User Stories Contracts in the UK excluding London

User Story
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring User Stories skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited User Stories over the 6 months leading up to 17 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 142 148 120
Rank change year-on-year +6 -28 -32
Contract jobs citing User Stories 252 281 486
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 1.88% 1.32% 2.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.07% 1.60% 2.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 176 189 350
10th Percentile £350 £373 £388
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% -2.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £546 £575 £588
90th Percentile £638 £620 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -0.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 2
10th Percentile £26.37 - £27.60
25th Percentile £36.55 £67.50 £30.38
Median hourly rate £53.50 £70.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.57% +86.67% -10.71%
75th Percentile £63.00 £72.50 £46.38
90th Percentile £68.70 - £50.20
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £33.04 £64.00
% change year-on-year +61.95% -48.38% +52.38%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 12,174 17,598 20,301
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.58% 82.53% 89.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,479 10,305 13,887
10th Percentile £235 £250 £263
25th Percentile £369 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +1.01%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £695
UK median daily rate £508 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.33% -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 963 2,203 1,250
10th Percentile £13.82 £12.50 £11.00
25th Percentile £16.84 £15.50 £15.05
Median hourly rate £25.08 £38.12 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.22% +17.29% +54.76%
75th Percentile £57.55 £61.60 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.90 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £25.50 £37.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -32.00% +7.14% +34.62%

User Stories
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing User Stories as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for User Stories in the UK excluding London

User Stories
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing User Stories in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for User Stories in the UK excluding London

User Stories
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Stories in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 17 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for User Stories in the UK excluding London

User Stories
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing User Stories in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for User Stories in the UK excluding London

User Stories
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing User Stories in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 17 June 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for User Stories in the UK excluding London

User Stories
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 17 June 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
North of England +10 75 £463 -7.50% 706
Scotland -10 53 £437 -12.60% 161
South East +18 48 £500 +5.26% 754
Midlands +18 43 £463 -5.13% 450
North West +29 37 £525 -4.55% 347
Yorkshire -8 27 £450 -10.00% 299
West Midlands +7 22 £469 -3.85% 258
South West +32 21 £488 -14.85% 301
East Midlands +24 21 £433 +1.76% 191
East of England +29 12 £400 -5.88% 359
North East +7 11 £434 -1.42% 60
Wales - 2 £465 - 98
User Stories
UK

