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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 147 159
Rank change year-on-year +24 +12 -39
Contract jobs citing User Stories 940 525 544
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.10% 1.92% 1.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.46% 2.12% 1.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 631 344 368
10th Percentile £358 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £580 £625 £600
90th Percentile £650 £725 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% +1.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 2 5
10th Percentile £35.00 £54.90 -
25th Percentile £62.81 £57.00 £31.71
Median hourly rate £72.50 £61.75 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.41% +87.12% -48.44%
75th Percentile £82.84 £67.75 £33.07
90th Percentile £89.28 £70.60 £56.73
UK median hourly rate £72.50 £53.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +35.51% +62.12% -48.44%

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 38,278 24,745 30,322
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.32% 90.65% 85.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,038 15,865 19,799
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £635 £645
90th Percentile £737 £738 £751
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,361 1,324 1,984
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.23 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.95 £17.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -37.13% -6.98%
75th Percentile £69.50 £53.56 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.16 £74.31
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 +16 537 £525 - 174
North of England -18 135 £475 +2.59% 59
Midlands -9 102 £453 -1.90% 32
South East -30 78 £450 -8.86% 74
West Midlands -8 77 £475 +1.33% 23
North West -18 67 £457 -10.83% 32
Yorkshire -26 47 £500 +17.65% 16
South West -10 43 £488 +2.63% 24
East of England -5 30 £495 +13.14% 16
East Midlands -10 25 £425 +0.29% 9
North East -22 22 £425 -2.86% 14
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
1 159 (16.91%) Confluence
2 23 (2.45%) CMS
3 20 (2.13%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.64%) Camunda
5 5 (0.53%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.32%) Cloud Foundry
6 3 (0.32%) Drupal
6 3 (0.32%) Kentico
6 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.32%) SAS
7 2 (0.21%) JBoss
7 2 (0.21%) WordPress
8 1 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.11%) Apache
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.11%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (4.47%) MS Visio
2 31 (3.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
4 11 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.64%) Notion
6 3 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.11%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (1.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.60%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.64%) Adobe Campaign
3 6 (0.64%) ProductWriter
4 5 (0.53%) Teamcenter
5 4 (0.43%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.43%) Eloqua
5 4 (0.43%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.43%) Oracle Receivables
5 4 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.32%) Actimize
6 3 (0.32%) Dynamics GP
6 3 (0.32%) Dynamics SL
6 3 (0.32%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.32%) NetSuite
6 3 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
6 3 (0.32%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.32%) SAP SD
7 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 206 (21.91%) Azure
2 82 (8.72%) Azure DevOps
3 81 (8.62%) AWS
4 78 (8.30%) Power Platform
5 31 (3.30%) GCP
6 28 (2.98%) GitHub
7 26 (2.77%) Dynamics 365
8 24 (2.55%) SaaS
9 20 (2.13%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 19 (2.02%) PowerApps
11 18 (1.91%) Entra ID
11 18 (1.91%) Power Automate
12 15 (1.60%) Figma
12 15 (1.60%) Microsoft 365
