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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 122 155 148
Rank change year-on-year +33 -7 -25
Contract jobs citing User Stories 855 429 586
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.05% 1.79% 1.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.41% 1.96% 1.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 588 279 402
10th Percentile £355 £356 £356
25th Percentile £413 £413 £427
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £602 £600
90th Percentile £650 £701 £650
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 35,462 21,869 31,644
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.04% 91.35% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,467 14,201 20,640
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% - -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 2,230 965 2,327
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.85
25th Percentile £20.69 £18.10 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.00 £28.60 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.34% -23.73% +0.54%
75th Percentile £68.00 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.91 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.69 £27.85 £36.50
% change year-on-year +53.27% -23.70% +1.39%

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 3 June 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 3 June 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 3 June 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 +39 492 £516 -1.81% 174
North of England -20 127 £451 +0.78% 59
Midlands -3 96 £475 +2.70% 36
West Midlands -8 72 £475 +2.70% 28
North West -1 65 £402 -19.60% 37
South East -45 62 £460 -6.84% 67
Yorkshire -37 43 £510 +23.64% 16
South West -5 41 £485 -9.77% 28
East of England -15 29 £525 +35.48% 13
East Midlands -23 24 £463 -18.32% 8
North East -20 20 £425 -1.16% 7
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
1 155 (18.13%) Confluence
2 21 (2.46%) CMS
3 16 (1.87%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.05%) 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 44 (5.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (4.80%) MS Visio
3 26 (3.04%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (2.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.82%) 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 13 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (1.40%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.70%) Adobe Campaign
3 6 (0.70%) ProductWriter
4 5 (0.58%) NetSuite
4 5 (0.58%) Teamcenter
5 4 (0.47%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.47%) Eloqua
5 4 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.47%) 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
1 163 (19.06%) Azure
2 74 (8.65%) AWS
3 68 (7.95%) Power Platform
4 57 (6.67%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (2.81%) GitHub
5 24 (2.81%) SaaS
6 21 (2.46%) Dynamics 365
7 20 (2.34%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 19 (2.22%) GCP
9 17 (1.99%) Microsoft 365
10 16 (1.87%) PowerApps
11 14 (1.64%) Power Automate
12 13 (1.52%) Figma
13 12 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
13 12 (1.40%) Lucidchart
13 12 (1.40%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
14 11 (1.29%) Entra ID
15 10 (1.17%) Miro
16 6 (0.70%) Fivetran
16 6 (0.70%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.94%) Network Security
2 6 (0.70%) 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 46 (5.38%) Power BI
2 26 (3.04%) Metadata
3 22 (2.57%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (1.52%) Tableau
5 10 (1.17%) NoSQL
5 10 (1.17%) Relational Database
5 10 (1.17%) SQL Server
6 8 (0.94%) BigQuery
6 8 (0.94%) Data Lake
7 7 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
7 7 (0.82%) Delta Lake
8 6 (0.70%) PostgreSQL
9 5 (0.58%) Big Data
9 5 (0.58%) Parquet
9 5 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.35%) Data Mining
10 3 (0.35%) OLAP
10 3 (0.35%) Redis
11 2 (0.23%) MongoDB
11 2 (0.23%) Oracle OLAP
Development Applications
1 214 (25.03%) JIRA
2 27 (3.16%) Postman
3 22 (2.57%) Git
4 19 (2.22%) GitLab
5 11 (1.29%) Jenkins
6 9 (1.05%) Gradle
6 9 (1.05%) Selenium
7 7 (0.82%) Team Foundation Server
8 6 (0.70%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.58%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 5 (0.58%) Balsamiq
9 5 (0.58%) Zephyr
10 4 (0.47%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.47%) JUnit
10 4 (0.47%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.35%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.23%) Artifactory
12 2 (0.23%) Axure RP
12 2 (0.23%) Maven
12 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 325 (38.01%) Social Skills
2 240 (28.07%) Finance
3 218 (25.50%) Analytical Skills
4 110 (12.87%) Banking
5 106 (12.40%) Public Sector
6 71 (8.30%) Documentation Skills
7 54 (6.32%) Retail
8 41 (4.80%) Presentation Skills
9 31 (3.63%) Marketing
10 22 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (2.46%) Legal
12 18 (2.11%) Investment Banking
12 18 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
