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 24 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 138 168
Rank change year-on-year +13 +30 -33
Contract jobs citing User Stories 1,014 578 475
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.18% 2.08% 1.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.57% 2.29% 1.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 660 396 303
10th Percentile £363 £357 £363
25th Percentile £425 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
75th Percentile £588 £603 £607
90th Percentile £650 £725 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 4 1
10th Percentile £35.00 £30.45 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £31.12 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £31.49 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +122.29% -4.78% -37.60%
75th Percentile £83.50 £34.37 -
90th Percentile £91.85 £39.55 -
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £31.49 £33.07
% change year-on-year +122.29% -4.78% -37.60%

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 39,443 25,283 28,060
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.86% 86.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,053 16,051 17,283
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,841 1,529 1,252
10th Percentile £13.99 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £20.09
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -2.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.12 £66.61
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -

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 24 September 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 24 September 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 24 September 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 +12 599 £525 - 520
North of England -22 136 £495 -0.50% 191
Midlands +4 125 £450 +5.88% 96
West Midlands +18 94 £450 - 68
South East -51 69 £450 -5.76% 124
Yorkshire -16 58 £500 -2.44% 55
North West -33 58 £500 +8.70% 113
South West -17 39 £481 -3.75% 66
East of England -6 31 £498 +10.56% 45
East Midlands -17 31 £458 +24.49% 28
North East -30 21 £420 -14.94% 23
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
1 178 (17.55%) Confluence
2 26 (2.56%) CMS
3 17 (1.68%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.89%) Camunda
5 6 (0.59%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.49%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.30%) Cloud Foundry
7 3 (0.30%) Headless CMS
7 3 (0.30%) Kentico
8 2 (0.20%) Smallworld
8 2 (0.20%) Traefik
9 1 (0.099%) Apache
9 1 (0.099%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.099%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.099%) Drupal
9 1 (0.099%) Moodle
9 1 (0.099%) SAS
9 1 (0.099%) Totara
Applications
1 39 (3.85%) MS Visio
2 27 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.08%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.69%) Notion
5 5 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.099%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.099%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.099%) Trello
Business Applications
1 24 (2.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (1.58%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.49%) ProductWriter
3 5 (0.49%) Teamcenter
4 3 (0.30%) NetSuite
4 3 (0.30%) SAP SD
5 2 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
5 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
5 2 (0.20%) Dynamics SL
5 2 (0.20%) Infor CloudSuite
5 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.20%) Sage X3
5 2 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.20%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.20%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.20%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 206 (20.32%) Azure
2 118 (11.64%) Power Platform
3 105 (10.36%) AWS
4 96 (9.47%) Azure DevOps
5 42 (4.14%) Dynamics 365
6 37 (3.65%) SaaS
