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 11 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 173 138
Rank change year-on-year +41 -35 -19
Contract jobs citing User Stories 713 393 668
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.10% 1.52% 1.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.40% 1.69% 2.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 511 254 465
10th Percentile £338 £351 £375
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.41% -2.38% -2.33%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £682 £675
UK median daily rate £491 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -1.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 0 8
10th Percentile £38.40 - £31.71
25th Percentile £48.86 - £45.43
Median hourly rate £60.61 - £52.50
75th Percentile £74.26 - £66.39
90th Percentile £82.06 - £69.04
UK median hourly rate £60.61 £29.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +109.00% -44.76% -4.55%

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 29,666 23,261 33,042
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.57% 89.75% 87.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,990 14,365 22,049
10th Percentile £306 £310 £300
25th Percentile £411 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -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 1,857 734 1,965
10th Percentile £15.14 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £18.05 £21.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.37% - -
75th Percentile £60.25 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £72.84
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -2.99% +2.48%

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 11 February 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 11 February 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 11 February 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 +57 393 £500 -4.76% 66
North of England +18 132 £485 +12.79% 33
South East -38 70 £478 -9.05% 65
Midlands -12 66 £467 +0.97% 23
North West +9 62 £402 -13.08% 19
Yorkshire -13 54 £513 +2.50% 6
West Midlands -19 43 £484 +0.10% 17
South West -18 25 £475 -20.83% 6
East Midlands -8 23 £400 +12.36% 6
North East -3 18 £488 +21.88% 8
East of England -21 14 £513 +59.55% 15
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
1 157 (22.02%) Confluence
2 21 (2.95%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.68%) CMS
4 8 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (1.12%) SAS
5 3 (0.42%) Anypoint
5 3 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.42%) Drupal
5 3 (0.42%) WordPress
6 2 (0.28%) Apache
6 2 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.28%) Traefik
6 2 (0.28%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.14%) Kentico
7 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 44 (6.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (4.63%) MS Visio
3 31 (4.35%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.70%) Adobe XD
5 5 (0.70%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.70%) Sketch
6 4 (0.56%) Notion
6 4 (0.56%) Trello
7 3 (0.42%) InVision
7 3 (0.42%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 18 (2.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.26%) Payment Gateway
3 6 (0.84%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.70%) NetSuite
5 3 (0.42%) Endur
5 3 (0.42%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.42%) ProductWriter
6 2 (0.28%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.28%) Primavera
6 2 (0.28%) Shopify
7 1 (0.14%) Bloomberg AIM
7 1 (0.14%) HFM
7 1 (0.14%) OpenLink RightAngle
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.14%) SAP BPC
7 1 (0.14%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.14%) thinkFolio
Cloud Services
1 115 (16.13%) Azure
2 76 (10.66%) AWS
3 64 (8.98%) Power Platform
4 48 (6.73%) Azure DevOps
5 27 (3.79%) GCP
6 25 (3.51%) Microsoft 365
7 22 (3.09%) GitHub
8 20 (2.81%) Dynamics 365
