User Stories Contracts

User Story
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for User Stories skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited User Stories over the 6 months to 1 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
1 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 138 118 86
Rank change year-on-year -20 -32 +15
Contract jobs citing User Stories 722 1,219 2,538
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.68% 2.17% 2.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.96% 2.42% 3.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 495 864 1,778
10th Percentile £363 £400 £400
25th Percentile £428 £450 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £505
Median % change year-on-year - +3.96% +6.32%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £638 £675 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.00% +5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 8 9
10th Percentile - £43.78 £38.70
25th Percentile £31.71 £59.38 -
Median hourly rate £33.00 £64.50 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.84% +53.57% -6.67%
75th Percentile £66.00 £69.06 £53.00
90th Percentile £69.90 £73.00 £56.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £26.50 £42.00
% change year-on-year +164.15% -36.90% +75.00%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

User Stories is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,802 50,277 79,372
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.47% 89.69% 90.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,632 34,811 55,790
10th Percentile £300 £325 £345
25th Percentile £413 £438 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +2.33% +7.50%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £644
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £488
% change year-on-year - +2.56% +9.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,530 1,673 1,868
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.63 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £15.72 £15.63
Median hourly rate £36.50 £36.25 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +0.69% +41.16% +9.74%
75th Percentile £60.75 £65.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.12 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +8.91% +75.00% -4.76%

User Stories
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing User Stories as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for User Stories in the UK

User Stories
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing User Stories.

Daily rate trend for User Stories in the UK

User Stories
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Stories over the 6 months to 1 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for User Stories in the UK

User Stories
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing User Stories.

Hourly rate trend for User Stories in the UK

User Stories
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing User Stories over the 6 months to 1 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for User Stories in the UK

User Stories
Top 16 Contract Locations

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 over the 6 months to 1 June 2024. 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
England -29 586 £538 +2.38% 254
London 0 355 £550 +4.76% 128
Work from Home +2 321 £510 -2.86% 125
UK excluding London -35 287 £490 -2.00% 149
Scotland +24 72 £500 +13.64% 21
South East -31 71 £475 - 27
North of England -25 69 £500 -5.88% 33
Yorkshire +20 46 £490 -10.91% 8
Midlands -6 37 £475 -5.00% 28
West Midlands -13 27 £500 -9.09% 25
South West -40 26 £590 +7.27% 23
North West -30 21 £525 +0.48% 18
East of England -16 11 £400 -11.11% 5
East Midlands +2 7 £425 -15.00% 3
North East -2 2 - - 7
Northern Ireland +2 1 - - 4