12 15 (1.60%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 14 (1.49%) Lucidchart
14 12 (1.28%) Azure Data Factory
14 12 (1.28%) Snowflake
15 10 (1.06%) Miro
16 8 (0.85%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.85%) Network Security
2 6 (0.64%) Firewall
3 4 (0.43%) Wi-Fi
4 3 (0.32%) Broadband
4 3 (0.32%) DNS
4 3 (0.32%) HTTP
4 3 (0.32%) WebEx
5 2 (0.21%) Intranet
5 2 (0.21%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.21%) WAN
5 2 (0.21%) Wireless
6 1 (0.11%) 5G
6 1 (0.11%) BGP
6 1 (0.11%) FTP
6 1 (0.11%) NFC
6 1 (0.11%) NGFW
6 1 (0.11%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (5.53%) Power BI
2 41 (4.36%) Metadata
3 34 (3.62%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (1.91%) Relational Database
5 11 (1.17%) SQL Server
6 10 (1.06%) Data Lake
6 10 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (1.06%) Tableau
7 9 (0.96%) Delta Lake
7 9 (0.96%) Parquet
8 8 (0.85%) Big Data
9 6 (0.64%) BigQuery
10 5 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.53%) NoSQL
10 5 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.43%) Data Hub
11 4 (0.43%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.32%) OLAP
13 2 (0.21%) SAP BW
13 2 (0.21%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 232 (24.68%) JIRA
2 27 (2.87%) Postman
3 23 (2.45%) Git
4 18 (1.91%) GitLab
5 11 (1.17%) Gradle
5 11 (1.17%) Selenium
6 10 (1.06%) Jenkins
7 7 (0.74%) Balsamiq
7 7 (0.74%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.74%) Team Foundation Server
8 5 (0.53%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (0.53%) JUnit
8 5 (0.53%) REST Assured
9 4 (0.43%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.43%) Maven
9 4 (0.43%) Zephyr
10 3 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.21%) Artifactory
11 2 (0.21%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 362 (38.51%) Social Skills
2 257 (27.34%) Analytical Skills
3 253 (26.91%) Finance
4 123 (13.09%) Banking
5 117 (12.45%) Public Sector
6 72 (7.66%) Documentation Skills
7 58 (6.17%) Retail
8 38 (4.04%) Marketing
9 36 (3.83%) Legal
10 31 (3.30%) Presentation Skills
11 26 (2.77%) Investment Banking
12 23 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
13 20 (2.13%) Manufacturing
14 18 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
15 17 (1.81%) Front Office
15 17 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 17 (1.81%) Military
15 17 (1.81%) Retail Banking
16 15 (1.60%) Aerospace
17 14 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 485 (51.60%) Analyst
2 440 (46.81%) Business Analyst
3 129 (13.72%) Senior
4 124 (13.19%) Product Owner
5 80 (8.51%) Developer
6 75 (7.98%) Senior Analyst
7 74 (7.87%) Technical Analyst
8 72 (7.66%) Product Manager
9 70 (7.45%) Senior Business Analyst
10 65 (6.91%) Technical Business Analyst
11 42 (4.47%) Lead
12 39 (4.15%) Salesforce Business Analyst
13 38 (4.04%) Salesforce Analyst
14 32 (3.40%) Data Analyst
15 28 (2.98%) Data Business Analyst
16 25 (2.66%) Implementation Analyst
17 23 (2.45%) Digital Business Analyst
18 22 (2.34%) Systems Analyst
19 21 (2.23%) Banking Analyst
19 21 (2.23%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (3.40%) JSON
1 32 (3.40%) REST
2 18 (1.91%) RESTful
3 17 (1.81%) React
4 16 (1.70%) ADO
5 15 (1.60%) AngularJS
6 13 (1.38%) Kafka
6 13 (1.38%) Spring Boot
7 12 (1.28%) XML
8 10 (1.06%) Lightning Web Components
9 9 (0.96%) .NET
9 9 (0.96%) HTML
9 9 (0.96%) Middleware
9 9 (0.96%) OAuth
10 8 (0.85%) OpenID
10 8 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
10 8 (0.85%) Spring
11 7 (0.74%) SailPoint
11 7 (0.74%) SOAP
11 7 (0.74%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 338 (35.96%) Product Ownership
2 41 (4.36%) Onboarding
3 37 (3.94%) Analytical Mindset
4 29 (3.09%) Data Protection Act
5 26 (2.77%) CMDB
5 26 (2.77%) Self-Motivation
6 22 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
7 21 (2.23%) Cloud Native
7 21 (2.23%) Data Structures
8 18 (1.91%) Virtual Team
9 17 (1.81%) AI Agents
