User Stories Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

User Story
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring User Stories skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 151 172 160
Rank change year-on-year +21 -12 -52
Contract jobs citing User Stories 308 192 294
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 1.69% 1.32% 1.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 1.51% 1.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 216 130 210
10th Percentile £338 £337 £388
25th Percentile £402 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £463 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.16% -5.61% +3.16%
75th Percentile £538 £586 £575
90th Percentile £594 £639 £615
UK median daily rate £485 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -6.28% -1.43% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 1 3
10th Percentile - - £50.25
25th Percentile £48.86 £28.50 £50.63
Median hourly rate £67.44 £29.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +132.53% -44.76% -
75th Percentile £74.26 £29.50 £60.66
90th Percentile £87.90 - £64.80
UK median hourly rate £60.61 £29.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +109.00% -44.76% -4.55%

All Process & 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 15,633 12,740 17,116
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 85.61% 87.32% 87.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,564 7,476 11,022
10th Percentile £220 £240 £250
25th Percentile £375 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £528
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.47% -4.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,732 732 1,229
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.58 £30.78 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.41% -31.60% +43.91%
75th Percentile £51.21 £64.20 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.08 £73.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.75
% change year-on-year -22.62% -25.71% +25.00%

User Stories
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

User Stories job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

User Stories
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing User Stories.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing User Stories

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 29 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for User Stories in the UK excluding London

User Stories
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing User Stories.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing User Stories

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 29 December 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 29 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
North of England +20 122 £500 +11.11% 170
South East -2 74 £465 -8.92% 237
Midlands +2 60 £428 +6.21% 165
Yorkshire +4 58 £513 +1.23% 67
North West +4 52 £427 +0.47% 96
West Midlands -2 35 £490 +4.81% 85
East Midlands -3 25 £360 -6.49% 73
South West -6 21 £498 -17.08% 94
North East +5 14 £500 +19.05% 8
Scotland -16 14 £425 -1.39% 49
East of England -16 13 £427 +10.19% 108
Wales +3 6 £308 -46.52% 26
Northern Ireland -8 2 £325 - 6
User Stories
UK