9 19 (2.66%) PowerApps
10 18 (2.52%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 17 (2.38%) Figma
11 17 (2.38%) Power Automate
11 17 (2.38%) SaaS
12 16 (2.24%) Miro
13 14 (1.96%) GitHub Actions
13 14 (1.96%) Snowflake
14 12 (1.68%) Lucidchart
14 12 (1.68%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
15 10 (1.40%) Amazon S3
15 10 (1.40%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.12%) WebEx
2 5 (0.70%) Firewall
3 4 (0.56%) HTTP
4 3 (0.42%) BGP
4 3 (0.42%) DNS
4 3 (0.42%) FTP
4 3 (0.42%) VLAN
5 2 (0.28%) Software-Defined Networking
5 2 (0.28%) VPN
6 1 (0.14%) Calico
6 1 (0.14%) Cisco IPT
6 1 (0.14%) LAN
6 1 (0.14%) Network Security
6 1 (0.14%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.14%) WAN
6 1 (0.14%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (7.29%) Power BI
2 23 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (2.66%) Tableau
4 15 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
5 14 (1.96%) BigQuery
6 13 (1.82%) Metadata
7 11 (1.54%) NoSQL
7 11 (1.54%) SQL Server
8 7 (0.98%) Amazon Athena
8 7 (0.98%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.98%) Star Schema
9 6 (0.84%) Data Vault
10 5 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.70%) Big Data
10 5 (0.70%) MongoDB
10 5 (0.70%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.56%) Oracle Database
11 4 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
12 3 (0.42%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.42%) Redis
Development Applications
1 205 (28.75%) JIRA
2 33 (4.63%) Jenkins
3 17 (2.38%) GitLab
4 16 (2.24%) Cucumber
4 16 (2.24%) Git
5 14 (1.96%) JUnit
5 14 (1.96%) Postman
5 14 (1.96%) Selenium
6 8 (1.12%) JMeter
6 8 (1.12%) SonarQube
6 8 (1.12%) Zephyr
7 6 (0.84%) REST Assured
7 6 (0.84%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.70%) Axure RP
8 5 (0.70%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.70%) TeamCity
8 5 (0.70%) TestRail
9 4 (0.56%) ER Studio
9 4 (0.56%) ERwin
9 4 (0.56%) PowerDesigner
General
1 301 (42.22%) Social Skills
2 200 (28.05%) Finance
3 161 (22.58%) Analytical Skills
4 86 (12.06%) Public Sector
5 77 (10.80%) Banking
6 54 (7.57%) Documentation Skills
7 37 (5.19%) Presentation Skills
8 35 (4.91%) Retail
9 27 (3.79%) Influencing Skills
10 24 (3.37%) Legal
11 22 (3.09%) Marketing
12 15 (2.10%) Front Office
13 14 (1.96%) Investment Banking
13 14 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
14 13 (1.82%) Back Office
15 11 (1.54%) Financial Institution
16 10 (1.40%) Military
16 10 (1.40%) Telecoms
17 9 (1.26%) Retail Banking
18 8 (1.12%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 369 (51.75%) Analyst
2 346 (48.53%) Business Analyst
3 109 (15.29%) Senior
4 81 (11.36%) Product Owner
5 70 (9.82%) Senior Analyst
6 64 (8.98%) Senior Business Analyst
7 45 (6.31%) Developer
8 39 (5.47%) Technical Analyst
9 36 (5.05%) Technical Business Analyst
10 33 (4.63%) Product Manager
11 29 (4.07%) Lead
12 28 (3.93%) Salesforce Business Analyst
13 26 (3.65%) Salesforce Analyst
14 22 (3.09%) Designer
14 22 (3.09%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
15 20 (2.81%) Digital Business Analyst
15 20 (2.81%) Financial Analyst
16 19 (2.66%) Consultant
16 19 (2.66%) Test Analyst
17 18 (2.52%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.95%) REST
2 18 (2.52%) React
3 15 (2.10%) Spring
4 14 (1.96%) Spring Boot
5 13 (1.82%) JSON
5 13 (1.82%) Kafka
5 13 (1.82%) XML
6 12 (1.68%) ADO
6 12 (1.68%) RESTful
7 9 (1.26%) Node.js
7 9 (1.26%) Web Services
8 8 (1.12%) Apache NiFi
8 8 (1.12%) HTML
8 8 (1.12%) Lightning Web Components
8 8 (1.12%) VML
8 8 (1.12%) XMPP
9 7 (0.98%) Hibernate
9 7 (0.98%) Playwright
9 7 (0.98%) SOAP
10 6 (0.84%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 223 (31.28%) Product Ownership
2 23 (3.23%) Onboarding
3 21 (2.95%) Analytical Mindset
4 19 (2.66%) PMI
5 15 (2.10%) Data Structures
6 11 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
7 10 (1.40%) CMDB
8 9 (1.26%) Cloud Native
