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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 170 141
Rank change year-on-year +38 -29 -27
Contract jobs citing User Stories 664 386 658
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.12% 1.45% 1.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.40% 1.63% 2.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 474 248 469
10th Percentile £338 £362 £388
25th Percentile £406 £417 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £557 £605 £600
90th Percentile £650 £685 £675
UK median daily rate £488 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -4.88% -2.38% -
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 27,653 23,679 31,971
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.28% 89.08% 87.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,613 14,524 21,598
10th Percentile £304 £310 £305
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £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 1,731 761 1,481
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.50 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.03% -20.00% +21.43%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £31.69 £40.50
% change year-on-year -20.64% -21.75% +15.71%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +43 358 £500 -5.66% 63
North of England +17 124 £500 +19.05% 50
South East -11 73 £475 -6.86% 82
Midlands +5 64 £450 +4.35% 49
Yorkshire 0 57 £516 +8.68% 25
North West +5 55 £415 -0.90% 17
West Midlands -6 38 £492 +5.24% 25
East Midlands +2 26 £359 -8.83% 24
South West -22 22 £498 -17.08% 23
North East +1 14 £500 +25.00% 8
East of England -13 13 £454 +29.71% 37
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
1 136 (20.48%) Confluence
2 21 (3.16%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.20%) SAS
4 7 (1.05%) CMS
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 (5.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (4.52%) MS Visio
3 22 (3.31%) Microsoft Office
4 20 (3.01%) 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 23 (3.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.36%) Payment Gateway
3 7 (1.05%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.75%) NetSuite
5 3 (0.45%) Endur
5 3 (0.45%) ProductWriter
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.30%) Primavera
6 2 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.30%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.15%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.15%) HFM
7 1 (0.15%) OpenLink RightAngle
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.15%) SAP CRM
7 1 (0.15%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.15%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.15%) thinkFolio
7 1 (0.15%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 92 (13.86%) Azure
2 76 (11.45%) AWS
3 58 (8.73%) Power Platform
4 41 (6.17%) Azure DevOps
5 29 (4.37%) GCP
6 24 (3.61%) GitHub
7 22 (3.31%) Microsoft 365
8 20 (3.01%) Dynamics 365
9 18 (2.71%) Serverless
10 17 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
10 17 (2.56%) Figma
10 17 (2.56%) PowerApps
11 16 (2.41%) Power Automate
12 15 (2.26%) Snowflake
13 14 (2.11%) SaaS
13 14 (2.11%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 13 (1.96%) GitHub Actions
14 13 (1.96%) Miro
15 11 (1.66%) Lucidchart
16 10 (1.51%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.20%) 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 47 (7.08%) Power BI
2 20 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (2.86%) Tableau
4 16 (2.41%) BigQuery
5 14 (2.11%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (1.81%) SQL Server
7 9 (1.36%) Metadata
8 7 (1.05%) Amazon Athena
8 7 (1.05%) Relational Database
8 7 (1.05%) Star Schema
9 6 (0.90%) Big Data
9 6 (0.90%) Data Vault
10 5 (0.75%) NoSQL
11 4 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (0.60%) Data Lake
11 4 (0.60%) Oracle Database
11 4 (0.60%) Redis
11 4 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
12 3 (0.45%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.45%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 186 (28.01%) JIRA
2 33 (4.97%) Jenkins
3 19 (2.86%) GitLab
4 15 (2.26%) Cucumber
5 14 (2.11%) Git
6 12 (1.81%) Postman
7 11 (1.66%) JUnit
8 10 (1.51%) Selenium
8 10 (1.51%) SonarQube
9 8 (1.20%) Zephyr
10 7 (1.05%) JMeter
11 6 (0.90%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.60%) Axure RP
12 4 (0.60%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.60%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.60%) ERwin
12 4 (0.60%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.60%) TeamCity
12 4 (0.60%) TestRail
13 3 (0.45%) Gatling
General
1 282 (42.47%) Social Skills
2 171 (25.75%) Finance
3 151 (22.74%) Analytical Skills
4 74 (11.14%) Public Sector
5 68 (10.24%) Banking
6 45 (6.78%) Documentation Skills
7 36 (5.42%) Presentation Skills
8 32 (4.82%) Retail
9 28 (4.22%) Marketing
10 27 (4.07%) Influencing Skills
11 23 (3.46%) Legal
12 15 (2.26%) Back Office
13 13 (1.96%) Front Office
13 13 (1.96%) Investment Banking
14 12 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