User Stories
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 68 (9.42%) Confluence
2 29 (4.02%) SharePoint
3 19 (2.63%) CMS
4 7 (0.97%) Drupal
5 6 (0.83%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.69%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.55%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.42%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.28%) SAS
10 1 (0.14%) Alfresco
10 1 (0.14%) Apache
10 1 (0.14%) Appian
10 1 (0.14%) BizTalk Server
10 1 (0.14%) Camunda
10 1 (0.14%) Joomla!
10 1 (0.14%) LiveLink
10 1 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
10 1 (0.14%) WordPress
Applications
1 20 (2.77%) MS Visio
2 19 (2.63%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (2.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (2.08%) Sketch
4 11 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.69%) Trello
6 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.42%) Adobe XD
7 3 (0.42%) InVision
8 2 (0.28%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.28%) OmniGraffle
9 1 (0.14%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 22 (3.05%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (2.08%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.83%) SAP PM
3 6 (0.83%) Shopify
4 5 (0.69%) SAP Hybris
4 5 (0.69%) SimCorp Dimension
5 4 (0.55%) SAP QM
6 2 (0.28%) SAP IS-U
6 2 (0.28%) VisionPLUS
7 1 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.14%) Endur
7 1 (0.14%) Loan IQ
7 1 (0.14%) Magento
7 1 (0.14%) Maximo
7 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.14%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.14%) SAP LE
7 1 (0.14%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 157 (21.75%) Azure
2 66 (9.14%) Azure DevOps
2 66 (9.14%) Power Platform
3 48 (6.65%) Dynamics 365
4 35 (4.85%) AWS
5 21 (2.91%) SaaS
6 19 (2.63%) Power Automate
7 18 (2.49%) Figma
8 15 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
9 12 (1.66%) Azure Service Bus
9 12 (1.66%) PowerApps
10 9 (1.25%) Miro
10 9 (1.25%) Serverless
11 7 (0.97%) Azure Data Factory
11 7 (0.97%) GCP
11 7 (0.97%) SAP Commerce Cloud
12 6 (0.83%) PaaS
12 6 (0.83%) Snowflake
13 5 (0.69%) BigCommerce
13 5 (0.69%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 7 (0.97%) Radio Access Network
2 6 (0.83%) Firewall
3 5 (0.69%) DNS
4 4 (0.55%) DHCP
4 4 (0.55%) Wi-Fi
5 3 (0.42%) Internet
5 3 (0.42%) Network Security
5 3 (0.42%) VPN
6 2 (0.28%) BGP
6 2 (0.28%) Cisco ASA
6 2 (0.28%) DMVPN
6 2 (0.28%) EIGRP
6 2 (0.28%) IPsec
6 2 (0.28%) MPLS
6 2 (0.28%) OSPF
6 2 (0.28%) Reverse Proxy
6 2 (0.28%) SNA
6 2 (0.28%) Sourcefire
6 2 (0.28%) Unified Communications
6 2 (0.28%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (6.65%) Power BI
2 15 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
2 15 (2.08%) NoSQL
3 13 (1.80%) MongoDB
4 12 (1.66%) Data Lake
5 11 (1.52%) BusinessObjects
5 11 (1.52%) SQL Server
6 8 (1.11%) Relational Database
6 8 (1.11%) Tableau
7 6 (0.83%) Oracle Database
8 5 (0.69%) BigQuery
8 5 (0.69%) GIS
8 5 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
8 5 (0.69%) SAP HANA
8 5 (0.69%) Siebel EIM
9 4 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
9 4 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (0.55%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 4 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
9 4 (0.55%) Tableau Server
Development Applications
1 121 (16.76%) JIRA
2 23 (3.19%) Git
3 19 (2.63%) SoapUI
4 18 (2.49%) Postman
5 17 (2.35%) Selenium
6 15 (2.08%) Cucumber
6 15 (2.08%) JUnit
7 12 (1.66%) JMeter
8 11 (1.52%) REST Assured
9 9 (1.25%) Appium
9 9 (1.25%) eggPlant
9 9 (1.25%) SOAtest
9 9 (1.25%) TestNG
9 9 (1.25%) WebDriver
10 7 (0.97%) Eclipse
11 6 (0.83%) GitLab
12 3 (0.42%) Visual Studio
13 2 (0.28%) Balsamiq
13 2 (0.28%) FitNesse
13 2 (0.28%) LoadRunner
General
1 225 (31.16%) Social Skills
2 157 (21.75%) Finance
3 97 (13.43%) Public Sector
4 86 (11.91%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (4.99%) Banking
6 33 (4.57%) Telecoms
7 31 (4.29%) Marketing
8 26 (3.60%) Influencing Skills
9 24 (3.32%) Back Office
10 22 (3.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 21 (2.91%) Presentation Skills
11 21 (2.91%) Retail
12 15 (2.08%) Manufacturing
13 10 (1.39%) Publishing
14 8 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
15 7 (0.97%) Billing
15 7 (0.97%) Games
15 7 (0.97%) Local Government
16 6 (0.83%) Corporate Banking
16 6 (0.83%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 330 (45.71%) Analyst
2 278 (38.50%) Business Analyst
3 94 (13.02%) Senior
4 66 (9.14%) Product Owner
5 51 (7.06%) Technical Analyst
6 46 (6.37%) Developer
7 45 (6.23%) Consultant
7 45 (6.23%) Senior Analyst
