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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 175 139
Rank change year-on-year +44 -36 -21
Contract jobs citing User Stories 714 389 649
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.17% 1.46% 1.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.47% 1.63% 1.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 509 247 462
10th Percentile £338 £350 £375
25th Percentile £409 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -1.43% -2.78%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £685 £675
UK median daily rate £491 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -3.73% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 0 6
10th Percentile £31.49 - £50.63
25th Percentile £48.86 - £51.25
Median hourly rate £60.61 - £59.25
75th Percentile £74.26 - £67.17
90th Percentile £82.06 - £70.03
UK median hourly rate £60.61 £29.00 £59.25
% change year-on-year +109.00% -51.05% +7.73%

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 28,878 23,799 32,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.87% 89.45% 87.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,472 14,557 21,833
10th Percentile £305 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £644 £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 1,785 763 1,818
10th Percentile £15.04 £15.62 £13.99
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £17.02
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.03% -6.85% +4.29%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
% change year-on-year -22.62% -9.62% +10.65%

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 29 January 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 29 January 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 29 January 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 +63 395 £500 -4.76% 69
North of England +11 132 £500 +11.11% 51
South East -24 72 £475 -6.86% 103
Midlands -7 66 £450 -5.26% 59
North West +10 60 £402 -10.67% 20
Yorkshire -6 59 £516 +8.68% 22
West Midlands -7 40 £475 -0.84% 27
East Midlands -6 26 £380 -1.30% 31
South West -14 23 £495 -17.50% 28
North East -5 15 £500 +25.00% 9
East of England -11 14 £513 +59.55% 40
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
1 158 (22.13%) Confluence
2 21 (2.94%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.54%) CMS
4 8 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (1.12%) SAS
5 5 (0.70%) nginx
6 3 (0.42%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.42%) Drupal
6 3 (0.42%) WordPress
7 2 (0.28%) Apache
7 2 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.28%) Traefik
7 2 (0.28%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.14%) Kentico
8 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 45 (6.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (4.62%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (4.62%) MS Visio
3 23 (3.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.70%) Adobe XD
4 5 (0.70%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.70%) Sketch
5 4 (0.56%) Notion
5 4 (0.56%) Trello
6 3 (0.42%) InVision
6 3 (0.42%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 21 (2.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.26%) Payment Gateway
3 8 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.70%) NetSuite
5 3 (0.42%) Endur
5 3 (0.42%) ProductWriter
6 2 (0.28%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.28%) Primavera
6 2 (0.28%) Shopify
6 2 (0.28%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.14%) Bloomberg AIM
7 1 (0.14%) HFM
7 1 (0.14%) OpenLink RightAngle
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.14%) SAP BPC
7 1 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.14%) thinkFolio
7 1 (0.14%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 106 (14.85%) Azure
2 79 (11.06%) AWS
3 63 (8.82%) Power Platform
4 46 (6.44%) Azure DevOps
5 26 (3.64%) GCP