14 12 (1.81%) Telecoms
15 8 (1.20%) General Ledger
16 7 (1.05%) Billing
16 7 (1.05%) Financial Institution
17 6 (0.90%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 328 (49.40%) Analyst
2 309 (46.54%) Business Analyst
3 92 (13.86%) Senior
4 85 (12.80%) Product Owner
5 57 (8.58%) Senior Analyst
6 52 (7.83%) Senior Business Analyst
7 45 (6.78%) Technical Analyst
8 42 (6.33%) Technical Business Analyst
9 37 (5.57%) Developer
10 28 (4.22%) Salesforce Business Analyst
11 27 (4.07%) Lead
11 27 (4.07%) Product Manager
12 26 (3.92%) Salesforce Analyst
13 21 (3.16%) Designer
14 20 (3.01%) Consultant
15 18 (2.71%) Test Analyst
16 16 (2.41%) Product Analyst
17 15 (2.26%) Digital Analyst
17 15 (2.26%) Digital Business Analyst
18 14 (2.11%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.31%) REST
2 18 (2.71%) JSON
3 17 (2.56%) XML
4 16 (2.41%) RESTful
5 15 (2.26%) Kafka
5 15 (2.26%) React
6 13 (1.96%) SOAP
6 13 (1.96%) Spring
7 12 (1.81%) Spring Boot
8 11 (1.66%) HTML
9 10 (1.51%) ADO
10 9 (1.36%) Playwright
10 9 (1.36%) Web Services
11 8 (1.20%) Apache NiFi
11 8 (1.20%) OAuth
11 8 (1.20%) XMPP
12 7 (1.05%) OAuth2
12 7 (1.05%) VML
13 6 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
13 6 (0.90%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 213 (32.08%) Product Ownership
2 26 (3.92%) Onboarding
3 19 (2.86%) PMI
4 18 (2.71%) Analytical Mindset
5 17 (2.56%) Cloud Native
5 17 (2.56%) Data Structures
6 14 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
7 12 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
8 9 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
9 8 (1.20%) Management Information System
9 8 (1.20%) Mobile App
9 8 (1.20%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 7 (1.05%) Algorithms
10 7 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
10 7 (1.05%) Low-Code
10 7 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
11 6 (0.90%) NHS
12 5 (0.75%) Derivative
12 5 (0.75%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 21 (3.16%) Windows
2 16 (2.41%) Linux
3 7 (1.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (1.05%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.75%) VMS
5 1 (0.15%) Android
5 1 (0.15%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 487 (73.34%) Agile
2 210 (31.63%) Acceptance Criteria
3 202 (30.42%) Stakeholder Management
4 201 (30.27%) Scrum
5 155 (23.34%) Requirements Gathering
6 153 (23.04%) Workshop Facilitation
7 145 (21.84%) Business Analysis
8 138 (20.78%) Problem-Solving
9 122 (18.37%) DevOps
10 114 (17.17%) User Acceptance Testing
11 112 (16.87%) Roadmaps
12 110 (16.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 92 (13.86%) Product Backlog
14 91 (13.70%) Backlog Management
15 89 (13.40%) Sprint Planning
16 86 (12.95%) Migration
17 80 (12.05%) Analytics
18 79 (11.90%) Data Modelling
18 79 (11.90%) Use Case
18 79 (11.90%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 78 (11.75%) SQL
2 58 (8.73%) Python
3 33 (4.97%) Java
4 20 (3.01%) Bash
5 13 (1.96%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.66%) C#
7 9 (1.36%) JavaScript
7 9 (1.36%) Scala
8 8 (1.20%) Perl
8 8 (1.20%) TypeScript
9 5 (0.75%) Apex Code
10 4 (0.60%) Korn
11 3 (0.45%) Go
11 3 (0.45%) VBA
11 3 (0.45%) XPath
12 2 (0.30%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.30%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.15%) Groovy
13 1 (0.15%) PHP
13 1 (0.15%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 99 (14.91%) Security Cleared
2 89 (13.40%) Degree
3 77 (11.60%) SC Cleared
4 36 (5.42%) CBAP
5 23 (3.46%) CSPO
5 23 (3.46%) PMI Certification
6 20 (3.01%) BPSS Clearance
6 20 (3.01%) IIBA
7 8 (1.20%) Master's Degree
8 7 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.05%) DV Cleared
9 6 (0.90%) CCNA
9 6 (0.90%) CFA
9 6 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (0.90%) MBA
10 5 (0.75%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.75%) CCDP
10 5 (0.75%) CCNP
10 5 (0.75%) PMP
11 4 (0.60%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (12.65%) QA
2 29 (4.37%) GDPR
3 27 (4.07%) Accessibility
4 19 (2.86%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.86%) WCAG
5 16 (2.41%) PSD2
6 12 (1.81%) PCI DSS
7 8 (1.20%) 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%) GMP
12 2 (0.30%) NCSC
12 2 (0.30%) PMO
13 1 (0.15%) NIST
13 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 25 (3.77%) Docker
2 9 (1.36%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.15%) etcd
4 1 (0.15%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 24 (3.61%) Kubernetes
2 19 (2.86%) Ansible
3 14 (2.11%) NetBackup
4 12 (1.81%) 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
1 104 (15.66%) Microsoft
2 78 (11.75%) Salesforce
3 28 (4.22%) Oracle
3 28 (4.22%) SAP
4 25 (3.77%) ServiceNow
5 21 (3.16%) Red Hat
6 14 (2.11%) Commvault
7 13 (1.96%) VMware
8 12 (1.81%) Databricks
8 12 (1.81%) MuleSoft
9 11 (1.66%) Cisco
10 10 (1.51%) Veritas
11 9 (1.36%) Citrix
12 8 (1.20%) Pega
13 7 (1.05%) Google
14 6 (0.90%) Adobe
14 6 (0.90%) Guidewire
15 5 (0.75%) HubSpot
15 5 (0.75%) Workday
15 5 (0.75%) Zuora