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

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 157 151
Rank change year-on-year +37 -6 -30
Contract jobs citing User Stories 868 430 588
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.07% 1.78% 1.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.43% 1.94% 1.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 599 280 402
10th Percentile £355 £355 £356
25th Percentile £413 £413 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £601 £600
90th Percentile £650 £701 £667
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 2 5
10th Percentile £39.16 £54.90 -
25th Percentile £59.52 £57.00 £31.71
Median hourly rate £70.00 £61.75 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.36% +87.12% -48.84%
75th Percentile £75.33 £67.75 £66.00
90th Percentile £96.98 £70.60 £69.90
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £53.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +30.84% +62.12% -48.84%

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 35,715 22,116 31,552
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.05% 91.31% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,658 14,376 20,600
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.05% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £513 £525
% change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,231 961 2,308
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.84
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.00 £28.75 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.48% -23.33% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +51.79% -23.29% -0.73%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +38 496 £513 -2.24% 50
North of England -17 131 £466 +4.25% 32
Midlands -5 97 £475 +2.98% 11
West Midlands -10 72 £475 +2.98% 7
North West -8 66 £401 -19.80% 21
South East -38 65 £468 -5.32% 43
Yorkshire -34 45 £500 +21.21% 7
South West -8 42 £485 -9.77% 14
East of England -16 29 £525 +35.48% 7
East Midlands -19 25 £463 -18.32% 4
North East -12 21 £450 +4.65% 4
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 (18.32%) Confluence
2 20 (2.30%) CMS
3 16 (1.84%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.04%) SAS
5 5 (0.58%) Camunda
5 5 (0.58%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.35%) Cloud Foundry
6 3 (0.35%) Drupal
6 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.23%) Anypoint
7 2 (0.23%) JBoss
7 2 (0.23%) Kentico
7 2 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.23%) WordPress
8 1 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 49 (5.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (4.95%) MS Visio
3 26 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
4 19 (2.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.04%) Notion
6 3 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.23%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.23%) InVision
7 2 (0.23%) Sketch
7 2 (0.23%) Zeplin
8 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 16 (1.84%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (1.38%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.69%) Adobe Campaign
3 6 (0.69%) NetSuite
3 6 (0.69%) ProductWriter
4 5 (0.58%) Teamcenter
5 4 (0.46%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.46%) Eloqua
5 4 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.46%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.35%) Dynamics GP
6 3 (0.35%) Dynamics SL
6 3 (0.35%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.35%) Oracle Financials
6 3 (0.35%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.35%) Temenos T24
7 2 (0.23%) Exchequer
7 2 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 167 (19.24%) Azure
2 76 (8.76%) AWS
3 75 (8.64%) Power Platform
4 58 (6.68%) Azure DevOps
5 26 (3.00%) SaaS
6 24 (2.76%) Dynamics 365
6 24 (2.76%) GitHub
7 21 (2.42%) GCP
7 21 (2.42%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 19 (2.19%) PowerApps
9 18 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
