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 10 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 153 158
Rank change year-on-year +34 +5 -39
Contract jobs citing User Stories 930 519 563
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.08% 1.92% 1.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.43% 2.12% 1.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 627 334 379
10th Percentile £358 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £592
90th Percentile £650 £725 £649
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 2 6
10th Percentile £35.00 £54.90 £31.71
25th Percentile £67.50 £57.00 £32.03
Median hourly rate £72.50 £61.75 £33.04
Median % change year-on-year +17.41% +86.92% -48.38%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.75 £57.77
90th Percentile £90.57 £70.60 £69.25
UK median hourly rate £73.38 £53.50 £33.04
% change year-on-year +37.16% +61.95% -48.38%

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 38,339 24,527 31,778
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.54% 90.74% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,173 15,771 20,632
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £733 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £518 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +2.48% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,381 1,262 2,268
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.21 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.98 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -6.09%
75th Percentile £68.75 £54.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.50 £70.16 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -6.25%

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 10 July 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 10 July 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 10 July 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 +20 531 £520 -0.95% 196
North of England -32 126 £475 +2.70% 66
Midlands -8 102 £463 +0.27% 27
South East -27 80 £450 -11.11% 61
West Midlands -18 76 £475 +2.70% 18
North West -17 62 £436 -16.90% 36
Yorkshire -27 45 £501 +11.39% 24
South West -4 43 £488 +2.63% 56
East of England -15 31 £495 +10.00% 11
East Midlands -10 26 £440 +1.73% 9
North East -28 20 £425 -2.02% 8
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 (16.99%) Confluence
2 26 (2.80%) CMS
3 20 (2.15%) SharePoint
4 5 (0.54%) Camunda
4 5 (0.54%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.43%) SAS
6 3 (0.32%) Cloud Foundry
6 3 (0.32%) Drupal
6 3 (0.32%) Kentico
6 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.22%) JBoss
7 2 (0.22%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.22%) WordPress
8 1 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.11%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (4.52%) MS Visio
2 37 (3.98%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (2.26%) Microsoft Office
4 15 (1.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.65%) Notion
6 3 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.11%) InVision
7 1 (0.11%) Sketch
7 1 (0.11%) Trello
7 1 (0.11%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 14 (1.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.65%) Adobe Campaign
3 6 (0.65%) ProductWriter
4 5 (0.54%) Teamcenter
5 4 (0.43%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.43%) Eloqua
5 4 (0.43%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.43%) Oracle Receivables
5 4 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.32%) Actimize
6 3 (0.32%) Dynamics GP
6 3 (0.32%) Dynamics SL
6 3 (0.32%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.32%) NetSuite
6 3 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
6 3 (0.32%) Sage X3
7 2 (0.22%) Exchequer
7 2 (0.22%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 199 (21.40%) Azure
2 83 (8.92%) Azure DevOps
3 77 (8.28%) AWS
4 76 (8.17%) Power Platform
5 28 (3.01%) GitHub
6 25 (2.69%) GCP
7 24 (2.58%) Dynamics 365
7 24 (2.58%) SaaS
8 20 (2.15%) Salesforce Service Cloud
9 18 (1.94%) PowerApps
