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

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 181 135
Rank change year-on-year +47 -46 -22
Contract jobs citing User Stories 670 398 651
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.12% 1.45% 1.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.40% 1.64% 2.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 479 255 463
10th Percentile £348 £361 £388
25th Percentile £406 £421 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.29% - -1.87%
75th Percentile £550 £614 £600
90th Percentile £650 £685 £675
UK median daily rate £488 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -5.34% -1.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 0 4
10th Percentile £31.49 - £50.38
25th Percentile £48.86 - £50.94
Median hourly rate £60.61 - £52.50
75th Percentile £74.26 - £57.20
90th Percentile £82.06 - £63.42
UK median hourly rate £60.61 £29.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +109.00% -44.76% +0.48%

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 27,872 24,320 31,532
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.34% 88.88% 87.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,782 14,954 21,308
10th Percentile £304 £310 £306
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £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 1,755 794 1,429
10th Percentile £15.20 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +27.14%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +21.43%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +54 365 £500 -7.67% 105
North of England +25 125 £500 +11.11% 65
South East -19 72 £454 -10.98% 99
Midlands +9 63 £440 +2.03% 64
Yorkshire 0 57 £516 +3.25% 30
North West +6 56 £425 - 28
West Midlands -10 37 £491 +5.03% 35
East Midlands -6 26 £359 -8.83% 29
South West -9 22 £498 -17.08% 41
North East +1 14 £500 +19.05% 8
East of England -15 14 £439 +13.16% 47
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
1 137 (20.45%) Confluence
2 21 (3.13%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.04%) CMS
4 7 (1.04%) SAS
5 6 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.75%) nginx
7 4 (0.60%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.30%) Apache
8 2 (0.30%) Traefik
8 2 (0.30%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 1 (0.15%) Drupal
9 1 (0.15%) Kentico
9 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.15%) WordPress
Applications
1 37 (5.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (4.78%) MS Visio
3 24 (3.58%) Microsoft Office
4 22 (3.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.75%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.60%) Adobe XD
6 4 (0.60%) Notion
6 4 (0.60%) Sketch
6 4 (0.60%) Trello
7 2 (0.30%) InVision
7 2 (0.30%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 27 (4.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.34%) Payment Gateway
3 7 (1.04%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.75%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.60%) Endur
6 3 (0.45%) ProductWriter
6 3 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.30%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.30%) Primavera
7 2 (0.30%) Temenos T24
8 1 (0.15%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.15%) HFM
8 1 (0.15%) OpenLink RightAngle
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.15%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.15%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.15%) SAP PM
8 1 (0.15%) thinkFolio
8 1 (0.15%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 89 (13.28%) Azure
2 74 (11.04%) AWS
3 60 (8.96%) Power Platform
4 42 (6.27%) Azure DevOps
5 29 (4.33%) GCP
6 25 (3.73%) Dynamics 365
7 24 (3.58%) GitHub
8 22 (3.28%) Microsoft 365
9 19 (2.84%) PowerApps
10 18 (2.69%) Power Automate
10 18 (2.69%) Serverless
11 17 (2.54%) AWS Lambda
11 17 (2.54%) Figma
12 16 (2.39%) Snowflake
13 14 (2.09%) SaaS