6 25 (3.50%) GitHub
7 23 (3.22%) Microsoft 365
8 19 (2.66%) Dynamics 365
9 18 (2.52%) PowerApps
9 18 (2.52%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 17 (2.38%) Power Automate
11 15 (2.10%) Figma
11 15 (2.10%) Miro
11 15 (2.10%) SaaS
11 15 (2.10%) Serverless
12 14 (1.96%) AWS Lambda
12 14 (1.96%) GitHub Actions
12 14 (1.96%) Snowflake
13 12 (1.68%) Lucidchart
14 11 (1.54%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.12%) WebEx
2 4 (0.56%) DNS
2 4 (0.56%) Firewall
2 4 (0.56%) HTTP
3 3 (0.42%) FTP
4 2 (0.28%) BGP
4 2 (0.28%) Software-Defined Networking
4 2 (0.28%) VLAN
4 2 (0.28%) VPN
5 1 (0.14%) Calico
5 1 (0.14%) Cisco IPT
5 1 (0.14%) Internet
5 1 (0.14%) LAN
5 1 (0.14%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.14%) WAN
5 1 (0.14%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (7.28%) Power BI
2 23 (3.22%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (2.66%) Tableau
4 16 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (1.82%) BigQuery
6 12 (1.68%) SQL Server
7 11 (1.54%) Metadata
7 11 (1.54%) NoSQL
8 10 (1.40%) Relational Database
9 7 (0.98%) Amazon Athena
9 7 (0.98%) Star Schema
10 6 (0.84%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.84%) Data Vault
11 5 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
11 5 (0.70%) Big Data
11 5 (0.70%) MongoDB
12 4 (0.56%) Oracle Database
12 4 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
13 3 (0.42%) DynamoDB
13 3 (0.42%) Redis
Development Applications
1 211 (29.55%) JIRA
2 36 (5.04%) Jenkins
3 21 (2.94%) GitLab
4 16 (2.24%) Git
5 15 (2.10%) Cucumber
6 14 (1.96%) Postman
7 13 (1.82%) JUnit
8 12 (1.68%) Selenium
9 8 (1.12%) SonarQube
9 8 (1.12%) Zephyr
10 7 (0.98%) JMeter
11 6 (0.84%) Sonatype Nexus
12 5 (0.70%) Axure RP
12 5 (0.70%) REST Assured
13 4 (0.56%) Cypress.io
13 4 (0.56%) ER Studio
13 4 (0.56%) ERwin
13 4 (0.56%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.56%) TeamCity
13 4 (0.56%) TestRail
General
1 294 (41.18%) Social Skills
2 195 (27.31%) Finance
3 158 (22.13%) Analytical Skills
4 83 (11.62%) Public Sector
5 75 (10.50%) Banking
6 49 (6.86%) Documentation Skills
7 39 (5.46%) Presentation Skills
8 32 (4.48%) Retail
9 28 (3.92%) Influencing Skills
10 23 (3.22%) Marketing
11 22 (3.08%) Legal
12 15 (2.10%) Back Office
13 13 (1.82%) Front Office
14 12 (1.68%) Investment Banking
14 12 (1.68%) Organisational Skills
15 11 (1.54%) Financial Institution
15 11 (1.54%) Telecoms
16 9 (1.26%) Military
16 9 (1.26%) Retail Banking
17 8 (1.12%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 365 (51.12%) Analyst
2 345 (48.32%) Business Analyst
3 102 (14.29%) Senior
4 80 (11.20%) Product Owner
5 66 (9.24%) Senior Analyst
6 60 (8.40%) Senior Business Analyst
7 45 (6.30%) Developer
8 42 (5.88%) Technical Analyst
9 40 (5.60%) Technical Business Analyst
10 31 (4.34%) Product Manager
11 27 (3.78%) Lead
12 26 (3.64%) Salesforce Business Analyst
13 24 (3.36%) Designer
13 24 (3.36%) Salesforce Analyst
14 20 (2.80%) Consultant
14 20 (2.80%) Digital Business Analyst
14 20 (2.80%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
15 19 (2.66%) Financial Analyst
15 19 (2.66%) Test Analyst
16 18 (2.52%) Digital Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (3.64%) REST
2 20 (2.80%) RESTful
3 19 (2.66%) XML
4 18 (2.52%) JSON
5 17 (2.38%) React
6 15 (2.10%) Spring
7 14 (1.96%) HTML
7 14 (1.96%) Spring Boot
8 13 (1.82%) Kafka
8 13 (1.82%) SOAP
9 12 (1.68%) ADO
10 9 (1.26%) Web Services
11 8 (1.12%) Apache NiFi
11 8 (1.12%) Lightning Web Components
11 8 (1.12%) Node.js
11 8 (1.12%) OAuth
11 8 (1.12%) Playwright
11 8 (1.12%) VML
11 8 (1.12%) XMPP
12 7 (0.98%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 223 (31.23%) Product Ownership
2 25 (3.50%) Onboarding
3 20 (2.80%) Analytical Mindset
4 19 (2.66%) PMI
5 18 (2.52%) Data Structures
6 15 (2.10%) Cloud Native
7 14 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
