User Stories Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

User Story
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring User Stories skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 95 86 93
Rank change year-on-year -9 +7 -8
Contract jobs citing User Stories 39 38 52
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 1.88% 1.90% 2.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.14% 2.13% 2.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 30 22 31
10th Percentile £406 £418 £400
25th Percentile £421 £468 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £547 £580 £531
90th Percentile £593 £599 £600
South East median daily rate £475 £510 £488
% change year-on-year -6.86% +4.62% -7.14%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

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 the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,820 1,780 2,267
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 87.50% 89.04% 91.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,193 1,046 1,460
10th Percentile £267 £276 £213
25th Percentile £400 £409 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £613
90th Percentile £650 £686 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £523
% change year-on-year -2.44% -1.91% +1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 51 103
10th Percentile £15.23 £19.30 £18.95
25th Percentile £18.00 £30.50 £25.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £49.73
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% +14.11% +136.81%
75th Percentile £58.00 £63.00 £63.90
90th Percentile £89.63 £67.00 £72.33
South East median hourly rate £22.38 £47.78 £53.50
% change year-on-year -53.16% -10.69% +42.67%

User Stories
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

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

User Stories job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

User Stories
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing User Stories.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing User Stories

User Stories
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Stories in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 18 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for User Stories in the Thames Valley

User Stories
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing User Stories.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing User Stories

User Stories
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 18 December 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
Berkshire -15 26 £525 -4.55% 14
Buckinghamshire +11 12 £469 -10.71% 15
Oxfordshire -13 1 £425 - 6
User Stories
South East

User Stories
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 4 (10.26%) Confluence
2 1 (2.56%) nginx
2 1 (2.56%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (7.69%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (5.13%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (5.13%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (5.13%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (5.13%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 10 (25.64%) Azure
2 6 (15.38%) Dynamics 365
3 5 (12.82%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (10.26%) Figma
4 4 (10.26%) Power Platform
5 3 (7.69%) AWS
5 3 (7.69%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (5.13%) PowerApps
6 2 (5.13%) Slack
7 1 (2.56%) Amazon EventBridge
7 1 (2.56%) Amazon SQS
7 1 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (2.56%) Boomi
7 1 (2.56%) GitHub
7 1 (2.56%) OCI
7 1 (2.56%) Oracle CX
7 1 (2.56%) Oracle Service Cloud
7 1 (2.56%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.56%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (7.69%) Power BI
2 1 (2.56%) Data Hub
2 1 (2.56%) Delta Lake
2 1 (2.56%) Relational Database
2 1 (2.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (23.08%) JIRA
2 1 (2.56%) Postman
General
1 21 (53.85%) Social Skills
2 13 (33.33%) Finance
3 7 (17.95%) Marketing
4 6 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (10.26%) Automotive
5 4 (10.26%) Billing
5 4 (10.26%) Public Sector
6 3 (7.69%) Legal
7 2 (5.13%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (5.13%) General Ledger
7 2 (5.13%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (5.13%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (5.13%) Retail
7 2 (5.13%) Telecoms
8 1 (2.56%) Banking
8 1 (2.56%) Digital Healthcare
8 1 (2.56%) Law
8 1 (2.56%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 22 (56.41%) Analyst
2 20 (51.28%) Business Analyst
3 9 (23.08%) Product Owner
4 7 (17.95%) Technical Analyst
5 6 (15.38%) Technical Business Analyst
6 5 (12.82%) Salesforce Analyst
6 5 (12.82%) Salesforce Business Analyst
7 4 (10.26%) Consultant
7 4 (10.26%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
7 4 (10.26%) Functional Consultant
8 3 (7.69%) Oracle Analyst
8 3 (7.69%) Service Analyst
9 2 (5.13%) Digital Analyst
9 2 (5.13%) Digital Business Analyst
9 2 (5.13%) Oracle Business Analyst
9 2 (5.13%) Product Manager
9 2 (5.13%) Senior
9 2 (5.13%) Senior Analyst
9 2 (5.13%) Senior Business Analyst
9 2 (5.13%) Senior Oracle Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (5.13%) ADO
1 2 (5.13%) JSON
1 2 (5.13%) XML
2 1 (2.56%) Flutter
2 1 (2.56%) HTML
2 1 (2.56%) OAuth
2 1 (2.56%) OAuth2
2 1 (2.56%) React
2 1 (2.56%) REST
2 1 (2.56%) RESTful
2 1 (2.56%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 17 (43.59%) Product Ownership
2 3 (7.69%) Cloud Native
2 3 (7.69%) Data Protection Act
2 3 (7.69%) Mobile App
3 2 (5.13%) IoT
3 2 (5.13%) Legacy Systems
3 2 (5.13%) Onboarding
4 1 (2.56%) Management Information System
4 1 (2.56%) Private Cloud
4 1 (2.56%) Self-Motivation
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (82.05%) Agile
2 12 (30.77%) Workshop Facilitation
3 11 (28.21%) Roadmaps
3 11 (28.21%) Scrum
4 10 (25.64%) Stakeholder Management
5 9 (23.08%) Acceptance Criteria
5 9 (23.08%) Backlog Refinement
5 9 (23.08%) Product Backlog
5 9 (23.08%) Sprint Planning
6 8 (20.51%) CRM
6 8 (20.51%) User Acceptance Testing
7 7 (17.95%) Business Analysis
7 7 (17.95%) DevOps
7 7 (17.95%) Epics
7 7 (17.95%) Requirements Gathering
7 7 (17.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 7 (17.95%) User Experience
8 6 (15.38%) Product Vision
8 6 (15.38%) Waterfall
9 5 (12.82%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 1 (2.56%) Java
1 1 (2.56%) Kotlin
1 1 (2.56%) Python
Qualifications
1 3 (7.69%) Security Cleared
2 2 (5.13%) Degree
3 1 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (15.38%) QA
2 2 (5.13%) PMO
3 1 (2.56%) GDPR
System Software
1 1 (2.56%) Docker
Vendors
1 12 (30.77%) Salesforce
2 7 (17.95%) Microsoft
3 3 (7.69%) Oracle
4 2 (5.13%) HubSpot
4 2 (5.13%) MuleSoft
5 1 (2.56%) BT
5 1 (2.56%) Databricks
5 1 (2.56%) Dell
5 1 (2.56%) Openreach
5 1 (2.56%) Pega
5 1 (2.56%) TIBCO
5 1 (2.56%) Virgin Media
5 1 (2.56%) webMethods