13 14 (2.09%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 13 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
14 13 (1.94%) Miro
15 11 (1.64%) Lucidchart
16 10 (1.49%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.19%) WebEx
2 5 (0.75%) DNS
3 4 (0.60%) Firewall
3 4 (0.60%) HTTP
4 3 (0.45%) FTP
5 2 (0.30%) BGP
5 2 (0.30%) Software-Defined Networking
5 2 (0.30%) VLAN
5 2 (0.30%) VPN
6 1 (0.15%) Calico
6 1 (0.15%) Cisco IPT
6 1 (0.15%) Internet
6 1 (0.15%) LAN
6 1 (0.15%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.15%) WAN
6 1 (0.15%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (7.31%) Power BI
2 20 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
2 20 (2.99%) Tableau
3 16 (2.39%) BigQuery
4 14 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (1.79%) SQL Server
6 9 (1.34%) Metadata
7 7 (1.04%) Amazon Athena
7 7 (1.04%) Relational Database
7 7 (1.04%) Star Schema
8 6 (0.90%) Big Data
8 6 (0.90%) Data Vault
9 5 (0.75%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (0.60%) Data Lake
10 4 (0.60%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.60%) Redis
10 4 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
11 3 (0.45%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.45%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 186 (27.76%) JIRA
2 33 (4.93%) Jenkins
3 19 (2.84%) GitLab
4 15 (2.24%) Cucumber
5 14 (2.09%) Git
6 12 (1.79%) Postman
7 11 (1.64%) JUnit
8 10 (1.49%) Selenium
9 9 (1.34%) SonarQube
10 8 (1.19%) Zephyr
11 7 (1.04%) JMeter
12 6 (0.90%) Sonatype Nexus
13 4 (0.60%) Axure RP
13 4 (0.60%) Cypress.io
13 4 (0.60%) ER Studio
13 4 (0.60%) ERwin
13 4 (0.60%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.60%) TeamCity
13 4 (0.60%) TestRail
14 3 (0.45%) Gatling
General
1 285 (42.54%) Social Skills
2 171 (25.52%) Finance
3 149 (22.24%) Analytical Skills
4 74 (11.04%) Public Sector
5 69 (10.30%) Banking
6 44 (6.57%) Documentation Skills
7 35 (5.22%) Presentation Skills
8 31 (4.63%) Retail
9 30 (4.48%) Marketing
10 27 (4.03%) Influencing Skills
11 23 (3.43%) Legal
12 15 (2.24%) Back Office
13 14 (2.09%) Front Office
14 13 (1.94%) Investment Banking
15 12 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
15 12 (1.79%) Telecoms
16 8 (1.19%) Financial Institution
16 8 (1.19%) General Ledger
17 7 (1.04%) Billing
17 7 (1.04%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 333 (49.70%) Analyst
2 312 (46.57%) Business Analyst
3 91 (13.58%) Senior
4 88 (13.13%) Product Owner
5 57 (8.51%) Senior Analyst
6 52 (7.76%) Senior Business Analyst
7 45 (6.72%) Technical Analyst
8 42 (6.27%) Technical Business Analyst
9 36 (5.37%) Developer
10 27 (4.03%) Lead
10 27 (4.03%) Product Manager
10 27 (4.03%) Salesforce Business Analyst
11 25 (3.73%) Salesforce Analyst
12 21 (3.13%) Consultant
12 21 (3.13%) Designer
13 18 (2.69%) Test Analyst
14 16 (2.39%) Product Analyst
15 15 (2.24%) Digital Analyst
15 15 (2.24%) Digital Business Analyst
16 14 (2.09%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (2.99%) REST
2 18 (2.69%) JSON
2 18 (2.69%) XML
3 16 (2.39%) RESTful
4 15 (2.24%) Kafka
5 14 (2.09%) React
6 13 (1.94%) Spring
7 12 (1.79%) SOAP
7 12 (1.79%) Spring Boot
8 11 (1.64%) HTML
9 10 (1.49%) ADO
10 9 (1.34%) Playwright
11 8 (1.19%) Apache NiFi
11 8 (1.19%) OAuth
11 8 (1.19%) Web Services
11 8 (1.19%) XMPP
12 7 (1.04%) OAuth2
13 6 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
13 6 (0.90%) Node.js
13 6 (0.90%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 215 (32.09%) Product Ownership
2 26 (3.88%) Onboarding
3 19 (2.84%) PMI
4 18 (2.69%) Analytical Mindset
4 18 (2.69%) Data Structures
5 17 (2.54%) Cloud Native
6 14 (2.09%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (1.94%) Greenfield Project
8 12 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (1.34%) Algorithms
9 9 (1.34%) Management Information System
10 8 (1.19%) Mobile App