8 12 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
9 8 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
9 8 (1.12%) Management Information System
9 8 (1.12%) Mobile App
9 8 (1.12%) NHS
9 8 (1.12%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 7 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (0.84%) CMDB
11 6 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (0.84%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 6 (0.84%) Low-Code
12 5 (0.70%) Derivative
12 5 (0.70%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 20 (2.80%) Windows
2 16 (2.24%) Linux
3 7 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (0.98%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.70%) VMS
5 1 (0.14%) Android
5 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 506 (70.87%) Agile
2 245 (34.31%) Acceptance Criteria
3 219 (30.67%) Stakeholder Management
4 204 (28.57%) Scrum
5 174 (24.37%) Requirements Gathering
6 170 (23.81%) Workshop Facilitation
7 159 (22.27%) Business Analysis
8 141 (19.75%) Problem-Solving
9 138 (19.33%) DevOps
10 122 (17.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 120 (16.81%) User Acceptance Testing
12 108 (15.13%) Roadmaps
13 93 (13.03%) Migration
13 93 (13.03%) Sprint Planning
14 91 (12.75%) Backlog Management
15 90 (12.61%) Data Modelling
16 89 (12.46%) Product Backlog
17 84 (11.76%) Use Case
18 80 (11.20%) Analytics
19 79 (11.06%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 93 (13.03%) SQL
2 58 (8.12%) Python
3 36 (5.04%) Java
4 20 (2.80%) Bash
5 16 (2.24%) C#
6 14 (1.96%) JavaScript
6 14 (1.96%) PowerShell
7 9 (1.26%) Scala
7 9 (1.26%) TypeScript
8 8 (1.12%) Perl
9 5 (0.70%) Korn
10 4 (0.56%) Apex Code
10 4 (0.56%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.42%) Go
11 3 (0.42%) PHP
11 3 (0.42%) VBA
11 3 (0.42%) XPath
12 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.14%) R
13 1 (0.14%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 122 (17.09%) Security Cleared
2 99 (13.87%) SC Cleared
3 93 (13.03%) Degree
4 42 (5.88%) CBAP
5 27 (3.78%) IIBA
6 23 (3.22%) PMI Certification
7 22 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
8 20 (2.80%) CSPO
9 8 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (1.12%) Master's Degree
10 6 (0.84%) CCNA
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%) Azure Certification
11 5 (0.70%) CCDP
11 5 (0.70%) CCNP
11 5 (0.70%) ISEB
11 5 (0.70%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (13.17%) QA
2 35 (4.90%) Accessibility
3 27 (3.78%) GDPR
4 20 (2.80%) Data Quality
5 19 (2.66%) WCAG
6 16 (2.24%) PSD2
7 8 (1.12%) PCI DSS
7 8 (1.12%) SLA
8 6 (0.84%) ISO 8583
9 5 (0.70%) ISO 20022
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%) GMP
12 2 (0.28%) NCSC
12 2 (0.28%) PMO
13 1 (0.14%) GAMP
13 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
System Software
1 28 (3.92%) Docker
2 9 (1.26%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.14%) etcd
4 1 (0.14%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 27 (3.78%) Kubernetes
2 19 (2.66%) Ansible
3 14 (1.96%) NetBackup
3 14 (1.96%) Terraform
4 5 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 5 (0.70%) Progress Chef
5 4 (0.56%) Grafana
5 4 (0.56%) HP Quality Center
5 4 (0.56%) Puppet
6 3 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.28%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.28%) Istio
8 1 (0.14%) Argo
8 1 (0.14%) CASB
8 1 (0.14%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.14%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 111 (15.55%) Microsoft
2 81 (11.34%) Salesforce
3 30 (4.20%) SAP
4 29 (4.06%) Oracle
5 27 (3.78%) ServiceNow
6 21 (2.94%) Red Hat
7 15 (2.10%) Databricks
8 14 (1.96%) Commvault
9 13 (1.82%) VMware
10 11 (1.54%) Cisco
10 11 (1.54%) MuleSoft
11 10 (1.40%) Veritas
12 9 (1.26%) Pega
13 8 (1.12%) Adobe
13 8 (1.12%) Citrix
13 8 (1.12%) Google
14 6 (0.84%) Guidewire
14 6 (0.84%) Workday
15 5 (0.70%) Cognizant
15 5 (0.70%) Zuora