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

6 months to
19 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 143 161
Rank change year-on-year +16 +18 -42
Contract jobs citing User Stories 946 524 546
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.10% 1.91% 1.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.46% 2.11% 1.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 636 344 368
10th Percentile £358 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £539
Median % change year-on-year - -7.19% +2.62%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £600
90th Percentile £650 £725 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% +0.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 2 5
10th Percentile £35.00 £54.90 -
25th Percentile £62.81 £57.00 £31.71
Median hourly rate £72.50 £61.75 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.41% +87.12% -48.44%
75th Percentile £82.84 £67.75 £33.07
90th Percentile £89.28 £70.60 £56.73
UK median hourly rate £72.50 £53.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +35.51% +62.12% -48.44%

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 38,476 24,845 30,896
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.41% 90.65% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,188 15,947 20,132
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £735 £745 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,382 1,317 2,080
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.26 £13.18
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.88 £16.84
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.68% -9.41%
75th Percentile £68.75 £53.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £71.47 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -9.24%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +20 541 £525 - 105
North of England -13 134 £475 +2.70% 42
Midlands -5 102 £461 -0.27% 23
West Midlands -13 77 £475 +1.33% 18
South East -40 77 £450 -10.00% 51
North West -24 64 £469 -8.49% 24
Yorkshire -24 49 £500 +14.29% 14
South West -12 43 £488 +2.63% 19
East of England +1 32 £495 +13.14% 7
East Midlands -10 25 £425 -1.73% 5
North East -23 22 £425 -2.86% 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
1 158 (16.70%) Confluence
2 26 (2.75%) CMS
3 20 (2.11%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.63%) Camunda
5 5 (0.53%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.32%) Cloud Foundry
6 3 (0.32%) Drupal
6 3 (0.32%) Kentico
6 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.32%) SAS
7 2 (0.21%) JBoss
7 2 (0.21%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.21%) WordPress
8 1 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.11%) Apache
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.11%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (4.44%) MS Visio
2 36 (3.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.90%) Microsoft Office
4 15 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.63%) Notion
6 3 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.11%) InVision
8 1 (0.11%) Sketch
8 1 (0.11%) Trello
8 1 (0.11%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 17 (1.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.48%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.63%) Adobe Campaign
3 6 (0.63%) ProductWriter
4 5 (0.53%) Teamcenter
5 4 (0.42%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.42%) Eloqua
5 4 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.42%) Oracle Receivables
5 4 (0.42%) 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
6 3 (0.32%) SAP SD
7 2 (0.21%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 209 (22.09%) Azure
2 85 (8.99%) Azure DevOps
3 82 (8.67%) AWS
4 79 (8.35%) Power Platform
5 31 (3.28%) GCP
6 29 (3.07%) GitHub
7 26 (2.75%) Dynamics 365
8 25 (2.64%) SaaS
9 23 (2.43%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 19 (2.01%) PowerApps
11 18 (1.90%) Power Automate
11 18 (1.90%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 17 (1.80%) Entra ID
