Release Automation Contracts

Release Automation
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Release Automation skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Release Automation over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 509 562 685
Rank change year-on-year +53 +123 +120
Contract jobs citing Release Automation 11 20 33
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.038% 0.046% 0.055%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.041% 0.053% 0.062%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 9 20
10th Percentile £450 £493 £574
25th Percentile £462 £513 £614
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £704 £663
Median % change year-on-year -26.85% +6.26% +25.00%
75th Percentile £550 £710 £762
90th Percentile £564 £726 £798
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £525 £613
% change year-on-year - -14.29% +6.52%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Release Automation 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

Release Automation
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Release Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Release Automation in the UK

Release Automation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Release Automation.

Daily rate trend for Release Automation in the UK

Release Automation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Release Automation.

Hourly rate trend for Release Automation in the UK

Release Automation
Top 8 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Release Automation within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 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
England +45 7 £515 -26.85% 156
Work from Home +36 5 £500 -18.37% 159
UK excluding London +62 4 £525 - 152
London +27 3 £510 -27.86% 19
North of England +21 3 £531 - 34
Yorkshire +9 2 £531 - 15
South East +43 1 £450 -14.29% 36
North West - 1 - - 15

Release Automation
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 2 (18.18%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 7 (63.64%) Azure
1 7 (63.64%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (9.09%) AWS
2 1 (9.09%) Dynamics 365
2 1 (9.09%) GitHub
2 1 (9.09%) GitHub Copilot
2 1 (9.09%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (9.09%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (54.55%) Jenkins
2 4 (36.36%) GitLab
3 3 (27.27%) Git
3 3 (27.27%) JIRA
3 3 (27.27%) Octopus Deploy
3 3 (27.27%) Spinnaker
3 3 (27.27%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (9.09%) Visual Studio
General
1 5 (45.45%) Finance
2 2 (18.18%) Social Skills
3 1 (9.09%) Banking
3 1 (9.09%) Documentation Skills
3 1 (9.09%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 5 (45.45%) Release Manager
2 2 (18.18%) Consultant
2 2 (18.18%) Release Engineer
3 1 (9.09%) Architect
3 1 (9.09%) Automation Engineer
3 1 (9.09%) Developer
3 1 (9.09%) DevOps Engineer
3 1 (9.09%) DevOps Manager
3 1 (9.09%) Dynamics 365 Developer
3 1 (9.09%) Lead
3 1 (9.09%) Lead DevOps
3 1 (9.09%) Lead DevOps Engineer
3 1 (9.09%) Release Automation Engineer
3 1 (9.09%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (9.09%) .NET
1 1 (9.09%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 2 (18.18%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (9.09%) Mainframe
2 1 (9.09%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 2 (18.18%) Linux
2 1 (9.09%) Unix
2 1 (9.09%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (81.82%) DevOps
2 6 (54.55%) CI/CD
2 6 (54.55%) Continuous Improvement
3 5 (45.45%) Deployment Automation
3 5 (45.45%) Release Management
4 4 (36.36%) Continuous Integration
4 4 (36.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 3 (27.27%) Agile
5 3 (27.27%) Containerisation
5 3 (27.27%) Continuous Deployment
5 3 (27.27%) Platform Engineering
5 3 (27.27%) Software Delivery
6 2 (18.18%) Change Control
6 2 (18.18%) Data Protection
6 2 (18.18%) Microservices
6 2 (18.18%) Privileged Access Management
7 1 (9.09%) Infrastructure Management
7 1 (9.09%) Kanban
7 1 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 1 (9.09%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 3 (27.27%) Bash
1 3 (27.27%) PowerShell
1 3 (27.27%) Python
2 2 (18.18%) Java
2 2 (18.18%) JavaScript
3 1 (9.09%) SQL
3 1 (9.09%) X++
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (18.18%) QA
System Software
1 3 (27.27%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (27.27%) Kubernetes
2 2 (18.18%) Control-M
3 1 (9.09%) Ansible
Vendors
1 4 (36.36%) Microsoft
2 1 (9.09%) Salesforce