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 21 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 135 184 140
Rank change year-on-year +49 -44 -33
Contract jobs citing User Stories 661 433 728
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.16% 1.39% 1.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.40% 1.60% 2.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 473 269 501
10th Percentile £354 £359 £388
25th Percentile £413 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +0.95% -
75th Percentile £588 £613 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £684
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 1 6
10th Percentile £31.49 - £47.13
25th Percentile £43.00 - £50.31
Median hourly rate £74.26 £33.07 £52.75
Median % change year-on-year +124.55% -37.31% -1.86%
75th Percentile - - £64.30
90th Percentile £89.85 - £68.16
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £33.07 £52.75
% change year-on-year +124.55% -37.31% -1.86%

All Process and 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 27,528 26,989 34,839
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 90.13% 86.89% 88.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,469 16,492 23,819
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £644 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,814 971 1,471
10th Percentile £14.81 £15.10 £14.50
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -32.03% -16.85% +23.61%
75th Percentile £49.69 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.90
% change year-on-year -28.14% -20.27% +25.43%

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 21 November 2025.

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 21 November 2025.

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 21 November 2025. 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 +43 372 £505 -8.18% 191
North of England +17 115 £513 +10.81% 43
South East +2 72 £454 -9.20% 74
Midlands +11 58 £425 -1.45% 50
Yorkshire +3 55 £520 -2.58% 13
North West +2 48 £530 +24.71% 24
West Midlands -2 31 £483 +3.21% 36
East Midlands +6 27 £360 -8.57% 13
South West +8 24 £500 -16.67% 26
North East 0 14 £488 +16.07% 6
East of England -14 8 £438 +2.94% 19
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
1 115 (17.40%) Confluence
2 20 (3.03%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.82%) CMS
4 9 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.76%) nginx
6 5 (0.76%) WordPress
7 4 (0.61%) Drupal
7 4 (0.61%) JBoss
7 4 (0.61%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.45%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.30%) Apache
9 2 (0.30%) Traefik
9 2 (0.30%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.15%) Appian
10 1 (0.15%) Kentico
10 1 (0.15%) SAS
10 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 27 (4.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (3.93%) MS Visio
3 19 (2.87%) Microsoft Office
4 17 (2.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.76%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.61%) Adobe XD
7 4 (0.61%) Sketch
7 4 (0.61%) Trello
8 3 (0.45%) Siemens NX
9 2 (0.30%) InVision
9 2 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
10 1 (0.15%) Fusion 360
10 1 (0.15%) Notion
10 1 (0.15%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 23 (3.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.36%) Payment Gateway
3 8 (1.21%) Temenos T24
4 6 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.61%) Endur
5 4 (0.61%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.61%) SAP HR
5 4 (0.61%) SAP PM
6 3 (0.45%) ProductWriter
6 3 (0.45%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.30%) HFM
7 2 (0.30%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.30%) Primavera
7 2 (0.30%) Sage CRM
7 2 (0.30%) Shopify
8 1 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.15%) OpenLink RightAngle
8 1 (0.15%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.15%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 91 (13.77%) Azure