13 16 (1.69%) Figma
14 15 (1.59%) Lucidchart
15 14 (1.48%) Microsoft 365
16 12 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
16 12 (1.27%) Snowflake
17 10 (1.06%) Miro
18 7 (0.74%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.85%) Network Security
2 6 (0.63%) Firewall
3 4 (0.42%) Wi-Fi
4 3 (0.32%) Broadband
4 3 (0.32%) DNS
4 3 (0.32%) HTTP
4 3 (0.32%) WebEx
5 2 (0.21%) Intranet
5 2 (0.21%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.21%) WAN
5 2 (0.21%) Wireless
6 1 (0.11%) 5G
6 1 (0.11%) BGP
6 1 (0.11%) FTP
6 1 (0.11%) NFC
6 1 (0.11%) NGFW
6 1 (0.11%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.71%) Power BI
2 40 (4.23%) Metadata
3 35 (3.70%) Data Warehouse
4 17 (1.80%) Relational Database
5 10 (1.06%) Data Lake
5 10 (1.06%) SQL Server
5 10 (1.06%) Tableau
6 9 (0.95%) Delta Lake
6 9 (0.95%) Parquet
6 9 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
7 7 (0.74%) Big Data
7 7 (0.74%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.63%) BigQuery
9 5 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
9 5 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.42%) Data Hub
10 4 (0.42%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.32%) OLAP
12 2 (0.21%) Oracle OLAP
12 2 (0.21%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 231 (24.42%) JIRA
2 29 (3.07%) Postman
3 24 (2.54%) Git
4 20 (2.11%) GitLab
5 13 (1.37%) Selenium
6 12 (1.27%) Jenkins
7 10 (1.06%) Gradle
8 7 (0.74%) Balsamiq
8 7 (0.74%) Cucumber
8 7 (0.74%) REST Assured
8 7 (0.74%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.53%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 5 (0.53%) JUnit
10 4 (0.42%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.42%) Zephyr
11 3 (0.32%) Maven
11 3 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (0.21%) Bitbucket Server
12 2 (0.21%) TeamCity
12 2 (0.21%) Terragrunt
General
1 370 (39.11%) Social Skills
2 254 (26.85%) Analytical Skills
3 253 (26.74%) Finance
4 121 (12.79%) Public Sector
5 118 (12.47%) Banking
6 72 (7.61%) Documentation Skills
7 58 (6.13%) Retail
8 38 (4.02%) Marketing
9 36 (3.81%) Legal
10 31 (3.28%) Presentation Skills
11 26 (2.75%) Investment Banking
12 23 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
13 21 (2.22%) Manufacturing
14 18 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
15 17 (1.80%) Military
16 16 (1.69%) Front Office
16 16 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 15 (1.59%) Aerospace
17 15 (1.59%) Retail Banking
18 14 (1.48%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 487 (51.48%) Analyst
2 439 (46.41%) Business Analyst
3 131 (13.85%) Senior
4 124 (13.11%) Product Owner
5 82 (8.67%) Developer
6 78 (8.25%) Senior Analyst
7 73 (7.72%) Senior Business Analyst
8 72 (7.61%) Product Manager
8 72 (7.61%) Technical Analyst
9 63 (6.66%) Technical Business Analyst
10 40 (4.23%) Lead
11 37 (3.91%) Salesforce Business Analyst
12 36 (3.81%) Salesforce Analyst
13 33 (3.49%) Data Analyst
14 28 (2.96%) Data Business Analyst
15 25 (2.64%) Implementation Analyst
16 22 (2.33%) Digital Business Analyst
16 22 (2.33%) Systems Analyst
17 21 (2.22%) Banking Analyst
17 21 (2.22%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (3.49%) REST
2 32 (3.38%) JSON
3 19 (2.01%) React
3 19 (2.01%) RESTful
4 17 (1.80%) AngularJS
5 16 (1.69%) ADO
6 13 (1.37%) Kafka
6 13 (1.37%) Lightning Web Components
7 12 (1.27%) Spring Boot
7 12 (1.27%) XML
8 11 (1.16%) HTML
9 10 (1.06%) .NET
10 9 (0.95%) Middleware
10 9 (0.95%) Node.js
10 9 (0.95%) OAuth
11 8 (0.85%) CSS
11 8 (0.85%) OpenID
11 8 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
12 7 (0.74%) SOAP
12 7 (0.74%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 339 (35.84%) Product Ownership
2 39 (4.12%) Onboarding
3 35 (3.70%) Analytical Mindset
4 28 (2.96%) Data Protection Act
5 26 (2.75%) Self-Motivation
6 25 (2.64%) CMDB
7 22 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 21 (2.22%) Cloud Native
8 21 (2.22%) Data Structures
9 17 (1.80%) Management Information System
9 17 (1.80%) Virtual Team
10 14 (1.48%) AI Agents