8 9 (1.26%) Management Information System
8 9 (1.26%) Mobile App
8 9 (1.26%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 8 (1.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 7 (0.98%) Greenfield Project
10 7 (0.98%) Low-Code
10 7 (0.98%) NHS
10 7 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
12 5 (0.70%) Data Centre
12 5 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 21 (2.95%) Windows
2 17 (2.38%) Linux
3 8 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (1.12%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.56%) VMS
5 1 (0.14%) Android
5 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 498 (69.85%) Agile
2 253 (35.48%) Acceptance Criteria
3 229 (32.12%) Stakeholder Management
4 199 (27.91%) Scrum
5 178 (24.96%) Requirements Gathering
6 173 (24.26%) Workshop Facilitation
7 156 (21.88%) Business Analysis
8 140 (19.64%) Problem-Solving
9 133 (18.65%) DevOps
10 124 (17.39%) User Acceptance Testing
11 119 (16.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 107 (15.01%) Roadmaps
13 97 (13.60%) Migration
14 94 (13.18%) Sprint Planning
15 93 (13.04%) Data Modelling
16 90 (12.62%) Product Backlog
16 90 (12.62%) Use Case
17 88 (12.34%) Backlog Management
18 81 (11.36%) Analytics
18 81 (11.36%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 96 (13.46%) SQL
2 55 (7.71%) Python
3 33 (4.63%) Java
4 17 (2.38%) Bash
5 16 (2.24%) C#
5 16 (2.24%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.10%) PowerShell
7 10 (1.40%) TypeScript
8 9 (1.26%) Perl
8 9 (1.26%) Scala
9 6 (0.84%) Korn
10 4 (0.56%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.42%) Go
11 3 (0.42%) PHP
11 3 (0.42%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.42%) VBA
11 3 (0.42%) XPath
12 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.14%) Groovy
13 1 (0.14%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 127 (17.81%) Security Cleared
2 102 (14.31%) SC Cleared
3 87 (12.20%) Degree
4 43 (6.03%) CBAP
5 28 (3.93%) IIBA
6 25 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (3.23%) PMI Certification
8 20 (2.81%) CSPO
9 8 (1.12%) Master's Degree
10 6 (0.84%) CCDP
10 6 (0.84%) CCNA
10 6 (0.84%) CCNP
10 6 (0.84%) CFA
10 6 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.84%) DV Cleared
10 6 (0.84%) MBA
11 5 (0.70%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.70%) ISEB
11 5 (0.70%) PMP
12 4 (0.56%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (13.74%) QA
2 37 (5.19%) Accessibility
3 27 (3.79%) GDPR
4 24 (3.37%) Data Quality
5 18 (2.52%) WCAG
6 17 (2.38%) PSD2
7 8 (1.12%) PCI DSS
7 8 (1.12%) SLA
8 6 (0.84%) ISO 20022
8 6 (0.84%) ISO 8583
9 5 (0.70%) SEPA
10 4 (0.56%) HL7
11 3 (0.42%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.42%) GxP
12 2 (0.28%) Basel III
12 2 (0.28%) EU AI Act
12 2 (0.28%) GMP
12 2 (0.28%) NCSC
12 2 (0.28%) PMO
13 1 (0.14%) GAMP
System Software
1 23 (3.23%) Docker
2 9 (1.26%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.26%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.14%) etcd
3 1 (0.14%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 27 (3.79%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.10%) Ansible
3 14 (1.96%) Terraform
4 10 (1.40%) NetBackup
5 5 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (0.70%) Progress Chef
6 4 (0.56%) Grafana
6 4 (0.56%) HP Quality Center
6 4 (0.56%) Puppet
7 3 (0.42%) SCCM
8 2 (0.28%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.28%) HP ALM
8 2 (0.28%) Istio
8 2 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.14%) Argo
9 1 (0.14%) CASB
9 1 (0.14%) CloudHub
Vendors
1 111 (15.57%) Microsoft
2 75 (10.52%) Salesforce
3 34 (4.77%) ServiceNow
4 31 (4.35%) SAP
5 29 (4.07%) Oracle
6 19 (2.66%) Databricks
7 18 (2.52%) Red Hat
8 14 (1.96%) VMware
9 11 (1.54%) Cisco
9 11 (1.54%) MuleSoft
10 10 (1.40%) Commvault
10 10 (1.40%) Google
11 9 (1.26%) Adobe
11 9 (1.26%) Citrix
12 6 (0.84%) Guidewire
12 6 (0.84%) Veritas
12 6 (0.84%) Workday
13 5 (0.70%) Cognizant
13 5 (0.70%) Pega
13 5 (0.70%) Zuora