2 67 (10.14%) AWS
3 50 (7.56%) Azure DevOps
4 38 (5.75%) Power Platform
5 28 (4.24%) GCP
6 26 (3.93%) GitHub
7 23 (3.48%) Dynamics 365
8 21 (3.18%) Figma
9 19 (2.87%) Serverless
10 17 (2.57%) Miro
11 16 (2.42%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (2.42%) Snowflake
12 15 (2.27%) PowerApps
12 15 (2.27%) SaaS
13 13 (1.97%) GitHub Actions
14 12 (1.82%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 11 (1.66%) Power Automate
16 10 (1.51%) CloudBees
16 10 (1.51%) Entra ID
16 10 (1.51%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.21%) WebEx
2 7 (1.06%) Firewall
3 5 (0.76%) DNS
4 3 (0.45%) HTTP
4 3 (0.45%) VPN
5 2 (0.30%) BGP
5 2 (0.30%) FTP
5 2 (0.30%) Internet
5 2 (0.30%) LAN
5 2 (0.30%) Software-Defined Networking
5 2 (0.30%) VLAN
5 2 (0.30%) WAN
6 1 (0.15%) Calico
6 1 (0.15%) Cisco IPT
6 1 (0.15%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.15%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.15%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (4.39%) Power BI
2 23 (3.48%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (2.72%) Tableau
4 16 (2.42%) BigQuery
4 16 (2.42%) PostgreSQL
5 9 (1.36%) Star Schema
6 8 (1.21%) Relational Database
7 7 (1.06%) Oracle Database
7 7 (1.06%) SQL Server
8 6 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
8 6 (0.91%) Metadata
9 5 (0.76%) Data Vault
10 4 (0.61%) Big Data
10 4 (0.61%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.61%) Redis
10 4 (0.61%) Snowflake Schema
10 4 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.45%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.45%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 184 (27.84%) JIRA
2 33 (4.99%) Jenkins
3 21 (3.18%) GitLab
4 17 (2.57%) Cucumber
4 17 (2.57%) Git
5 11 (1.66%) JUnit
6 10 (1.51%) Selenium
7 9 (1.36%) Postman
8 7 (1.06%) JMeter
8 7 (1.06%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (1.06%) Zephyr
9 6 (0.91%) Cypress.io
9 6 (0.91%) MLflow
9 6 (0.91%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.61%) ER Studio
10 4 (0.61%) ERwin
10 4 (0.61%) PowerDesigner
11 3 (0.45%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.45%) Gatling
11 3 (0.45%) Maven
General
1 266 (40.24%) Social Skills
2 162 (24.51%) Finance
3 134 (20.27%) Analytical Skills
4 77 (11.65%) Public Sector
5 52 (7.87%) Banking
6 38 (5.75%) Marketing
7 32 (4.84%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (4.24%) Retail
9 24 (3.63%) Presentation Skills
10 21 (3.18%) Influencing Skills
10 21 (3.18%) Legal
11 18 (2.72%) Back Office
11 18 (2.72%) Front Office
12 14 (2.12%) Investment Banking
13 13 (1.97%) Telecoms
14 12 (1.82%) Organisational Skills
15 11 (1.66%) Billing
16 10 (1.51%) Manufacturing
17 8 (1.21%) Law
18 7 (1.06%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 301 (45.54%) Analyst
2 279 (42.21%) Business Analyst
3 96 (14.52%) Product Owner
4 68 (10.29%) Senior
5 43 (6.51%) Technical Analyst
6 40 (6.05%) Technical Business Analyst
7 39 (5.90%) Developer
8 38 (5.75%) Senior Analyst
9 35 (5.30%) Senior Business Analyst
10 28 (4.24%) Lead
10 28 (4.24%) Product Manager
11 21 (3.18%) Test Analyst
12 16 (2.42%) Architect
12 16 (2.42%) Consultant
12 16 (2.42%) Salesforce Business Analyst
13 15 (2.27%) Digital Analyst
13 15 (2.27%) Digital Business Analyst
14 14 (2.12%) Automation Engineer
14 14 (2.12%) Designer
15 13 (1.97%) Product Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (2.87%) RESTful
2 17 (2.57%) Spring
3 16 (2.42%) SOAP
3 16 (2.42%) Spring Boot
4 15 (2.27%) JSON
4 15 (2.27%) Kafka
4 15 (2.27%) XML
5 14 (2.12%) ADO
6 13 (1.97%) REST
7 11 (1.66%) React
8 10 (1.51%) HTML
8 10 (1.51%) OAuth
8 10 (1.51%) OAuth2
9 9 (1.36%) Lightning Web Components
10 8 (1.21%) Apache NiFi
10 8 (1.21%) Gherkin
10 8 (1.21%) Middleware
10 8 (1.21%) Node.js
10 8 (1.21%) Playwright
10 8 (1.21%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 221 (33.43%) Product Ownership
2 31 (4.69%) Onboarding
3 21 (3.18%) Cloud Native
4 16 (2.42%) Data Structures