11 13 (1.37%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 13 (1.37%) Greenfield Project
11 13 (1.37%) Life Science
12 12 (1.27%) Mobile App
13 11 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (1.06%) FMCG
14 10 (1.06%) Reinsurance
15 9 (0.95%) Marketing Technology
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.06%) Linux
2 6 (0.63%) Windows
3 5 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (0.42%) Android
4 4 (0.42%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.42%) Unix
5 3 (0.32%) CentOS
6 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 615 (65.01%) Agile
2 391 (41.33%) Acceptance Criteria
3 351 (37.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 248 (26.22%) Requirements Gathering
5 230 (24.31%) Scrum
6 219 (23.15%) User Acceptance Testing
7 211 (22.30%) Workshop Facilitation
8 192 (20.30%) DevOps
9 189 (19.98%) Business Analysis
10 187 (19.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 182 (19.24%) Problem-Solving
12 169 (17.86%) Sprint Planning
13 166 (17.55%) Roadmaps
14 164 (17.34%) Product Backlog
15 160 (16.91%) Continuous Improvement
16 145 (15.33%) Backlog Management
17 133 (14.06%) Decision-Making
18 130 (13.74%) Validation
19 126 (13.32%) Backlog Prioritisation
20 125 (13.21%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 133 (14.06%) SQL
2 74 (7.82%) Python
3 52 (5.50%) Java
4 45 (4.76%) JavaScript
5 19 (2.01%) C#
6 10 (1.06%) Apex Code
7 7 (0.74%) Kotlin
7 7 (0.74%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.74%) TypeScript
8 6 (0.63%) Korn
9 4 (0.42%) Scala
9 4 (0.42%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.32%) Bash
10 3 (0.32%) R
10 3 (0.32%) Ruby
11 2 (0.21%) Google Apps Script
11 2 (0.21%) PHP
11 2 (0.21%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.21%) SOQL
11 2 (0.21%) VBA
Qualifications
1 169 (17.86%) Security Cleared
2 135 (14.27%) SC Cleared
3 73 (7.72%) Degree
4 31 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (1.69%) CBAP
6 15 (1.59%) CSPO
6 15 (1.59%) IIBA
7 14 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (1.06%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
9 9 (0.95%) ISTQB
9 9 (0.95%) PMI Certification
10 8 (0.85%) CISSP
11 6 (0.63%) ISEB
11 6 (0.63%) PMP
12 5 (0.53%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.42%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.42%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.42%) Master's Degree
14 3 (0.32%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (12.05%) QA
2 62 (6.55%) Data Quality
3 45 (4.76%) Accessibility
4 18 (1.90%) GDPR
5 11 (1.16%) GRC
6 10 (1.06%) NIST
7 9 (0.95%) GxP
8 8 (0.85%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 8 (0.85%) WCAG
9 7 (0.74%) ISO 20022
10 6 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 6 (0.63%) SLA
11 5 (0.53%) Solvency II
12 4 (0.42%) PCI DSS
12 4 (0.42%) SEPA
13 3 (0.32%) HL7
14 2 (0.21%) COBIT
14 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
14 2 (0.21%) SNOMED CT
14 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 25 (2.64%) Docker
2 14 (1.48%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (0.53%) IAG
5 3 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.11%) Ceph
6 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (2.96%) Kubernetes
2 17 (1.80%) Terraform
3 16 (1.69%) Ansible
4 7 (0.74%) SCCM
5 6 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.32%) HP ALM
6 3 (0.32%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.11%) Argo
8 1 (0.11%) CASB
8 1 (0.11%) Check_MK
8 1 (0.11%) Grafana
8 1 (0.11%) Kibana
8 1 (0.11%) Podman
Vendors
1 130 (13.74%) Microsoft
2 84 (8.88%) Salesforce
3 52 (5.50%) ServiceNow
4 50 (5.29%) SAP
5 24 (2.54%) Databricks
5 24 (2.54%) Google
6 18 (1.90%) Oracle
7 13 (1.37%) Zscaler
8 12 (1.27%) Adobe
8 12 (1.27%) Splunk
9 10 (1.06%) Cisco
9 10 (1.06%) Pega
10 8 (0.85%) Workday
11 6 (0.63%) CyberArk
11 6 (0.63%) Fortinet
11 6 (0.63%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
12 5 (0.53%) Alteryx
12 5 (0.53%) ION Trading
12 5 (0.53%) Kronos
12 5 (0.53%) MuleSoft