26 (2.95%) Data Business Analyst
16 25 (2.83%) Banking Analyst
17 22 (2.49%) Digital Business Analyst
18 21 (2.38%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
18 21 (2.38%) Systems Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (3.97%) REST
2 21 (2.38%) JSON
3 19 (2.15%) React
4 18 (2.04%) RESTful
5 15 (1.70%) ADO
5 15 (1.70%) AngularJS
6 13 (1.47%) XML
7 11 (1.25%) Spring Boot
8 10 (1.13%) Lightning Web Components
9 9 (1.02%) .NET
9 9 (1.02%) Node.js
10 8 (0.91%) Oracle Fusion
10 8 (0.91%) VML
11 7 (0.79%) CSS
11 7 (0.79%) HTML
11 7 (0.79%) Middleware
11 7 (0.79%) OAuth
11 7 (0.79%) OpenID
11 7 (0.79%) Spring
12 6 (0.68%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 297 (33.67%) Product Ownership
2 32 (3.63%) Onboarding
3 27 (3.06%) Analytical Mindset
4 25 (2.83%) Data Protection Act
5 24 (2.72%) CMDB
6 23 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
7 22 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
8 18 (2.04%) Cloud Native
9 17 (1.93%) Data Structures
10 15 (1.70%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 14 (1.59%) Management Information System
12 13 (1.47%) Virtual Team
13 10 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
13 10 (1.13%) PMI
13 10 (1.13%) Reinsurance
14 9 (1.02%) AI Agents
15 8 (0.91%) Enterprise Software
16 7 (0.79%) FMCG
16 7 (0.79%) Marketing Technology
16 7 (0.79%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.02%) Linux
2 8 (0.91%) Windows
3 5 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.34%) Android
4 3 (0.34%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.34%) CentOS
4 3 (0.34%) Unix
5 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 548 (62.13%) Agile
2 366 (41.50%) Acceptance Criteria
3 310 (35.15%) Stakeholder Management
4 216 (24.49%) Requirements Gathering
5 205 (23.24%) Scrum
6 193 (21.88%) User Acceptance Testing
7 190 (21.54%) Workshop Facilitation
8 180 (20.41%) DevOps
9 176 (19.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 175 (19.84%) Business Analysis
11 150 (17.01%) Problem-Solving
11 150 (17.01%) Roadmaps
12 145 (16.44%) Sprint Planning
13 132 (14.97%) Product Backlog
14 127 (14.40%) Continuous Improvement
15 118 (13.38%) Backlog Management
16 114 (12.93%) Analytics
17 113 (12.81%) Data Modelling
18 109 (12.36%) Validation
19 108 (12.24%) Backlog Prioritisation
Programming Languages
1 118 (13.38%) SQL
2 64 (7.26%) Python
3 41 (4.65%) Java
4 33 (3.74%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.59%) C#
6 9 (1.02%) TypeScript
7 7 (0.79%) Apex Code
7 7 (0.79%) PowerShell
8 5 (0.57%) Korn
9 4 (0.45%) Kotlin
9 4 (0.45%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.34%) R
10 3 (0.34%) Ruby
11 2 (0.23%) Bash
11 2 (0.23%) Google Apps Script
11 2 (0.23%) PHP
11 2 (0.23%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.23%) VBA
12 1 (0.11%) Perl
12 1 (0.11%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 166 (18.82%) Security Cleared
2 135 (15.31%) SC Cleared
3 77 (8.73%) Degree
4 31 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
5 27 (3.06%) IIBA
6 26 (2.95%) CBAP
7 13 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.47%) CSPO
7 13 (1.47%) PMI Certification
8 10 (1.13%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.91%) CISSP
9 8 (0.91%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.68%) DV Cleared
11 5 (0.57%) ISEB
12 4 (0.45%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.45%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.45%) MBA
12 4 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (0.34%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 108 (12.24%) QA
2 50 (5.67%) Data Quality
3 39 (4.42%) Accessibility
4 25 (2.83%) GDPR
5 10 (1.13%) GRC
5 10 (1.13%) NIST
6 6 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (0.68%) SLA
7 5 (0.57%) GxP
7 5 (0.57%) ISO 20022
7 5 (0.57%) Solvency II
7 5 (0.57%) WCAG
8 4 (0.45%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 4 (0.45%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.34%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.34%) HL7
9 3 (0.34%) PSD2
10 2 (0.23%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.23%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.23%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 24 (2.72%) Docker
2 11 (1.25%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (0.23%) IAG
4 2 (0.23%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.11%) Ceph
5 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 23 (2.61%) Kubernetes
2 16 (1.81%) Ansible
3 15 (1.70%) Terraform
4 7 (0.79%) SCCM
5 6 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.57%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.11%) Argo
8 1 (0.11%) CASB
8 1 (0.11%) Grafana
8 1 (0.11%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.11%) Kibana
Vendors
1 125 (14.17%) Microsoft
2 83 (9.41%) Salesforce
3 53 (6.01%) ServiceNow
4 48 (5.44%) SAP
5 20 (2.27%) Databricks
5 20 (2.27%) Oracle
6 14 (1.59%) Google
7 11 (1.25%) Adobe
8 10 (1.13%) Cisco
8 10 (1.13%) Splunk
8 10 (1.13%) Zscaler
9 9 (1.02%) Workday
10 8 (0.91%) Pega
11 6 (0.68%) Fortinet
11 6 (0.68%) Guidewire
11 6 (0.68%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
12 5 (0.57%) Citrix
12 5 (0.57%) Cognizant
12 5 (0.57%) CyberArk
12 5 (0.57%) ION Trading