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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 159 148
Rank change year-on-year +33 -11 -30
Contract jobs citing User Stories 833 414 594
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.07% 1.70% 1.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.44% 1.86% 1.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 579 267 417
10th Percentile £356 £357 £350
25th Percentile £413 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% +2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 2 6
10th Percentile £41.93 £54.90 £31.71
25th Percentile £51.80 £57.00 £32.03
Median hourly rate £70.00 £61.75 £42.75
Median % change year-on-year +13.36% +44.44% -33.72%
75th Percentile £74.26 £67.75 £62.94
90th Percentile £97.30 £70.60 £69.25
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £53.50 £42.75
% change year-on-year +30.84% +25.15% -33.72%

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 34,177 22,233 31,934
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.83% 91.20% 86.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,833 14,556 20,949
10th Percentile £318 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,126 928 2,245
10th Percentile £15.36 £14.65 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £45.46 £30.00 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year +51.53% -16.77% -2.97%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.83
% change year-on-year +43.29% -19.06% -0.47%

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 4 May 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 4 May 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 4 May 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 +48 467 £510 -2.86% 110
North of England +7 138 £466 +3.46% 58
Midlands -8 97 £475 +3.26% 31
West Midlands -14 72 £484 +1.79% 20
North West -2 64 £390 -22.00% 30
South East -49 64 £450 -13.63% 61
Yorkshire -13 51 £510 +20.00% 19
South West -21 33 £485 -15.65% 22
East Midlands -16 25 £463 +29.19% 11
East of England -25 25 £510 +36.00% 18
North East -6 24 £465 +16.13% 10
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
1 164 (19.69%) Confluence
2 18 (2.16%) CMS
3 17 (2.04%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.08%) SAS
5 4 (0.48%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.36%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.36%) Camunda
7 2 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.24%) Drupal
7 2 (0.24%) JBoss
7 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.24%) WordPress
8 1 (0.12%) Apache
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 50 (6.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (5.16%) MS Visio
3 26 (3.12%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (2.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.60%) Notion
6 3 (0.36%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.36%) InVision
6 3 (0.36%) Sketch
6 3 (0.36%) Zeplin
7 2 (0.24%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (2.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (1.32%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.96%) NetSuite
4 6 (0.72%) Adobe Campaign
5 5 (0.60%) Teamcenter
6 4 (0.48%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.48%) Eloqua
6 4 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
6 4 (0.48%) ProductWriter
7 3 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
7 3 (0.36%) Dynamics SL
7 3 (0.36%) Infor CloudSuite
7 3 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.36%) Oracle Financials
7 3 (0.36%) Sage X3
7 3 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.36%) Temenos T24
8 2 (0.24%) Exchequer
8 2 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 143 (17.17%) Azure
2 71 (8.52%) Power Platform
3 70 (8.40%) AWS
4 52 (6.24%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (2.88%) Dynamics 365
5 24 (2.88%) Salesforce Service Cloud
6 22 (2.64%) Microsoft 365
7 21 (2.52%) GCP
7 21 (2.52%) GitHub
7 21 (2.52%) SaaS