User Stories
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 38 (15.08%) Confluence
2 2 (0.79%) CICS
2 2 (0.79%) CMS
2 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.79%) Oracle Self-Service HR
2 2 (0.79%) Oracle Workflow
2 2 (0.79%) WebSphere
3 1 (0.40%) Anypoint
3 1 (0.40%) Apache
3 1 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.40%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.40%) Sitecore CMS
3 1 (0.40%) WebLogic
3 1 (0.40%) WordPress
Applications
1 18 (7.14%) MS Visio
2 13 (5.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (3.17%) Siemens NX
4 7 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (1.59%) Fusion 360
6 3 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (1.19%) Sketch
7 2 (0.79%) InVision
7 2 (0.79%) Trello
7 2 (0.79%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.40%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.40%) OmniGraffle
8 1 (0.40%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 10 (3.97%) Teamcenter
2 5 (1.98%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (1.59%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (1.59%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (1.19%) Oracle Cash Management
4 3 (1.19%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (1.19%) Oracle Receivables
4 3 (1.19%) Primavera
5 2 (0.79%) Sage CRM
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.40%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 33 (13.10%) Azure
2 20 (7.94%) Power Platform
3 14 (5.56%) AWS
4 13 (5.16%) Azure DevOps
5 11 (4.37%) SaaS
6 8 (3.17%) Dynamics 365
7 7 (2.78%) GCP
8 6 (2.38%) OCI
8 6 (2.38%) PowerApps
9 5 (1.98%) Figma
10 4 (1.59%) GitHub
10 4 (1.59%) Serverless
11 3 (1.19%) Miro
12 2 (0.79%) dbt
12 2 (0.79%) iPaaS
12 2 (0.79%) Lucidchart
12 2 (0.79%) npm
12 2 (0.79%) OpenShift
12 2 (0.79%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 2 (0.79%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.19%) Firewall
2 2 (0.79%) Cisco Nexus
3 1 (0.40%) Converged Networks
3 1 (0.40%) LAN
3 1 (0.40%) Modbus
3 1 (0.40%) VPN
3 1 (0.40%) WAN
3 1 (0.40%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.95%) Power BI
2 9 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
3 6 (2.38%) Oracle Reports
4 5 (1.98%) Tableau
5 3 (1.19%) Metadata
5 3 (1.19%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.79%) DB2
6 2 (0.79%) GIS
6 2 (0.79%) Hadoop
6 2 (0.79%) MySQL
6 2 (0.79%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.79%) Semantic Layer
6 2 (0.79%) SQL Server
6 2 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.40%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.40%) Looker
7 1 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.40%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 65 (25.79%) JIRA
2 9 (3.57%) Git
3 8 (3.17%) Selenium
4 5 (1.98%) Cypress.io
4 5 (1.98%) GitLab
4 5 (1.98%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.98%) JMeter
4 5 (1.98%) Postman
5 3 (1.19%) Axure RP
5 3 (1.19%) Cucumber
5 3 (1.19%) Maven
5 3 (1.19%) SonarQube
5 3 (1.19%) TestRail
6 2 (0.79%) SOAtest
6 2 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.79%) Toad
6 2 (0.79%) Visual Studio
6 2 (0.79%) webpack
7 1 (0.40%) NUnit
7 1 (0.40%) REST Assured
General
1 93 (36.90%) Social Skills
2 65 (25.79%) Finance
3 50 (19.84%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (14.29%) Banking
5 20 (7.94%) Public Sector
6 12 (4.76%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (3.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (3.17%) Marketing
8 6 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (1.98%) Automotive
9 5 (1.98%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.59%) Legal
10 4 (1.59%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.59%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.59%) Retail Banking
11 3 (1.19%) Back Office
11 3 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.19%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.79%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.79%) Retail
Job Titles
1 116 (46.03%) Analyst
2 106 (42.06%) Business Analyst
3 27 (10.71%) Product Owner
4 23 (9.13%) Developer
5 21 (8.33%) Senior
6 13 (5.16%) Technical Analyst
6 13 (5.16%) Technical Business Analyst
7 12 (4.76%) Tester
8 10 (3.97%) Architect