4 16 (2.42%) Reinsurance
5 15 (2.27%) Analytical Mindset
6 14 (2.12%) Greenfield Project
6 14 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
6 14 (2.12%) PMI
7 13 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
8 12 (1.82%) Mobile App
9 11 (1.66%) Algorithms
10 10 (1.51%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 9 (1.36%) Management Information System
11 9 (1.36%) Marketing Technology
11 9 (1.36%) SCADA
12 7 (1.06%) Derivative
13 6 (0.91%) Digital Media
13 6 (0.91%) Operational Technology
13 6 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 19 (2.87%) Linux
1 19 (2.87%) Windows
2 7 (1.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 7 (1.06%) Windows Server
3 5 (0.76%) VMS
4 1 (0.15%) Android
4 1 (0.15%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 491 (74.28%) Agile
2 203 (30.71%) Scrum
3 174 (26.32%) Stakeholder Management
4 173 (26.17%) Acceptance Criteria
5 135 (20.42%) Requirements Gathering
6 131 (19.82%) Problem-Solving
7 117 (17.70%) Roadmaps
8 113 (17.10%) DevOps
9 111 (16.79%) Business Analysis
10 110 (16.64%) Product Backlog
11 109 (16.49%) Workshop Facilitation
12 105 (15.89%) Backlog Management
12 105 (15.89%) User Acceptance Testing
13 97 (14.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 84 (12.71%) Analytics
15 82 (12.41%) Use Case
16 79 (11.95%) Continuous Improvement
16 79 (11.95%) Sprint Planning
17 77 (11.65%) Epics
18 74 (11.20%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 64 (9.68%) SQL
2 54 (8.17%) Python
3 44 (6.66%) Java
4 20 (3.03%) Bash
5 13 (1.97%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.66%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.21%) Apex Code
7 8 (1.21%) Perl
7 8 (1.21%) Scala
8 7 (1.06%) TypeScript
9 6 (0.91%) C#
10 4 (0.61%) Go
10 4 (0.61%) Korn
10 4 (0.61%) VBA
11 2 (0.30%) Groovy
11 2 (0.30%) Ruby
11 2 (0.30%) XPath
12 1 (0.15%) PHP
12 1 (0.15%) SOQL
12 1 (0.15%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 91 (13.77%) Security Cleared
2 78 (11.80%) Degree
3 69 (10.44%) SC Cleared
4 20 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (2.57%) CSPO
5 17 (2.57%) PMI Certification
6 16 (2.42%) CBAP
7 11 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (1.51%) DV Cleared
9 6 (0.91%) CCNA
9 6 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (0.76%) CCDP
10 5 (0.76%) CCNP
10 5 (0.76%) CFA
11 4 (0.61%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.61%) PMP
12 3 (0.45%) ISEB
12 3 (0.45%) ISTQB
12 3 (0.45%) OCP
12 3 (0.45%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (12.71%) QA
2 27 (4.08%) Accessibility
3 25 (3.78%) GDPR
4 18 (2.72%) WCAG
5 14 (2.12%) PSD2
6 13 (1.97%) Data Quality
7 12 (1.82%) PCI DSS
8 6 (0.91%) ISO 8583
9 5 (0.76%) SEPA
10 4 (0.61%) FIPS 140-2
10 4 (0.61%) SLA
11 3 (0.45%) Basel III
11 3 (0.45%) COBIT
11 3 (0.45%) HL7
11 3 (0.45%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.45%) MiFID
11 3 (0.45%) PMO
11 3 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.30%) EMIR
12 2 (0.30%) HIPAA
System Software
1 24 (3.63%) Docker
2 9 (1.36%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.15%) etcd
4 1 (0.15%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 21 (3.18%) Ansible
2 20 (3.03%) Kubernetes
3 15 (2.27%) Terraform
4 14 (2.12%) NetBackup
5 6 (0.91%) Kubeflow
5 6 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (0.76%) Progress Chef
6 5 (0.76%) Puppet
7 4 (0.61%) Grafana
8 2 (0.30%) CloudHub
8 2 (0.30%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.30%) Istio
9 1 (0.15%) Argo
9 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 95 (14.37%) Microsoft
2 68 (10.29%) Salesforce
3 32 (4.84%) Oracle
4 24 (3.63%) SAP
4 24 (3.63%) ServiceNow
5 21 (3.18%) Red Hat
6 14 (2.12%) Commvault
7 13 (1.97%) VMware
8 12 (1.82%) MuleSoft
9 11 (1.66%) Cisco
9 11 (1.66%) Citrix
10 10 (1.51%) Veritas
11 9 (1.36%) Databricks
12 8 (1.21%) Adobe
12 8 (1.21%) Pega
12 8 (1.21%) Temenos
13 6 (0.91%) Workday
14 5 (0.76%) Atlassian
14 5 (0.76%) HubSpot
15 4 (0.61%) Google