8 15 (1.80%) Power Automate
8 15 (1.80%) PowerApps
9 13 (1.56%) Azure Data Factory
9 13 (1.56%) Figma
9 13 (1.56%) Lucidchart
10 12 (1.44%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
11 11 (1.32%) Miro
12 8 (0.96%) Entra ID
12 8 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (0.96%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.96%) Network Security
2 7 (0.84%) Firewall
3 5 (0.60%) HTTP
4 4 (0.48%) DNS
4 4 (0.48%) WebEx
5 3 (0.36%) FTP
6 1 (0.12%) BGP
6 1 (0.12%) Cisco IPT
6 1 (0.12%) NGFW
6 1 (0.12%) VLAN
6 1 (0.12%) VPN
6 1 (0.12%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.12%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (6.60%) Power BI
2 23 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
3 22 (2.64%) Metadata
4 16 (1.92%) Tableau
5 13 (1.56%) SQL Server
6 10 (1.20%) Relational Database
7 9 (1.08%) BigQuery
7 9 (1.08%) NoSQL
7 9 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
8 7 (0.84%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.84%) Delta Lake
9 4 (0.48%) Parquet
10 3 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.36%) Big Data
10 3 (0.36%) Data Mining
10 3 (0.36%) Data Vault
10 3 (0.36%) OLAP
11 2 (0.24%) Metadata Repository
11 2 (0.24%) Oracle OLAP
11 2 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 217 (26.05%) JIRA
2 23 (2.76%) Postman
3 19 (2.28%) Jenkins
4 16 (1.92%) Git
5 13 (1.56%) GitLab
6 10 (1.20%) Selenium
7 8 (0.96%) Cucumber
7 8 (0.96%) Zephyr
8 7 (0.84%) JUnit
9 6 (0.72%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.60%) Balsamiq
11 4 (0.48%) JMeter
11 4 (0.48%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 4 (0.48%) TeamCity
11 4 (0.48%) TestRail
12 3 (0.36%) Axure RP
12 3 (0.36%) Gradle
12 3 (0.36%) REST Assured
12 3 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
13 2 (0.24%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 332 (39.86%) Social Skills
2 232 (27.85%) Finance
3 214 (25.69%) Analytical Skills
4 113 (13.57%) Public Sector
5 103 (12.36%) Banking
6 63 (7.56%) Documentation Skills
7 52 (6.24%) Retail
8 44 (5.28%) Presentation Skills
9 32 (3.84%) Marketing
10 25 (3.00%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (2.64%) Legal
12 18 (2.16%) Organisational Skills
13 16 (1.92%) Financial Institution
14 15 (1.80%) Investment Banking
14 15 (1.80%) Military
14 15 (1.80%) Retail Banking
15 13 (1.56%) Front Office
16 10 (1.20%) Manufacturing
17 8 (0.96%) General Ledger
17 8 (0.96%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 460 (55.22%) Analyst
2 433 (51.98%) Business Analyst
3 140 (16.81%) Senior
4 94 (11.28%) Senior Analyst
5 93 (11.16%) Product Owner
6 87 (10.44%) Senior Business Analyst
7 58 (6.96%) Developer
8 56 (6.72%) Technical Analyst
9 53 (6.36%) Technical Business Analyst
10 52 (6.24%) Product Manager
11 43 (5.16%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 42 (5.04%) Salesforce Analyst
13 31 (3.72%) Lead
14 27 (3.24%) Data Analyst
15 26 (3.12%) Implementation Analyst
16 25 (3.00%) Data Business Analyst
17 24 (2.88%) Designer
18 23 (2.76%) Banking Analyst
18 23 (2.76%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
19 21 (2.52%) Senior Salesforce Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.72%) REST
2 16 (1.92%) ADO
3 15 (1.80%) React
3 15 (1.80%) RESTful
4 12 (1.44%) VML
4 12 (1.44%) XML
5 10 (1.20%) JSON
6 9 (1.08%) HTML
6 9 (1.08%) Kafka
6 9 (1.08%) Node.js
7 8 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
8 7 (0.84%) AngularJS
8 7 (0.84%) CSS
8 7 (0.84%) Spring
8 7 (0.84%) Spring Boot
9 6 (0.72%) .NET
9 6 (0.72%) SOAP
10 5 (0.60%) ASP.NET
10 5 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
10 5 (0.60%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 274 (32.89%) Product Ownership
2 24 (2.88%) Data Protection Act
3 23 (2.76%) Analytical Mindset
3 23 (2.76%) Onboarding
4 21 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
4 21 (2.52%) Self-Motivation
5 16 (1.92%) CMDB
5 16 (1.92%) Data Structures
5 16 (1.92%) Management Information System