User Stories
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 59 (19.16%) Confluence
2 14 (4.55%) SharePoint
3 8 (2.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.30%) nginx
5 3 (0.97%) Anypoint
5 3 (0.97%) SAS
6 2 (0.65%) Apache
6 2 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.65%) CMS
6 2 (0.65%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.32%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 12 (3.90%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (3.25%) MS Visio
3 9 (2.92%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (1.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (1.62%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.32%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (3.90%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.27%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (1.30%) SAP HR
3 4 (1.30%) SAP PM
4 3 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.65%) Oracle EBS R12
5 2 (0.65%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.65%) Primavera
6 1 (0.32%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 42 (13.64%) Azure
2 40 (12.99%) AWS
3 22 (7.14%) Power Platform
4 19 (6.17%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
5 14 (4.55%) GitHub
6 11 (3.57%) Microsoft 365
7 10 (3.25%) AWS Lambda
7 10 (3.25%) Serverless
8 9 (2.92%) CloudBees
8 9 (2.92%) GCP
8 9 (2.92%) OpenShift
9 8 (2.60%) Figma
9 8 (2.60%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 7 (2.27%) Amazon SQS
10 7 (2.27%) Entra ID
10 7 (2.27%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.62%) GitHub Actions
12 4 (1.30%) Miro
12 4 (1.30%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.60%) WebEx
2 3 (0.97%) DNS
3 2 (0.65%) BGP
3 2 (0.65%) Firewall
3 2 (0.65%) Software-Defined Networking
3 2 (0.65%) VLAN
4 1 (0.32%) FTP
4 1 (0.32%) HTTP
4 1 (0.32%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.19%) Power BI
2 7 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (1.30%) Relational Database
3 4 (1.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 3 (0.97%) Big Data
4 3 (0.97%) DocumentDB
4 3 (0.97%) DynamoDB
4 3 (0.97%) NoSQL
4 3 (0.97%) Redis
4 3 (0.97%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.65%) Amazon Aurora
5 2 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.65%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.65%) DTS
5 2 (0.65%) SAP HANA
5 2 (0.65%) Tableau
6 1 (0.32%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.32%) Data Hub
6 1 (0.32%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.32%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 81 (26.30%) JIRA
2 19 (6.17%) Jenkins
3 14 (4.55%) GitLab
4 9 (2.92%) Cucumber
5 8 (2.60%) Git
6 5 (1.62%) JMeter
6 5 (1.62%) JUnit
6 5 (1.62%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.97%) Selenium
7 3 (0.97%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.65%) Postman
8 2 (0.65%) SoapUI
8 2 (0.65%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.32%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.32%) Gatling
9 1 (0.32%) Gradle
9 1 (0.32%) SpecFlow
9 1 (0.32%) TestRail
9 1 (0.32%) webpack
General
1 129 (41.88%) Social Skills
2 73 (23.70%) Analytical Skills
3 64 (20.78%) Finance
4 48 (15.58%) Public Sector
5 24 (7.79%) Banking
6 18 (5.84%) Documentation Skills
7 16 (5.19%) Legal
8 15 (4.87%) Retail
9 12 (3.90%) Marketing
10 11 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
11 10 (3.25%) Presentation Skills
12 8 (2.60%) Telecoms
13 6 (1.95%) General Ledger
14 5 (1.62%) Manufacturing
15 4 (1.30%) Automotive
15 4 (1.30%) Billing
15 4 (1.30%) Digital Healthcare
15 4 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
15 4 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
16 3 (0.97%) Law
Job Titles
1 122 (39.61%) Analyst
2 116 (37.66%) Business Analyst
3 50 (16.23%) Product Owner
4 26 (8.44%) Senior
5 21 (6.82%) Developer
6 19 (6.17%) Senior Analyst
6 19 (6.17%) Senior Business Analyst
7 12 (3.90%) Automation Engineer
7 12 (3.90%) Designer
7 12 (3.90%) Lead
7 12 (3.90%) Salesforce Analyst
7 12 (3.90%) Salesforce Business Analyst
8 10 (3.25%) Architect
8 10 (3.25%) Technical Analyst
9 9 (2.92%) Data Engineer
9 9 (2.92%) Data Protection Engineer
9 9 (2.92%) Java Developer
10 8 (2.60%) Digital Analyst
10 8 (2.60%) Digital Business Analyst
10 8 (2.60%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (4.22%) JSON