10 17 (1.83%) Power Automate
11 16 (1.72%) Figma
11 16 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
11 16 (1.72%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 14 (1.51%) Entra ID
12 14 (1.51%) Lucidchart
13 13 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
14 10 (1.08%) Miro
15 9 (0.97%) Snowflake
16 7 (0.75%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.86%) Network Security
2 6 (0.65%) Firewall
3 3 (0.32%) DNS
3 3 (0.32%) HTTP
3 3 (0.32%) WebEx
3 3 (0.32%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (0.22%) Broadband
4 2 (0.22%) Intranet
4 2 (0.22%) Wireless
5 1 (0.11%) 5G
5 1 (0.11%) BGP
5 1 (0.11%) FTP
5 1 (0.11%) NFC
5 1 (0.11%) NGFW
5 1 (0.11%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (5.70%) Power BI
2 34 (3.66%) Metadata
3 33 (3.55%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (1.94%) Relational Database
5 10 (1.08%) Data Lake
5 10 (1.08%) Tableau
6 9 (0.97%) Delta Lake
6 9 (0.97%) NoSQL
6 9 (0.97%) Parquet
6 9 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (0.97%) SQL Server
7 6 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (0.54%) BigQuery
8 5 (0.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.43%) Big Data
9 4 (0.43%) Data Mining
10 3 (0.32%) Data Hub
10 3 (0.32%) OLAP
10 3 (0.32%) Redis
11 2 (0.22%) Metadata Repository
Development Applications
1 227 (24.41%) JIRA
2 28 (3.01%) Postman
3 24 (2.58%) Git
4 19 (2.04%) GitLab
5 12 (1.29%) Jenkins
5 12 (1.29%) Selenium
6 9 (0.97%) Gradle
7 7 (0.75%) Balsamiq
7 7 (0.75%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.75%) Team Foundation Server
8 6 (0.65%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.54%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 4 (0.43%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.43%) JUnit
10 4 (0.43%) Zephyr
11 3 (0.32%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.22%) Artifactory
12 2 (0.22%) SoapUI
12 2 (0.22%) SonarQube
12 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 361 (38.82%) Social Skills
2 247 (26.56%) Analytical Skills
3 245 (26.34%) Finance
4 121 (13.01%) Public Sector
5 112 (12.04%) Banking
6 75 (8.06%) Documentation Skills
7 55 (5.91%) Retail
8 36 (3.87%) Legal
9 34 (3.66%) Marketing
10 32 (3.44%) Presentation Skills
11 24 (2.58%) Investment Banking
12 22 (2.37%) Influencing Skills
13 21 (2.26%) Manufacturing
14 19 (2.04%) Organisational Skills
15 17 (1.83%) Military
16 15 (1.61%) Aerospace
16 15 (1.61%) Front Office
17 14 (1.51%) Retail Banking
18 13 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 12 (1.29%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 477 (51.29%) Analyst
2 437 (46.99%) Business Analyst
3 125 (13.44%) Product Owner
4 124 (13.33%) Senior
5 82 (8.82%) Developer
6 76 (8.17%) Senior Analyst
7 71 (7.63%) Senior Business Analyst
8 66 (7.10%) Product Manager
9 65 (6.99%) Technical Analyst
10 57 (6.13%) Technical Business Analyst
11 40 (4.30%) Lead
12 37 (3.98%) Salesforce Business Analyst
13 36 (3.87%) Salesforce Analyst
14 31 (3.33%) Data Analyst
15 28 (3.01%) Data Business Analyst
16 27 (2.90%) Implementation Analyst
17 23 (2.47%) Digital Business Analyst
18 22 (2.37%) Banking Analyst
18 22 (2.37%) Systems Analyst
19 21 (2.26%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (3.66%) REST
2 30 (3.23%) JSON
3 20 (2.15%) RESTful
4 18 (1.94%) React
5 17 (1.83%) AngularJS
6 16 (1.72%) ADO
7 13 (1.40%) XML
8 12 (1.29%) Lightning Web Components
9 11 (1.18%) Spring Boot
10 10 (1.08%) .NET
10 10 (1.08%) Kafka
11 9 (0.97%) HTML
11 9 (0.97%) Node.js
11 9 (0.97%) OAuth
12 8 (0.86%) Middleware
12 8 (0.86%) OpenID
12 8 (0.86%) Oracle Fusion
13 7 (0.75%) CSS
13 7 (0.75%) SOAP
13 7 (0.75%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 323 (34.73%) Product Ownership
2 37 (3.98%) Onboarding
3 34 (3.66%) Analytical Mindset
4 28 (3.01%) CMDB
5 27 (2.90%) Data Protection Act
6 26 (2.80%) Self-Motivation
7 22 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
8 21 (2.26%) Cloud Native
9 18 (1.94%) Data Structures
10 16 (1.72%) Management Information System
11 15 (1.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 13 (1.40%) Virtual Team