6 14 (1.68%) Cloud Native
7 12 (1.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 12 (1.44%) PMI
8 11 (1.32%) Virtual Team
9 10 (1.20%) AI Agents
10 9 (1.08%) NHS
11 8 (0.96%) Marketing Technology
11 8 (0.96%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 7 (0.84%) Low-Code
12 7 (0.84%) Reinsurance
13 6 (0.72%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 13 (1.56%) Linux
2 11 (1.32%) Windows
3 4 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.36%) Unix
5 2 (0.24%) Android
5 2 (0.24%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.24%) CentOS
5 2 (0.24%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 547 (65.67%) Agile
2 333 (39.98%) Acceptance Criteria
3 266 (31.93%) Stakeholder Management
4 207 (24.85%) Workshop Facilitation
5 197 (23.65%) Requirements Gathering
6 189 (22.69%) Scrum
7 184 (22.09%) Business Analysis
8 166 (19.93%) User Acceptance Testing
9 156 (18.73%) DevOps
10 155 (18.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 149 (17.89%) Problem-Solving
12 147 (17.65%) Roadmaps
13 122 (14.65%) Sprint Planning
14 121 (14.53%) Data Modelling
15 114 (13.69%) Migration
16 108 (12.97%) Product Backlog
17 103 (12.36%) Backlog Management
18 101 (12.12%) Analytics
19 96 (11.52%) Continuous Improvement
20 90 (10.80%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 103 (12.36%) SQL
2 53 (6.36%) Python
3 35 (4.20%) Java
4 23 (2.76%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.68%) C#
6 9 (1.08%) TypeScript
7 8 (0.96%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.72%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.72%) Korn
9 5 (0.60%) Kotlin
10 4 (0.48%) R
10 4 (0.48%) T-SQL
10 4 (0.48%) VBA
11 3 (0.36%) Scala
12 2 (0.24%) Google Apps Script
12 2 (0.24%) PHP
12 2 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.24%) Ruby
12 2 (0.24%) XPath
13 1 (0.12%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 157 (18.85%) Security Cleared
2 123 (14.77%) SC Cleared
3 88 (10.56%) Degree
4 38 (4.56%) CBAP
5 33 (3.96%) BPSS Clearance
6 32 (3.84%) IIBA
7 21 (2.52%) CSPO
8 16 (1.92%) PMI Certification
9 11 (1.32%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.84%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (0.72%) DV Cleared
11 6 (0.72%) ISEB
11 6 (0.72%) MBA
12 4 (0.48%) PMP
13 3 (0.36%) AWS Certification
14 2 (0.24%) DBS Check
14 2 (0.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (0.24%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (13.33%) QA
2 51 (6.12%) Data Quality
3 42 (5.04%) Accessibility
4 25 (3.00%) GDPR
5 14 (1.68%) SLA
6 11 (1.32%) WCAG
7 7 (0.84%) NIST
8 6 (0.72%) GxP
9 5 (0.60%) HL7
9 5 (0.60%) PSD2
10 4 (0.48%) ISO 20022
10 4 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.48%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.36%) GMP
11 3 (0.36%) GRC
11 3 (0.36%) SNOMED CT
11 3 (0.36%) Solvency II
12 2 (0.24%) EU AI Act
12 2 (0.24%) NCSC
System Software
1 22 (2.64%) Docker
2 7 (0.84%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.24%) IAG
5 1 (0.12%) Ceph
5 1 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 24 (2.88%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.56%) Ansible
3 11 (1.32%) Terraform
4 7 (0.84%) SCCM
5 5 (0.60%) HP Quality Center
5 5 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.36%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.24%) CASB
7 2 (0.24%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.12%) Argo
8 1 (0.12%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.12%) Grafana
8 1 (0.12%) Kibana
Vendors
1 117 (14.05%) Microsoft
2 87 (10.44%) Salesforce
3 50 (6.00%) SAP
4 44 (5.28%) ServiceNow
5 23 (2.76%) Oracle
6 20 (2.40%) Databricks
7 16 (1.92%) Google
8 15 (1.80%) Adobe
9 12 (1.44%) Cisco
10 10 (1.20%) Splunk
10 10 (1.20%) Workday
11 9 (1.08%) Pega
12 8 (0.96%) Zscaler
12 8 (0.96%) Zuora
13 7 (0.84%) MuleSoft
13 7 (0.84%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
14 6 (0.72%) Citrix
14 6 (0.72%) Fortinet
14 6 (0.72%) Guidewire
14 6 (0.72%) VMware