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

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 168 139
Rank change year-on-year +39 -29 -12
Contract jobs citing User Stories 772 396 635
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.06% 1.62% 1.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.38% 1.78% 1.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 548 260 446
10th Percentile £350 £350 £375
25th Percentile £409 £409 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.40% -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £591 £600
90th Percentile £638 £656 £675
UK median daily rate £492 £486 £525
% change year-on-year +1.08% -7.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 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 £80.11 £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 32,374 22,226 32,746
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.47% 90.74% 86.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,766 14,506 21,651
10th Percentile £313 £310 £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 £615 £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 1,980 825 2,147
10th Percentile £15.49 £15.07 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £32.50 £34.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.41% +4.62% -10.48%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.83
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.81 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £30.32 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -6.71% - -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +56 437 £500 -2.91% 117
North of England +4 132 £488 +8.33% 77
Midlands -15 74 £490 +5.95% 29
North West +12 69 £430 -11.79% 38
South East -49 69 £475 -6.86% 86
West Midlands -23 57 £492 +1.86% 16
Yorkshire -22 47 £515 +21.18% 25
South West -17 30 £475 -17.39% 23
North East -6 18 £475 +18.75% 15
East of England -19 18 £475 +35.79% 26
East Midlands -23 17 £402 +8.50% 12
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 (20.85%) Confluence
2 25 (3.24%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.81%) CMS
4 11 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (1.17%) SAS
6 3 (0.39%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.39%) 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%) Apache
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.13%) Kentico
8 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 46 (5.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (5.57%) MS Visio
3 30 (3.89%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.65%) Adobe XD
5 5 (0.65%) Sketch
6 4 (0.52%) Notion
7 3 (0.39%) InVision
7 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.39%) Zeplin
8 2 (0.26%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.26%) Trello
9 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 18 (2.33%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.78%) Adobe Campaign
2 6 (0.78%) NetSuite
2 6 (0.78%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.52%) Eloqua
4 3 (0.39%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
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%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.26%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 129 (16.71%) Azure
2 70 (9.07%) AWS
3 66 (8.55%) Power Platform
4 55 (7.12%) Azure DevOps
5 30 (3.89%) GCP
6 24 (3.11%) Microsoft 365
7 22 (2.85%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 21 (2.72%) GitHub
9 20 (2.59%) Dynamics 365
9 20 (2.59%) PowerApps
10 19 (2.46%) Power Automate
10 19 (2.46%) SaaS
11 13 (1.68%) Entra ID
11 13 (1.68%) Lucidchart
11 13 (1.68%) Miro
11 13 (1.68%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 12 (1.55%) Figma
12 12 (1.55%) Snowflake
13 10 (1.30%) Azure Data Factory
13 10 (1.30%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.42%) WebEx
2 9 (1.17%) Firewall
3 8 (1.04%) Network Security
4 5 (0.65%) 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 51 (6.61%) Power BI
2 28 (3.63%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (2.33%) Tableau
4 16 (2.07%) Metadata
5 15 (1.94%) BigQuery
6 13 (1.68%) SQL Server
7 12 (1.55%) PostgreSQL
8 10 (1.30%) Relational Database
9 9 (1.17%) NoSQL
10 7 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
11 6 (0.78%) Data Lake
12 4 (0.52%) Big Data
13 3 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
13 3 (0.39%) Data Mining
13 3 (0.39%) Data Vault
13 3 (0.39%) Delta Lake
13 3 (0.39%) MongoDB
13 3 (0.39%) OLAP
13 3 (0.39%) Oracle Database
13 3 (0.39%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 210 (27.20%) JIRA
2 23 (2.98%) Jenkins
3 15 (1.94%) Postman
4 13 (1.68%) Git
5 11 (1.42%) Cucumber
5 11 (1.42%) GitLab
5 11 (1.42%) Selenium
6 9 (1.17%) Zephyr
7 8 (1.04%) JUnit
8 6 (0.78%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.65%) Axure RP
9 5 (0.65%) Balsamiq
9 5 (0.65%) JMeter
9 5 (0.65%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.65%) TeamCity
9 5 (0.65%) 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
1 319 (41.32%) Social Skills
2 202 (26.17%) Finance
3 190 (24.61%) Analytical Skills
4 108 (13.99%) Public Sector
5 76 (9.84%) Banking
6 64 (8.29%) Documentation Skills
7 42 (5.44%) Presentation Skills
8 39 (5.05%) Retail
9 31 (4.02%) Marketing
10 30 (3.89%) Legal
11 23 (2.98%) Influencing Skills