13 12 (1.29%) AI Agents
13 12 (1.29%) Greenfield Project
13 12 (1.29%) Life Science
14 11 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
15 10 (1.08%) Mobile App
15 10 (1.08%) Reinsurance
16 9 (0.97%) SWIFT Messaging Network
17 8 (0.86%) Marketing Technology
Operating Systems
1 9 (0.97%) Linux
2 6 (0.65%) Windows
3 5 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (0.43%) Unix
5 3 (0.32%) Android
5 3 (0.32%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.32%) CentOS
6 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (63.66%) Agile
2 383 (41.18%) Acceptance Criteria
3 331 (35.59%) Stakeholder Management
4 239 (25.70%) Requirements Gathering
5 225 (24.19%) Scrum
6 205 (22.04%) User Acceptance Testing
7 204 (21.94%) Workshop Facilitation
8 184 (19.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 183 (19.68%) Business Analysis
9 183 (19.68%) DevOps
10 169 (18.17%) Problem-Solving
11 167 (17.96%) Roadmaps
12 156 (16.77%) Product Backlog
13 155 (16.67%) Sprint Planning
14 149 (16.02%) Continuous Improvement
15 131 (14.09%) Backlog Management
16 124 (13.33%) Validation
17 122 (13.12%) Decision-Making
18 121 (13.01%) Data Modelling
19 120 (12.90%) Backlog Prioritisation
Programming Languages
1 130 (13.98%) SQL
2 73 (7.85%) Python
3 49 (5.27%) Java
4 42 (4.52%) JavaScript
5 18 (1.94%) C#
6 9 (0.97%) Apex Code
7 7 (0.75%) Kotlin
7 7 (0.75%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.75%) TypeScript
8 6 (0.65%) Korn
9 5 (0.54%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.32%) R
10 3 (0.32%) Ruby
10 3 (0.32%) Scala
11 2 (0.22%) Bash
11 2 (0.22%) Google Apps Script
11 2 (0.22%) PHP
11 2 (0.22%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.22%) VBA
12 1 (0.11%) Perl
Qualifications
1 171 (18.39%) Security Cleared
2 137 (14.73%) SC Cleared
3 73 (7.85%) Degree
4 33 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (2.04%) IIBA
6 16 (1.72%) CBAP
7 14 (1.51%) CSPO
8 13 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (0.86%) CISSP
9 8 (0.86%) DV Cleared
9 8 (0.86%) ISTQB
10 7 (0.75%) ISEB
10 7 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (0.75%) PMI Certification
11 5 (0.54%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.43%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.43%) Master's Degree
12 4 (0.43%) PMP
13 3 (0.32%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (12.26%) QA
2 59 (6.34%) Data Quality
3 45 (4.84%) Accessibility
4 19 (2.04%) GDPR
5 11 (1.18%) GRC
6 10 (1.08%) NIST
7 9 (0.97%) GxP
8 8 (0.86%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 7 (0.75%) ISO 20022
10 6 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 6 (0.65%) SLA
10 6 (0.65%) WCAG
11 5 (0.54%) Solvency II
12 4 (0.43%) PCI DSS
12 4 (0.43%) SEPA
13 3 (0.32%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 3 (0.32%) HL7
14 2 (0.22%) COBIT
14 2 (0.22%) SNOMED CT
14 2 (0.22%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 25 (2.69%) Docker
2 11 (1.18%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.43%) IAG
3 4 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (0.22%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.11%) Ceph
5 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (3.01%) Kubernetes
2 17 (1.83%) Terraform
3 16 (1.72%) Ansible
4 7 (0.75%) SCCM
5 6 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.54%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.22%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.22%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.11%) Argo
8 1 (0.11%) CASB
8 1 (0.11%) Grafana
8 1 (0.11%) Kibana
Vendors
1 130 (13.98%) Microsoft
2 85 (9.14%) Salesforce
3 55 (5.91%) ServiceNow
4 47 (5.05%) SAP
5 22 (2.37%) Databricks
6 20 (2.15%) Google
7 17 (1.83%) Oracle
8 12 (1.29%) Adobe
9 10 (1.08%) Cisco
9 10 (1.08%) Splunk
9 10 (1.08%) Zscaler
10 9 (0.97%) Pega
10 9 (0.97%) Workday
11 6 (0.65%) Fortinet
11 6 (0.65%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
12 5 (0.54%) Alteryx
12 5 (0.54%) Citrix
12 5 (0.54%) CyberArk
12 5 (0.54%) ION Trading
12 5 (0.54%) Kronos