10 16 (1.70%) Management Information System
11 14 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
12 13 (1.38%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 13 (1.38%) Life Science
12 13 (1.38%) Mobile App
13 11 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (1.06%) FMCG
14 10 (1.06%) Operational Technology
14 10 (1.06%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 11 (1.17%) Linux
2 6 (0.64%) Windows
3 5 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (0.53%) Unix
4 4 (0.43%) Android
4 4 (0.43%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.32%) CentOS
6 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 610 (64.89%) Agile
2 385 (40.96%) Acceptance Criteria
3 352 (37.45%) Stakeholder Management
4 251 (26.70%) Requirements Gathering
5 227 (24.15%) Scrum
6 220 (23.40%) User Acceptance Testing
7 212 (22.55%) Workshop Facilitation
8 186 (19.79%) Business Analysis
8 186 (19.79%) DevOps
8 186 (19.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 182 (19.36%) Problem-Solving
10 168 (17.87%) Roadmaps
11 166 (17.66%) Sprint Planning
12 164 (17.45%) Product Backlog
13 161 (17.13%) Continuous Improvement
14 145 (15.43%) Backlog Management
15 133 (14.15%) Decision-Making
16 130 (13.83%) Backlog Prioritisation
16 130 (13.83%) Validation
17 126 (13.40%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 131 (13.94%) SQL
2 74 (7.87%) Python
3 53 (5.64%) Java
4 45 (4.79%) JavaScript
5 18 (1.91%) C#
6 10 (1.06%) Apex Code
7 7 (0.74%) Kotlin
7 7 (0.74%) TypeScript
8 6 (0.64%) Korn
8 6 (0.64%) PowerShell
9 4 (0.43%) Scala
9 4 (0.43%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.32%) Bash
10 3 (0.32%) R
10 3 (0.32%) Ruby
11 2 (0.21%) Google Apps Script
11 2 (0.21%) PHP
11 2 (0.21%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.21%) SOQL
11 2 (0.21%) VBA
Qualifications
1 161 (17.13%) Security Cleared
2 129 (13.72%) SC Cleared
3 68 (7.23%) Degree
4 34 (3.62%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (1.60%) CSPO
6 13 (1.38%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (1.17%) CBAP
7 11 (1.17%) IIBA
8 10 (1.06%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
9 9 (0.96%) ISTQB
10 8 (0.85%) CISSP
10 8 (0.85%) PMI Certification
11 6 (0.64%) ISEB
11 6 (0.64%) PMP
12 5 (0.53%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.43%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.43%) Master's Degree
14 3 (0.32%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (11.70%) QA
2 63 (6.70%) Data Quality
3 42 (4.47%) Accessibility
4 18 (1.91%) GDPR
5 11 (1.17%) GRC
6 10 (1.06%) NIST
7 9 (0.96%) GxP
8 8 (0.85%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 7 (0.74%) ISO 20022
9 7 (0.74%) WCAG
10 6 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 6 (0.64%) SLA
11 5 (0.53%) Solvency II
12 4 (0.43%) PCI DSS
12 4 (0.43%) SEPA
13 2 (0.21%) COBIT
13 2 (0.21%) HL7
13 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
13 2 (0.21%) SNOMED CT
13 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 26 (2.77%) Docker
2 15 (1.60%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.64%) IAG
5 3 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.11%) Ceph
6 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (2.98%) Kubernetes
2 17 (1.81%) Terraform
3 16 (1.70%) Ansible
4 7 (0.74%) SCCM
5 6 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.32%) HP ALM
6 3 (0.32%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.11%) Argo
8 1 (0.11%) CASB
8 1 (0.11%) Check_MK
8 1 (0.11%) Grafana
8 1 (0.11%) Kibana
8 1 (0.11%) Podman
Vendors
1 129 (13.72%) Microsoft
2 82 (8.72%) Salesforce
3 53 (5.64%) ServiceNow
4 50 (5.32%) SAP
5 26 (2.77%) Google
6 24 (2.55%) Databricks
7 18 (1.91%) Oracle
8 14 (1.49%) Splunk
8 14 (1.49%) Zscaler
9 11 (1.17%) Adobe
10 10 (1.06%) Cisco
10 10 (1.06%) Pega
11 8 (0.85%) Workday
12 7 (0.74%) CyberArk
13 6 (0.64%) Fortinet
13 6 (0.64%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
14 5 (0.53%) Citrix
14 5 (0.53%) ION Trading
14 5 (0.53%) Kronos
14 5 (0.53%) MuleSoft