7 31 (3.06%) GitHub
8 30 (2.96%) Power Automate
9 29 (2.86%) GCP
9 29 (2.86%) PowerApps
10 26 (2.56%) Microsoft 365
11 21 (2.07%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 20 (1.97%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 17 (1.68%) Snowflake
14 15 (1.48%) Entra ID
15 13 (1.28%) Figma
15 13 (1.28%) Lucidchart
16 11 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
17 10 (0.99%) OpenShift
17 10 (0.99%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
2 3 (0.30%) Broadband
2 3 (0.30%) HTTP
2 3 (0.30%) Intranet
3 2 (0.20%) SD-WAN
3 2 (0.20%) WAN
3 2 (0.20%) Wireless
4 1 (0.099%) 5G
4 1 (0.099%) Internet
4 1 (0.099%) NFC
4 1 (0.099%) SSH
4 1 (0.099%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (7.40%) Power BI
2 39 (3.85%) Metadata
3 32 (3.16%) Data Warehouse
4 26 (2.56%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.97%) SQL Server
6 19 (1.87%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (0.89%) Data Lake
7 9 (0.89%) Parquet
8 7 (0.69%) Big Data
8 7 (0.69%) Delta Lake
9 6 (0.59%) Tableau
10 5 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.49%) ClickHouse
10 5 (0.49%) Data Hub
10 5 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (0.49%) Star Schema
11 4 (0.39%) BigQuery
12 3 (0.30%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.30%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.30%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 243 (23.96%) JIRA
2 37 (3.65%) Git
3 26 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 25 (2.47%) GitLab
5 22 (2.17%) Maven
6 21 (2.07%) Gradle
6 21 (2.07%) Postman
7 18 (1.78%) JUnit
8 16 (1.58%) Mockito
8 16 (1.58%) SonarQube
9 11 (1.08%) Selenium
10 10 (0.99%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.89%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
12 8 (0.79%) Bitbucket Server
13 6 (0.59%) Bitbucket
13 6 (0.59%) Team Foundation Server
14 5 (0.49%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 2 (0.20%) Cypress.io
15 2 (0.20%) JMeter
General
1 408 (40.24%) Social Skills
2 291 (28.70%) Finance
3 265 (26.13%) Analytical Skills
4 145 (14.30%) Banking
5 133 (13.12%) Public Sector
6 72 (7.10%) Documentation Skills
7 65 (6.41%) Retail
8 44 (4.34%) Influencing Skills
9 34 (3.35%) Legal
10 32 (3.16%) Marketing
11 31 (3.06%) Investment Banking
12 25 (2.47%) Organisational Skills
13 24 (2.37%) Manufacturing
13 24 (2.37%) Presentation Skills
14 20 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 18 (1.78%) Front Office
15 18 (1.78%) Telecoms
16 17 (1.68%) Retail Banking
17 14 (1.38%) Back Office
17 14 (1.38%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 507 (50.00%) Analyst
2 460 (45.36%) Business Analyst
3 159 (15.68%) Senior
4 115 (11.34%) Product Owner
5 113 (11.14%) Developer
6 89 (8.78%) Senior Analyst
7 88 (8.68%) Senior Business Analyst
8 77 (7.59%) Product Manager
9 75 (7.40%) Technical Analyst
10 61 (6.02%) Lead
10 61 (6.02%) Technical Business Analyst
11 33 (3.25%) Consultant
11 33 (3.25%) Salesforce Analyst
11 33 (3.25%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 28 (2.76%) Senior Developer
13 25 (2.47%) Data Analyst
14 24 (2.37%) Java Developer
15 23 (2.27%) Financial Analyst
16 22 (2.17%) Data Business Analyst
17 21 (2.07%) Systems Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (4.83%) REST
2 38 (3.75%) JSON
3 32 (3.16%) Spring Boot
4 28 (2.76%) RESTful
5 24 (2.37%) Spring
6 23 (2.27%) Terraform
7 21 (2.07%) Kafka
7 21 (2.07%) React
7 21 (2.07%) SOAP
8 20 (1.97%) HTML
9 19 (1.87%) AngularJS
10 18 (1.78%) Hibernate
10 18 (1.78%) JPA
11 15 (1.48%) CSS
12 13 (1.28%) .NET
12 13 (1.28%) Lightning Web Components
13 12 (1.18%) OAuth
13 12 (1.18%) Web Services
14 11 (1.08%) Middleware
14 11 (1.08%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 359 (35.40%) Product Ownership
2 48 (4.73%) Onboarding
3 33 (3.25%) Analytical Mindset
4 30 (2.96%) Cloud Native
4 30 (2.96%) Data Protection Act
5 26 (2.56%) Self-Motivation
6 25 (2.47%) Data Structures
7 24 (2.37%) CMDB