8 38 (5.26%) Designer
8 38 (5.26%) Product Manager
9 36 (4.99%) Senior Business Analyst
10 34 (4.71%) Technical Business Analyst
11 28 (3.88%) Lead
12 23 (3.19%) Agile Business Analyst
12 23 (3.19%) Financial Analyst
13 22 (3.05%) Architect
14 21 (2.91%) Project Manager
15 20 (2.77%) Finance Business Analyst
16 18 (2.49%) Data Analyst
17 17 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.74%) .NET
2 23 (3.19%) React
3 22 (3.05%) HTML
4 18 (2.49%) .NET Framework
4 18 (2.49%) CSS
5 16 (2.22%) REST
6 14 (1.94%) Web Services
6 14 (1.94%) XML
7 13 (1.80%) SOAP
8 11 (1.52%) Gherkin
9 10 (1.39%) ASP.NET
10 8 (1.11%) ADO
10 8 (1.11%) Node.js
11 7 (0.97%) AngularJS
11 7 (0.97%) ASP.NET Core
11 7 (0.97%) Flask
11 7 (0.97%) JSON
11 7 (0.97%) LDAP
12 6 (0.83%) Swagger
13 5 (0.69%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 189 (26.18%) Product Ownership
2 21 (2.91%) Mobile App
3 10 (1.39%) Management Information System
3 10 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
4 8 (1.11%) CMDB
4 8 (1.11%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 7 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
6 6 (0.83%) Algorithms
6 6 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (0.83%) Onboarding
6 6 (0.83%) Reinsurance
6 6 (0.83%) Smart Meter
7 5 (0.69%) Cloud Native
7 5 (0.69%) Data Structures
7 5 (0.69%) Greenfield Project
7 5 (0.69%) Hybrid Cloud
7 5 (0.69%) IoT
7 5 (0.69%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 4 (0.55%) Analytical Mindset
8 4 (0.55%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 12 (1.66%) Android
2 11 (1.52%) Apple iOS
3 10 (1.39%) Windows
4 9 (1.25%) Linux
5 4 (0.55%) Unix
6 3 (0.42%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 438 (60.66%) Agile
2 223 (30.89%) Acceptance Criteria
3 188 (26.04%) Scrum
4 155 (21.47%) Business Analysis
5 137 (18.98%) Requirements Gathering
6 127 (17.59%) DevOps
7 122 (16.90%) Epics
8 115 (15.93%) Problem-Solving
9 100 (13.85%) User Acceptance Testing
10 97 (13.43%) Roadmaps
11 92 (12.74%) Stakeholder Management
12 83 (11.50%) Product Backlog
13 76 (10.53%) Workshop Facilitation
14 70 (9.70%) Test Automation
15 69 (9.56%) Migration
15 69 (9.56%) Project Management
16 67 (9.28%) Use Case
17 65 (9.00%) Analytics
17 65 (9.00%) User Experience
17 65 (9.00%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 66 (9.14%) SQL
2 37 (5.12%) Python
3 33 (4.57%) Java
4 27 (3.74%) JavaScript
5 25 (3.46%) C#
6 10 (1.39%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.97%) TypeScript
8 5 (0.69%) T-SQL
9 4 (0.55%) C
9 4 (0.55%) Go
10 3 (0.42%) VBA
11 2 (0.28%) Bicep
11 2 (0.28%) Ruby
12 1 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.14%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.14%) R
12 1 (0.14%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 90 (12.47%) Security Cleared
2 79 (10.94%) SC Cleared
3 59 (8.17%) Degree
4 9 (1.25%) CBAP
5 8 (1.11%) DV Cleared
6 7 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (0.97%) CSPO
6 7 (0.97%) Master's Degree
7 6 (0.83%) PMI Certification
8 5 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (0.69%) PMP
9 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.28%) CCNA
10 2 (0.28%) CCNP
10 2 (0.28%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.28%) ISTQB
10 2 (0.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (0.28%) MBA
10 2 (0.28%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (11.22%) QA
2 33 (4.57%) Data Quality
3 29 (4.02%) Accessibility
4 18 (2.49%) PCI DSS
5 11 (1.52%) WCAG
6 9 (1.25%) GDPR
7 7 (0.97%) PMO
8 5 (0.69%) GxP
8 5 (0.69%) ISO 20022
9 4 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
9 4 (0.55%) SLA
10 3 (0.42%) IFRS
10 3 (0.42%) IFRS 17
10 3 (0.42%) Solvency II
11 2 (0.28%) PSD2
11 2 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.28%) Software Quality Assurance
12 1 (0.14%) Basel II
12 1 (0.14%) Basel III
12 1 (0.14%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 5 (0.69%) Docker
2 2 (0.28%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 9 (1.25%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
2 3 (0.42%) Terraform
3 2 (0.28%) HP Quality Center
4 1 (0.14%) Ansible
4 1 (0.14%) Matomo
4 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.14%) SCCM
Vendors
1 77 (10.66%) Microsoft
2 50 (6.93%) SAP
3 25 (3.46%) Salesforce
4 18 (2.49%) ServiceNow
5 17 (2.35%) Oracle
6 14 (1.94%) Adobe
7 9 (1.25%) Atlassian
7 9 (1.25%) Guidewire
8 7 (0.97%) Cadence
9 6 (0.83%) CA Agile Central
9 6 (0.83%) Sitecore
10 5 (0.69%) CyberSource
10 5 (0.69%) Siebel
10 5 (0.69%) SimCorp
11 4 (0.55%) Ab Initio
11 4 (0.55%) Dell
11 4 (0.55%) ESRI
11 4 (0.55%) Google
11 4 (0.55%) Intel
11 4 (0.55%) Optimizely