12 15 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.81%) Front Office
14 13 (1.68%) Financial Institution
14 13 (1.68%) Military
15 10 (1.30%) Investment Banking
15 10 (1.30%) Retail Banking
16 8 (1.04%) Back Office
16 8 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
16 8 (1.04%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 429 (55.57%) Analyst
2 396 (51.30%) Business Analyst
3 113 (14.64%) Senior
4 81 (10.49%) Product Owner
5 75 (9.72%) Senior Analyst
6 65 (8.42%) Senior Business Analyst
7 51 (6.61%) Developer
8 43 (5.57%) Technical Analyst
9 42 (5.44%) Product Manager
10 41 (5.31%) Technical Business Analyst
11 34 (4.40%) Salesforce Analyst
11 34 (4.40%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 27 (3.50%) Data Analyst
12 27 (3.50%) Lead
13 25 (3.24%) Data Business Analyst
13 25 (3.24%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
14 22 (2.85%) Financial Analyst
15 21 (2.72%) Designer
16 19 (2.46%) Implementation Analyst
16 19 (2.46%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.24%) REST
2 17 (2.20%) ADO
3 16 (2.07%) XML
4 15 (1.94%) React
5 12 (1.55%) JSON
6 11 (1.42%) XMPP
7 10 (1.30%) HTML
7 10 (1.30%) Spring
8 9 (1.17%) Kafka
8 9 (1.17%) RESTful
8 9 (1.17%) Spring Boot
9 8 (1.04%) AngularJS
9 8 (1.04%) Apache NiFi
9 8 (1.04%) CSS
9 8 (1.04%) Lightning Web Components
9 8 (1.04%) Node.js
9 8 (1.04%) VML
10 7 (0.91%) Web Services
11 6 (0.78%) FHIR
12 5 (0.65%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 240 (31.09%) Product Ownership
2 23 (2.98%) Analytical Mindset
3 21 (2.72%) Onboarding
4 17 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (2.07%) PMI
6 14 (1.81%) CMDB
7 13 (1.68%) Cloud Native
7 13 (1.68%) Data Structures
7 13 (1.68%) Management Information System
7 13 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
8 12 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (1.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 9 (1.17%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 8 (1.04%) NHS
12 7 (0.91%) Low-Code
12 7 (0.91%) Marketing Technology
12 7 (0.91%) Reinsurance
13 6 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
13 6 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
13 6 (0.78%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 20 (2.59%) Windows
2 13 (1.68%) Linux
3 8 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (1.04%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 509 (65.93%) Agile
2 302 (39.12%) Acceptance Criteria
3 243 (31.48%) Stakeholder Management
4 198 (25.65%) Workshop Facilitation
5 197 (25.52%) Requirements Gathering
6 195 (25.26%) Scrum
7 179 (23.19%) Business Analysis
8 151 (19.56%) User Acceptance Testing
9 148 (19.17%) Problem-Solving
10 144 (18.65%) DevOps
11 139 (18.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 128 (16.58%) Roadmaps
13 109 (14.12%) Sprint Planning
14 106 (13.73%) Data Modelling
14 106 (13.73%) Migration
15 98 (12.69%) Backlog Management
16 93 (12.05%) Product Backlog
17 86 (11.14%) Use Case
18 84 (10.88%) Continuous Improvement
19 82 (10.62%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 98 (12.69%) SQL
2 56 (7.25%) Python
3 34 (4.40%) Java
4 21 (2.72%) JavaScript
5 17 (2.20%) PowerShell
6 14 (1.81%) C#
7 13 (1.68%) Bash
8 9 (1.17%) Perl
9 8 (1.04%) Scala
9 8 (1.04%) TypeScript
10 7 (0.91%) Korn
11 5 (0.65%) 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 (20.08%) Security Cleared
2 127 (16.45%) SC Cleared
3 90 (11.66%) Degree
4 42 (5.44%) CBAP
5 31 (4.02%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (4.02%) IIBA
6 22 (2.85%) PMI Certification
7 19 (2.46%) CSPO
8 11 (1.42%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.91%) DV Cleared
9 7 (0.91%) PMP
10 6 (0.78%) CCDP
10 6 (0.78%) CCNA
10 6 (0.78%) CCNP
10 6 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.78%) ISEB
10 6 (0.78%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.78%) MBA
11 5 (0.65%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (14.12%) QA
2 41 (5.31%) Accessibility
3 37 (4.79%) Data Quality
4 25 (3.24%) GDPR
5 14 (1.81%) SLA
6 13 (1.68%) WCAG
7 9 (1.17%) PSD2
8 7 (0.91%) NIST
8 7 (0.91%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.78%) GxP
9 6 (0.78%) HL7
9 6 (0.78%) ISO 8583
10 4 (0.52%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.39%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.39%) GMP
11 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.39%) SNOMED CT
12 2 (0.26%) EU AI Act
12 2 (0.26%) NCSC
12 2 (0.26%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 20 (2.59%) Docker
2 13 (1.68%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.13%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (3.37%) Kubernetes
2 14 (1.81%) Terraform
3 9 (1.17%) Ansible
4 7 (0.91%) SCCM
5 6 (0.78%) NetBackup
6 5 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (0.65%) 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
1 121 (15.67%) Microsoft
2 85 (11.01%) Salesforce
3 48 (6.22%) ServiceNow
4 37 (4.79%) SAP
5 31 (4.02%) Oracle
6 21 (2.72%) Cisco
7 18 (2.33%) Databricks
8 15 (1.94%) Adobe
9 14 (1.81%) Red Hat
10 13 (1.68%) Citrix
11 12 (1.55%) Google
11 12 (1.55%) VMware
12 11 (1.42%) MuleSoft
13 9 (1.17%) Pega
13 9 (1.17%) Splunk
14 8 (1.04%) Workday
14 8 (1.04%) Zscaler
15 6 (0.78%) Guidewire
15 6 (0.78%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
15 6 (0.78%) Zuora