10 16 (1.84%) Power Automate
11 14 (1.61%) Lucidchart
12 13 (1.50%) Figma
13 12 (1.38%) Azure Data Factory
13 12 (1.38%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
14 11 (1.27%) Entra ID
15 10 (1.15%) Miro
16 6 (0.69%) Fivetran
16 6 (0.69%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.92%) Network Security
2 6 (0.69%) Firewall
3 3 (0.35%) DNS
3 3 (0.35%) WebEx
3 3 (0.35%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (0.23%) FTP
4 2 (0.23%) HTTP
4 2 (0.23%) Wireless
5 1 (0.12%) 5G
5 1 (0.12%) BGP
5 1 (0.12%) NFC
5 1 (0.12%) NGFW
5 1 (0.12%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (5.99%) Power BI
2 26 (3.00%) Metadata
3 22 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
4 16 (1.84%) Tableau
5 11 (1.27%) SQL Server
6 10 (1.15%) NoSQL
6 10 (1.15%) Relational Database
7 8 (0.92%) BigQuery
7 8 (0.92%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
8 7 (0.81%) Delta Lake
9 6 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
10 5 (0.58%) Big Data
10 5 (0.58%) Parquet
10 5 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.35%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.35%) OLAP
11 3 (0.35%) Redis
12 2 (0.23%) MongoDB
12 2 (0.23%) Oracle OLAP
Development Applications
1 220 (25.35%) JIRA
2 26 (3.00%) Postman
3 22 (2.53%) Git
4 19 (2.19%) GitLab
5 12 (1.38%) Jenkins
6 9 (1.04%) Gradle
6 9 (1.04%) Selenium
7 7 (0.81%) Team Foundation Server
8 6 (0.69%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.58%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 5 (0.58%) Balsamiq
9 5 (0.58%) Zephyr
10 4 (0.46%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.46%) JUnit
10 4 (0.46%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.35%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.23%) Artifactory
12 2 (0.23%) Maven
12 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (0.23%) Terragrunt
General
1 338 (38.94%) Social Skills
2 248 (28.57%) Finance
3 220 (25.35%) Analytical Skills
4 112 (12.90%) Banking
5 106 (12.21%) Public Sector
6 72 (8.29%) Documentation Skills
7 55 (6.34%) Retail
8 42 (4.84%) Presentation Skills
9 31 (3.57%) Marketing
10 23 (2.65%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (2.53%) Legal
12 18 (2.07%) Investment Banking
12 18 (2.07%) Organisational Skills
12 18 (2.07%) Retail Banking
13 16 (1.84%) Financial Institution
14 15 (1.73%) Military
15 14 (1.61%) Manufacturing
16 13 (1.50%) Front Office
17 10 (1.15%) Back Office
18 9 (1.04%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 467 (53.80%) Analyst
2 434 (50.00%) Business Analyst
3 139 (16.01%) Senior
4 107 (12.33%) Product Owner
5 88 (10.14%) Senior Analyst
6 81 (9.33%) Senior Business Analyst
7 68 (7.83%) Developer
8 56 (6.45%) Product Manager
8 56 (6.45%) Technical Analyst
9 53 (6.11%) Technical Business Analyst
10 44 (5.07%) Salesforce Business Analyst
11 43 (4.95%) Salesforce Analyst
12 33 (3.80%) Lead
13 31 (3.57%) Implementation Analyst
14 28 (3.23%) Data Analyst
15 25 (2.88%) Data Business Analyst
16 23 (2.65%) Banking Analyst
16 23 (2.65%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
16 23 (2.65%) Senior Salesforce Analyst
16 23 (2.65%) Senior Salesforce Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (4.15%) REST
2 19 (2.19%) JSON
3 17 (1.96%) ADO
3 17 (1.96%) React
3 17 (1.96%) RESTful
4 14 (1.61%) XML
5 12 (1.38%) AngularJS
6 11 (1.27%) Spring Boot
7 10 (1.15%) VML
8 9 (1.04%) HTML
9 8 (0.92%) .NET
9 8 (0.92%) Node.js
10 7 (0.81%) CSS
10 7 (0.81%) Spring
11 6 (0.69%) Kafka
11 6 (0.69%) Lightning Web Components
11 6 (0.69%) Middleware
11 6 (0.69%) SOAP
12 5 (0.58%) ASP.NET
12 5 (0.58%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 289 (33.29%) Product Ownership
2 29 (3.34%) Onboarding
3 25 (2.88%) Analytical Mindset
3 25 (2.88%) Data Protection Act
4 23 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
5 22 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
6 18 (2.07%) CMDB
7 17 (1.96%) Data Structures
8 16 (1.84%) Cloud Native
8 16 (1.84%) Management Information System