8 10 (3.97%) Designer
8 10 (3.97%) Lead
9 9 (3.57%) Product Manager
9 9 (3.57%) Senior Analyst
9 9 (3.57%) Senior Business Analyst
10 8 (3.17%) Agile Business Analyst
10 8 (3.17%) Data Business Analyst
11 7 (2.78%) Consultant
12 6 (2.38%) Digital Product Owner
12 6 (2.38%) Product Analyst
12 6 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (5.56%) CSS
2 13 (5.16%) HTML
3 9 (3.57%) AngularJS
3 9 (3.57%) SOAP
4 8 (3.17%) Middleware
4 8 (3.17%) React
5 7 (2.78%) REST
6 6 (2.38%) ADO
6 6 (2.38%) Spring Boot
6 6 (2.38%) Web Services
7 5 (1.98%) .NET
7 5 (1.98%) Oracle Fusion
7 5 (1.98%) RESTful
8 4 (1.59%) Gherkin
8 4 (1.59%) HTML5
8 4 (1.59%) jQuery
8 4 (1.59%) OAuth
8 4 (1.59%) OAuth2
8 4 (1.59%) Spring
9 3 (1.19%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 65 (25.79%) Product Ownership
2 12 (4.76%) Onboarding
3 9 (3.57%) Data Protection Act
3 9 (3.57%) Management Information System
4 7 (2.78%) SCADA
5 6 (2.38%) Analytical Mindset
6 5 (1.98%) CMDB
7 4 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.19%) Data Structures
9 2 (0.79%) Derivative
9 2 (0.79%) Distributed Computing
9 2 (0.79%) Educational Technology
9 2 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
9 2 (0.79%) Mainframe
9 2 (0.79%) Mobile App
9 2 (0.79%) Mobile Payment
9 2 (0.79%) Public Cloud
9 2 (0.79%) Renewable Energy
9 2 (0.79%) VSAM
10 1 (0.40%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.59%) Android
1 4 (1.59%) Apple iOS
2 2 (0.79%) Unix
2 2 (0.79%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (63.49%) Agile
2 61 (24.21%) Scrum
3 60 (23.81%) Stakeholder Management
4 54 (21.43%) Problem-Solving
5 50 (19.84%) Acceptance Criteria
5 50 (19.84%) Business Analysis
6 43 (17.06%) Roadmaps
7 38 (15.08%) Requirements Gathering
8 33 (13.10%) Workshop Facilitation
9 32 (12.70%) User Experience
10 30 (11.90%) Continuous Improvement
11 28 (11.11%) Product Backlog
12 26 (10.32%) Migration
13 25 (9.92%) Backlog Management
13 25 (9.92%) DevOps
13 25 (9.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 25 (9.92%) User Acceptance Testing
14 23 (9.13%) Epics
14 23 (9.13%) Test Automation
14 23 (9.13%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 22 (8.73%) SQL
2 21 (8.33%) JavaScript
3 14 (5.56%) Java
4 9 (3.57%) C#
4 9 (3.57%) TypeScript
5 6 (2.38%) Python
6 3 (1.19%) ProC
7 2 (0.79%) COBOL
7 2 (0.79%) JCL
7 2 (0.79%) PL/SQL
7 2 (0.79%) REXX
8 1 (0.40%) Apex Code
8 1 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.40%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 28 (11.11%) Security Cleared
2 26 (10.32%) Degree
3 11 (4.37%) SC Cleared
4 7 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (2.38%) CBAP
6 3 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.19%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.19%) IIBA
7 2 (0.79%) ISTQB
7 2 (0.79%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.79%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.40%) APMP
8 1 (0.40%) CSPO
8 1 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.40%) MBA
8 1 (0.40%) Numerate Degree
8 1 (0.40%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (10.71%) QA
2 10 (3.97%) Accessibility
3 6 (2.38%) Data Quality
3 6 (2.38%) GRC
4 3 (1.19%) GDPR
4 3 (1.19%) Software Quality Assurance
5 2 (0.79%) COBIT
5 2 (0.79%) COREP
5 2 (0.79%) FINREP
5 2 (0.79%) WCAG
6 1 (0.40%) Basel III
6 1 (0.40%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.40%) PMO
6 1 (0.40%) PSD2
6 1 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.40%) SEPA
System Software
1 5 (1.98%) Docker
2 3 (1.19%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 6 (2.38%) HP ALM
2 4 (1.59%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.59%) Terraform
3 2 (0.79%) HP Data Protector
3 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (0.79%) NetBackup
4 1 (0.40%) CloudHub
4 1 (0.40%) Oracle RMAN
4 1 (0.40%) Rancher
Vendors
1 26 (10.32%) Microsoft
2 19 (7.54%) Oracle
3 12 (4.76%) ServiceNow
4 11 (4.37%) Salesforce
5 9 (3.57%) Siemens
6 8 (3.17%) MuleSoft
7 6 (2.38%) HP
7 6 (2.38%) SAP
7 6 (2.38%) Virgin Media
8 5 (1.98%) Atlassian
9 4 (1.59%) Autodesk
9 4 (1.59%) Snow
10 2 (0.79%) Ab Initio
10 2 (0.79%) Ariba
10 2 (0.79%) CA Agile Central
10 2 (0.79%) Dell
10 2 (0.79%) Palantir
10 2 (0.79%) Parasoft
10 2 (0.79%) Sage
10 2 (0.79%) Veritas