8 22 (2.17%) Management Information System
9 20 (1.97%) AI Agents
10 18 (1.78%) Virtual Team
11 17 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
13 13 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
13 13 (1.28%) Mobile App
14 11 (1.08%) FMCG
14 11 (1.08%) NHS
14 11 (1.08%) Operational Technology
15 10 (0.99%) Life Science
16 8 (0.79%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 17 (1.68%) Linux
2 9 (0.89%) Unix
3 6 (0.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 6 (0.59%) Windows
4 4 (0.39%) Android
4 4 (0.39%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.30%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 698 (68.84%) Agile
2 434 (42.80%) Stakeholder Management
3 422 (41.62%) Acceptance Criteria
4 325 (32.05%) Requirements Gathering
5 278 (27.42%) Workshop Facilitation
6 263 (25.94%) Scrum
7 249 (24.56%) Business Analysis
8 240 (23.67%) User Acceptance Testing
9 210 (20.71%) Continuous Improvement
9 210 (20.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 202 (19.92%) DevOps
11 193 (19.03%) Problem-Solving
12 186 (18.34%) Sprint Planning
13 182 (17.95%) Roadmaps
14 176 (17.36%) Product Backlog
15 166 (16.37%) Backlog Management
16 161 (15.88%) Backlog Prioritisation
17 155 (15.29%) Validation
18 150 (14.79%) Backlog Refinement
19 148 (14.60%) AI
Programming Languages
1 157 (15.48%) SQL
2 72 (7.10%) Python
3 66 (6.51%) Java
4 56 (5.52%) JavaScript
5 23 (2.27%) C#
6 15 (1.48%) TypeScript
7 11 (1.08%) Apex Code
8 10 (0.99%) Scala
9 8 (0.79%) Kotlin
10 6 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (0.49%) Korn
12 3 (0.30%) R
12 3 (0.30%) SOQL
12 3 (0.30%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.20%) Bash
13 2 (0.20%) Magik
13 2 (0.20%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.20%) Ruby
13 2 (0.20%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.20%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 169 (16.67%) Security Cleared
2 136 (13.41%) SC Cleared
3 80 (7.89%) Degree
4 35 (3.45%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
5 19 (1.87%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (1.48%) IIBA
6 15 (1.48%) PMI Certification
7 14 (1.38%) PMP
8 13 (1.28%) CSPO
9 11 (1.08%) DV Cleared
10 10 (0.99%) CBAP
11 8 (0.79%) CISSP
12 5 (0.49%) AWS Certification
12 5 (0.49%) ISEB
12 5 (0.49%) ISTQB
13 3 (0.30%) Azure Certification
13 3 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.30%) Master's Degree
14 2 (0.20%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (10.75%) QA
2 74 (7.30%) Data Quality
3 37 (3.65%) Accessibility
4 16 (1.58%) GDPR
5 15 (1.48%) GRC
6 9 (0.89%) ISO 20022
7 7 (0.69%) GxP
8 6 (0.59%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 6 (0.59%) WCAG
9 5 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.49%) NIST
9 5 (0.49%) SEPA
10 4 (0.39%) ISO 15022
11 3 (0.30%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.30%) Solvency II
12 2 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.20%) PMO
12 2 (0.20%) SLA
13 1 (0.099%) Basel III
13 1 (0.099%) FINREP
System Software
1 45 (4.44%) Docker
2 13 (1.28%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.59%) IAG
5 2 (0.20%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.099%) Ceph
6 1 (0.099%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 29 (2.86%) Kubernetes
2 17 (1.68%) Ansible
3 9 (0.89%) Grafana
4 8 (0.79%) Prometheus
4 8 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.30%) Argo
5 3 (0.30%) HP ALM
6 2 (0.20%) Istio
7 1 (0.099%) Check_MK
7 1 (0.099%) Kibana
7 1 (0.099%) Podman
Vendors
1 154 (15.19%) Microsoft
2 79 (7.79%) Salesforce
3 43 (4.24%) SAP
3 43 (4.24%) ServiceNow
4 20 (1.97%) Google
5 19 (1.87%) Databricks
6 17 (1.68%) Oracle
7 10 (0.99%) IBM
8 9 (0.89%) CyberArk
8 9 (0.89%) Pega
8 9 (0.89%) Veracode
9 8 (0.79%) Adobe
10 7 (0.69%) Splunk
10 7 (0.69%) Zscaler
11 6 (0.59%) Guidewire
12 5 (0.49%) Alteryx
12 5 (0.49%) ION Trading
12 5 (0.49%) MuleSoft
12 5 (0.49%) Okta
12 5 (0.49%) Planview