User Stories Contract Job Trends in Surrey

User Story
South East > Surrey

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Surrey requiring User Stories skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 39 50
Rank change year-on-year -19 +11 +13
Contract jobs citing User Stories 7 4 8
As % of all contract jobs in Surrey 1.17% 1.22% 1.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.35% 1.30% 1.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 4 7
10th Percentile - £389 -
25th Percentile - £400 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £650 £456 £325
Median % change year-on-year +42.47% +40.38% -36.59%
75th Percentile - £525 £380
90th Percentile - £570 £388
South East median daily rate £438 £463 £475
% change year-on-year -5.41% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 0
10th Percentile £61.75 - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £70.00 - -
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
South East median hourly rate £80.96 £53.50 -
% change year-on-year +51.32% - -

All Process & Methodology Skills
Surrey

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 Surrey.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 519 308 486
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Surrey 86.64% 94.19% 85.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 214 357
10th Percentile £201 £204 £203
25th Percentile £363 £301 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £478 £463
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% +3.35% -11.90%
75th Percentile £550 £550 £563
90th Percentile £638 £598 £675
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% +0.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 29 50
10th Percentile £16.33 £15.00 £11.71
25th Percentile £54.68 £25.15 £18.35
Median hourly rate £67.47 £30.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +124.90% -33.33% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £71.90
90th Percentile £78.75 £64.03 £76.86
South East median hourly rate £55.00 £21.58 £57.35
% change year-on-year +154.92% -62.38% +14.70%

User Stories
Job Vacancy Trend in Surrey

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing User Stories relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Surrey.

User Stories job vacancy trend in Surrey

User Stories
Daily Rate Trend in Surrey

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Surrey citing User Stories.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Surrey citing User Stories

User Stories
Hourly Rate Trend in Surrey

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Surrey citing User Stories.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Surrey citing User Stories

User Stories
Hourly Rate Histogram in Surrey

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing User Stories in Surrey over the 6 months to 16 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for User Stories in Surrey

User Stories
Contract Job Locations in Surrey

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 Surrey region over the 6 months to 16 August 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
Guildford - 5 - - 1
Reigate - 1 - - 1
User Stories
South East

User Stories
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Surrey 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 1 (14.29%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (14.29%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 1 (14.29%) Anthropic Claude
1 1 (14.29%) Azure
1 1 (14.29%) Azure AI
1 1 (14.29%) ChatGPT
1 1 (14.29%) Copilot Studio
1 1 (14.29%) Google Gemini
1 1 (14.29%) Microsoft Copilot
1 1 (14.29%) Power Platform
Development Applications
1 5 (71.43%) Postman
2 2 (28.57%) JIRA
3 1 (14.29%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
Job Titles
1 5 (71.43%) Software Test Engineer
1 5 (71.43%) Test Engineer
2 1 (14.29%) Analyst
2 1 (14.29%) Artificial Intelligence Consultant
2 1 (14.29%) Consultant
2 1 (14.29%) Pensions Analyst
2 1 (14.29%) Senior
2 1 (14.29%) Senior Analyst
2 1 (14.29%) Senior Test Analyst
2 1 (14.29%) Solutions Consultant
2 1 (14.29%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (71.43%) REST
1 5 (71.43%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 5 (71.43%) Product Ownership
1 5 (71.43%) Self-Motivation
2 1 (14.29%) AI Agents
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (85.71%) Agile
1 6 (85.71%) Scrum
1 6 (85.71%) SDLC
1 6 (85.71%) Test Automation
2 5 (71.43%) Acceptance Criteria
2 5 (71.43%) Code Quality
2 5 (71.43%) Exploratory Testing
2 5 (71.43%) Software Testing
2 5 (71.43%) Sprint Planning
2 5 (71.43%) Test Management
3 4 (57.14%) Configuration Management
4 2 (28.57%) AI
5 1 (14.29%) Manual Testing
5 1 (14.29%) Performance Testing
5 1 (14.29%) Project Planning
5 1 (14.29%) Regression Testing
5 1 (14.29%) Test Strategy
5 1 (14.29%) Time Management
5 1 (14.29%) User Experience
5 1 (14.29%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 1 (14.29%) SQL
1 1 (14.29%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 5 (71.43%) SC Cleared
1 5 (71.43%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (14.29%) QA
Systems Management
1 1 (14.29%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 1 (14.29%) Microsoft