2 12 (3.90%) Spring
2 12 (3.90%) Spring Boot
3 11 (3.57%) Kafka
4 10 (3.25%) React
5 9 (2.92%) RESTful
6 8 (2.60%) SOAP
6 8 (2.60%) XMPP
7 7 (2.27%) REST
7 7 (2.27%) XML
8 6 (1.95%) Node.js
8 6 (1.95%) OAuth
8 6 (1.95%) OAuth2
9 5 (1.62%) HTML
9 5 (1.62%) Lightning Web Components
9 5 (1.62%) Visualforce
10 4 (1.30%) Playwright
10 4 (1.30%) SAP PI
10 4 (1.30%) VML
10 4 (1.30%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 126 (40.91%) Product Ownership
2 17 (5.52%) Onboarding
3 10 (3.25%) Cloud Native
3 10 (3.25%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (2.92%) Analytical Mindset
5 8 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (2.27%) Mobile App
7 6 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
7 6 (1.95%) NHS
8 4 (1.30%) e-Learning
8 4 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.30%) Learning Management System
8 4 (1.30%) PMI
9 3 (0.97%) Algorithms
9 3 (0.97%) Data Structures
9 3 (0.97%) FMCG
9 3 (0.97%) Management Information System
9 3 (0.97%) PKI
9 3 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.65%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 12 (3.90%) Linux
2 9 (2.92%) Windows
3 7 (2.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (2.27%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.32%) Android
4 1 (0.32%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 229 (74.35%) Agile
2 103 (33.44%) Scrum
3 92 (29.87%) Acceptance Criteria
4 76 (24.68%) Stakeholder Management
5 63 (20.45%) DevOps
6 62 (20.13%) Business Analysis
6 62 (20.13%) Problem-Solving
7 57 (18.51%) Roadmaps
7 57 (18.51%) Workshop Facilitation
8 54 (17.53%) Requirements Gathering
9 53 (17.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 51 (16.56%) Product Backlog
11 46 (14.94%) CI/CD
12 44 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
13 42 (13.64%) User Experience
14 41 (13.31%) Backlog Refinement
14 41 (13.31%) Sprint Planning
14 41 (13.31%) Test Automation
15 39 (12.66%) Migration
15 39 (12.66%) Sprint Retrospective
Programming Languages
1 35 (11.36%) Python
2 22 (7.14%) Java
3 20 (6.49%) Bash
3 20 (6.49%) SQL
4 12 (3.90%) PowerShell
5 8 (2.60%) Perl
6 5 (1.62%) Apex Code
6 5 (1.62%) TypeScript
7 4 (1.30%) Scala
8 3 (0.97%) C#
9 2 (0.65%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.65%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.32%) Groovy
10 1 (0.32%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.32%) Tcl
10 1 (0.32%) XPath
Qualifications
1 49 (15.91%) Security Cleared
2 33 (10.71%) Degree
3 30 (9.74%) SC Cleared
4 13 (4.22%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (3.57%) CSPO
6 7 (2.27%) IIBA
7 6 (1.95%) CBAP
8 5 (1.62%) CCDP
8 5 (1.62%) CCNA
8 5 (1.62%) CCNP
8 5 (1.62%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (1.30%) DV Cleared
9 4 (1.30%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.97%) ISEB
10 3 (0.97%) OCP
10 3 (0.97%) Oracle Certification
11 2 (0.65%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.65%) MBA
12 1 (0.32%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (8.77%) QA
2 16 (5.19%) GDPR
3 11 (3.57%) Accessibility
4 10 (3.25%) PCI DSS
5 9 (2.92%) PSD2
6 6 (1.95%) SLA
6 6 (1.95%) WCAG
7 5 (1.62%) Data Quality
8 4 (1.30%) FIPS 140-2
8 4 (1.30%) ISO 8583
9 3 (0.97%) GxP
9 3 (0.97%) HL7
9 3 (0.97%) PMO
10 2 (0.65%) GMP
11 1 (0.32%) Basel III
11 1 (0.32%) COREP
11 1 (0.32%) GAMP
11 1 (0.32%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.32%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 14 (4.55%) Docker
2 8 (2.60%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.62%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 17 (5.52%) Ansible
2 15 (4.87%) Kubernetes
3 13 (4.22%) NetBackup
4 8 (2.60%) Terraform
5 5 (1.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (1.30%) Progress Chef
6 4 (1.30%) Puppet
7 2 (0.65%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.32%) Grafana
8 1 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 49 (15.91%) Microsoft
2 33 (10.71%) Salesforce
3 20 (6.49%) Red Hat
4 19 (6.17%) SAP
5 13 (4.22%) Commvault
6 10 (3.25%) Cisco
6 10 (3.25%) Oracle
6 10 (3.25%) ServiceNow
6 10 (3.25%) VMware
7 9 (2.92%) Veritas
8 8 (2.60%) Citrix
8 8 (2.60%) MuleSoft
8 8 (2.60%) Pega
9 5 (1.62%) Google
10 3 (0.97%) DocuSign
11 2 (0.65%) Databricks
11 2 (0.65%) HubSpot
11 2 (0.65%) Palo Alto
11 2 (0.65%) Siemens
11 2 (0.65%) Workday