9 14 (1.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 13 (1.50%) Virtual Team
11 10 (1.15%) AI Agents
11 10 (1.15%) PMI
12 9 (1.04%) Reinsurance
13 8 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
13 8 (0.92%) Low-Code
13 8 (0.92%) NHS
13 8 (0.92%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 7 (0.81%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.15%) Windows
2 9 (1.04%) Linux
3 4 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.35%) CentOS
4 3 (0.35%) Unix
5 2 (0.23%) Android
5 2 (0.23%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 555 (63.94%) Agile
2 355 (40.90%) Acceptance Criteria
3 291 (33.53%) Stakeholder Management
4 198 (22.81%) Scrum
4 198 (22.81%) Workshop Facilitation
5 194 (22.35%) Requirements Gathering
6 182 (20.97%) Business Analysis
7 173 (19.93%) User Acceptance Testing
8 170 (19.59%) DevOps
9 166 (19.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 152 (17.51%) Problem-Solving
10 152 (17.51%) Roadmaps
11 139 (16.01%) Sprint Planning
12 126 (14.52%) Product Backlog
13 119 (13.71%) Continuous Improvement
13 119 (13.71%) Data Modelling
14 111 (12.79%) Analytics
15 109 (12.56%) Migration
16 108 (12.44%) Backlog Management
17 102 (11.75%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 119 (13.71%) SQL
2 62 (7.14%) Python
3 40 (4.61%) Java
4 31 (3.57%) JavaScript
5 15 (1.73%) C#
6 10 (1.15%) TypeScript
7 8 (0.92%) PowerShell
8 5 (0.58%) Apex Code
8 5 (0.58%) Korn
8 5 (0.58%) Kotlin
9 4 (0.46%) R
9 4 (0.46%) VBA
10 3 (0.35%) Ruby
10 3 (0.35%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.23%) Bash
11 2 (0.23%) Google Apps Script
11 2 (0.23%) PHP
11 2 (0.23%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.23%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.12%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 155 (17.86%) Security Cleared
2 123 (14.17%) SC Cleared
3 80 (9.22%) Degree
4 35 (4.03%) CBAP
5 32 (3.69%) BPSS Clearance
5 32 (3.69%) IIBA
6 18 (2.07%) CSPO
7 14 (1.61%) PMI Certification
8 10 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
9 9 (1.04%) ISTQB
9 9 (1.04%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.81%) ISEB
11 5 (0.58%) CISSP
11 5 (0.58%) DV Cleared
12 4 (0.46%) MBA
12 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (0.46%) PMP
13 3 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 2 (0.23%) CompTIA Security+
14 2 (0.23%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (13.25%) QA
2 53 (6.11%) Data Quality
3 41 (4.72%) Accessibility
4 26 (3.00%) GDPR
5 9 (1.04%) NIST
5 9 (1.04%) SLA
6 8 (0.92%) GRC
7 7 (0.81%) GxP
8 6 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.69%) WCAG
9 5 (0.58%) ISO 20022
9 5 (0.58%) Solvency II
10 4 (0.46%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 4 (0.46%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.35%) GMP
11 3 (0.35%) HL7
11 3 (0.35%) PSD2
12 2 (0.23%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.23%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 24 (2.76%) Docker
2 8 (0.92%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.23%) IAG
3 2 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
3 2 (0.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.12%) Ceph
4 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 26 (3.00%) Kubernetes
2 16 (1.84%) Ansible
3 12 (1.38%) Terraform
4 7 (0.81%) SCCM
5 6 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.58%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.12%) Argo
8 1 (0.12%) CASB
8 1 (0.12%) Grafana
8 1 (0.12%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.12%) Kibana
Vendors
1 125 (14.40%) Microsoft
2 85 (9.79%) Salesforce
3 49 (5.65%) SAP
4 47 (5.41%) ServiceNow
5 20 (2.30%) Databricks
5 20 (2.30%) Oracle
6 14 (1.61%) Google
7 12 (1.38%) Adobe
8 10 (1.15%) Cisco
8 10 (1.15%) Splunk
8 10 (1.15%) Workday
9 8 (0.92%) Zscaler
10 6 (0.69%) Fortinet
10 6 (0.69%) Guidewire
10 6 (0.69%) Pega
10 6 (0.69%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
10 6 (0.69%) Zuora
11 5 (0.58%) Citrix
11 5 (0.58%) Cognizant
11 5 (0.58%) MuleSoft