10 8 (1.19%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 7 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (1.04%) Low-Code
11 7 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
12 6 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
12 6 (0.90%) Marketing Technology
12 6 (0.90%) NHS
13 5 (0.75%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 21 (3.13%) Windows
2 16 (2.39%) Linux
3 7 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (1.04%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.75%) VMS
5 1 (0.15%) Android
5 1 (0.15%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 495 (73.88%) Agile
2 212 (31.64%) Acceptance Criteria
3 203 (30.30%) Scrum
4 202 (30.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 160 (23.88%) Requirements Gathering
6 155 (23.13%) Workshop Facilitation
7 145 (21.64%) Business Analysis
8 138 (20.60%) Problem-Solving
9 120 (17.91%) DevOps
10 113 (16.87%) Roadmaps
10 113 (16.87%) User Acceptance Testing
11 111 (16.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 97 (14.48%) Product Backlog
13 95 (14.18%) Backlog Management
14 90 (13.43%) Sprint Planning
15 87 (12.99%) Migration
16 84 (12.54%) Use Case
17 82 (12.24%) Data Modelling
18 81 (12.09%) Continuous Improvement
19 80 (11.94%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 80 (11.94%) SQL
2 57 (8.51%) Python
3 33 (4.93%) Java
4 20 (2.99%) Bash
5 13 (1.94%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.49%) C#
7 9 (1.34%) JavaScript
7 9 (1.34%) Scala
8 8 (1.19%) Perl
9 7 (1.04%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.75%) Apex Code
11 4 (0.60%) Korn
12 3 (0.45%) Go
12 3 (0.45%) VBA
12 3 (0.45%) XPath
13 2 (0.30%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.30%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.15%) Groovy
14 1 (0.15%) PHP
14 1 (0.15%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 97 (14.48%) Security Cleared
2 90 (13.43%) Degree
3 75 (11.19%) SC Cleared
4 36 (5.37%) CBAP
5 24 (3.58%) CSPO
6 23 (3.43%) PMI Certification
7 20 (2.99%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (2.84%) IIBA
9 8 (1.19%) Master's Degree
10 7 (1.04%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (1.04%) DV Cleared
11 6 (0.90%) CCNA
11 6 (0.90%) CFA
11 6 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (0.90%) MBA
12 5 (0.75%) Azure Certification
12 5 (0.75%) CCDP
12 5 (0.75%) CCNP
12 5 (0.75%) PMP
13 4 (0.60%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (12.24%) QA
2 30 (4.48%) GDPR
3 27 (4.03%) Accessibility
4 19 (2.84%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.84%) WCAG
5 16 (2.39%) PSD2
6 12 (1.79%) PCI DSS
7 8 (1.19%) SLA
8 6 (0.90%) ISO 8583
9 5 (0.75%) ISO 20022
9 5 (0.75%) SEPA
10 4 (0.60%) FIPS 140-2
11 3 (0.45%) GxP
11 3 (0.45%) HL7
12 2 (0.30%) Basel III
12 2 (0.30%) EMIR
12 2 (0.30%) GMP
12 2 (0.30%) NCSC
12 2 (0.30%) PMO
13 1 (0.15%) NIST
System Software
1 25 (3.73%) Docker
2 9 (1.34%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.15%) etcd
4 1 (0.15%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 24 (3.58%) Kubernetes
2 19 (2.84%) Ansible
3 14 (2.09%) NetBackup
4 12 (1.79%) Terraform
5 5 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (0.75%) Progress Chef
6 4 (0.60%) Grafana
6 4 (0.60%) Puppet
6 4 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.45%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.30%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.30%) Istio
9 1 (0.15%) Argo
9 1 (0.15%) CASB
9 1 (0.15%) CloudHub
9 1 (0.15%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 108 (16.12%) Microsoft
2 75 (11.19%) Salesforce
3 27 (4.03%) Oracle
4 25 (3.73%) SAP
5 24 (3.58%) ServiceNow
6 21 (3.13%) Red Hat
7 14 (2.09%) Commvault
8 13 (1.94%) VMware
9 12 (1.79%) Databricks
9 12 (1.79%) MuleSoft
10 11 (1.64%) Cisco
11 10 (1.49%) Citrix
11 10 (1.49%) Veritas
12 8 (1.19%) Adobe
12 8 (1.19%) Pega
13 7 (1.04%) Google
13 7 (1.04%) Guidewire
14 5 (0.75%) HubSpot
14 5 (0.75%) Workday
14 5 (0.75%) Zuora