12 18 (2.11%) Retail Banking
13 15 (1.75%) Military
14 14 (1.64%) Financial Institution
14 14 (1.64%) Manufacturing
15 13 (1.52%) Front Office
16 10 (1.17%) Back Office
17 9 (1.05%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 461 (53.92%) Analyst
2 426 (49.82%) Business Analyst
3 137 (16.02%) Senior
4 101 (11.81%) Product Owner
5 87 (10.18%) Senior Analyst
6 79 (9.24%) Senior Business Analyst
7 67 (7.84%) Developer
8 57 (6.67%) Product Manager
9 56 (6.55%) Technical Analyst
10 53 (6.20%) Technical Business Analyst
11 42 (4.91%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 41 (4.80%) Salesforce Analyst
13 34 (3.98%) Lead
14 31 (3.63%) Implementation Analyst
15 27 (3.16%) Data Analyst
16 25 (2.92%) Data Business Analyst
17 23 (2.69%) Banking Analyst
17 23 (2.69%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
18 22 (2.57%) Digital Business Analyst
18 22 (2.57%) Senior Salesforce Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (4.21%) REST
2 19 (2.22%) JSON
3 17 (1.99%) ADO
3 17 (1.99%) React
3 17 (1.99%) RESTful
4 14 (1.64%) XML
5 12 (1.40%) AngularJS
6 11 (1.29%) Spring Boot
7 9 (1.05%) HTML
7 9 (1.05%) VML
8 8 (0.94%) .NET
8 8 (0.94%) Node.js
9 7 (0.82%) CSS
9 7 (0.82%) Lightning Web Components
9 7 (0.82%) Spring
10 6 (0.70%) Kafka
10 6 (0.70%) Middleware
10 6 (0.70%) SOAP
11 5 (0.58%) OAuth
11 5 (0.58%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 283 (33.10%) Product Ownership
2 29 (3.39%) Onboarding
3 25 (2.92%) Analytical Mindset
3 25 (2.92%) Data Protection Act
4 22 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
4 22 (2.57%) Self-Motivation
5 18 (2.11%) CMDB
6 16 (1.87%) Data Structures
6 16 (1.87%) Management Information System
7 15 (1.75%) Cloud Native
7 15 (1.75%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 13 (1.52%) Virtual Team
9 10 (1.17%) AI Agents
10 9 (1.05%) Greenfield Project
10 9 (1.05%) PMI
10 9 (1.05%) Reinsurance
11 8 (0.94%) NHS
11 8 (0.94%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 7 (0.82%) Life Science
12 7 (0.82%) Marketing Technology
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.17%) Windows
2 9 (1.05%) Linux
3 4 (0.47%) 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
1 543 (63.51%) Agile
2 348 (40.70%) Acceptance Criteria
3 288 (33.68%) Stakeholder Management
4 196 (22.92%) Scrum
5 194 (22.69%) Workshop Facilitation
6 191 (22.34%) Requirements Gathering
7 176 (20.58%) Business Analysis
8 170 (19.88%) User Acceptance Testing
9 168 (19.65%) DevOps
10 164 (19.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 151 (17.66%) Problem-Solving
12 146 (17.08%) Roadmaps
13 137 (16.02%) Sprint Planning
14 124 (14.50%) Product Backlog
15 119 (13.92%) Data Modelling
16 113 (13.22%) Continuous Improvement
17 109 (12.75%) Migration
18 107 (12.51%) Backlog Management
19 106 (12.40%) Analytics
20 99 (11.58%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 114 (13.33%) SQL
2 61 (7.13%) Python
3 40 (4.68%) Java
4 29 (3.39%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.64%) C#
6 9 (1.05%) TypeScript
7 8 (0.94%) PowerShell
8 5 (0.58%) Apex Code
8 5 (0.58%) Korn
8 5 (0.58%) Kotlin
9 3 (0.35%) R
9 3 (0.35%) Ruby
9 3 (0.35%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.35%) VBA
10 2 (0.23%) Bash
10 2 (0.23%) Google Apps Script
10 2 (0.23%) PHP
10 2 (0.23%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.23%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.12%) X++
Qualifications
1 155 (18.13%) Security Cleared
2 123 (14.39%) SC Cleared
3 80 (9.36%) Degree
4 32 (3.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (3.63%) CBAP
6 30 (3.51%) IIBA
7 16 (1.87%) CSPO
8 13 (1.52%) PMI Certification
9 10 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (1.05%) ISTQB
10 9 (1.05%) Master's Degree
11 7 (0.82%) ISEB
12 5 (0.58%) CISSP
12 5 (0.58%) DV Cleared
13 4 (0.47%) MBA
13 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
13 4 (0.47%) PMP
14 3 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 2 (0.23%) CompTIA Security+
15 2 (0.23%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (12.98%) QA
2 52 (6.08%) Data Quality
3 41 (4.80%) Accessibility
4 26 (3.04%) GDPR
5 9 (1.05%) NIST
5 9 (1.05%) SLA
6 8 (0.94%) GRC
7 7 (0.82%) GxP
8 6 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.70%) WCAG
9 5 (0.58%) ISO 20022
9 5 (0.58%) Solvency II
10 4 (0.47%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 4 (0.47%) 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 23 (2.69%) Docker
2 8 (0.94%) 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 23 (2.69%) Kubernetes
2 16 (1.87%) Ansible
3 12 (1.40%) Terraform
4 7 (0.82%) SCCM
5 6 (0.70%) 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
1 120 (14.04%) Microsoft
2 84 (9.82%) Salesforce
3 49 (5.73%) SAP
4 47 (5.50%) ServiceNow
5 20 (2.34%) Databricks
5 20 (2.34%) Oracle
6 13 (1.52%) Google
7 12 (1.40%) Adobe
8 10 (1.17%) Cisco
8 10 (1.17%) Splunk
8 10 (1.17%) Workday
9 8 (0.94%) Zscaler
10 6 (0.70%) Fortinet
10 6 (0.70%) Guidewire
10 6 (0.70%) Pega
10 6 (0.70%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
11 5 (0.58%) Citrix
11 5 (0.58%) Cognizant
11 5 (0.58%) MuleSoft
11 5 (0.58%) Zuora