Task Automation Contract Job Trends

Task Automation
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Task Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 255 223 349
Rank change year-on-year -32 +126 +112
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 400 349 250
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.10% 1.10% 0.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.25% 1.24% 0.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 275 216 188
10th Percentile £327 £346 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £602 £576 £625
90th Percentile £750 £663 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -6.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 8 0
10th Percentile £47.98 £21.00 -
25th Percentile £50.94 £21.92 -
Median hourly rate £56.25 £26.83 -
Median % change year-on-year +109.65% - -
75th Percentile £61.94 £42.12 -
90th Percentile £65.13 £65.62 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £24.66 -
% change year-on-year +169.67% - -

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Task 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 31,966 28,176 37,671
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.84% 88.65% 87.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,158 17,120 25,014
10th Percentile £304 £306 £305
25th Percentile £406 £413 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £744 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,974 895 1,590
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.50 £18.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +16.41%
75th Percentile £55.00 £62.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.59 £75.00 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.41 £43.90
% change year-on-year -21.64% -30.74% +59.64%

Task Automation
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Task Automation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Task Automation job vacancy trend in the UK

Task Automation
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Task Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Task Automation

Task Automation
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Task Automation over the 6 months to 11 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Task Automation in the UK

Task Automation
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Task Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Task Automation

Task Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Task Automation over the 6 months to 11 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Task Automation in the UK

Task Automation
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Task Automation within the UK over the 6 months to 11 January 2026. 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 -26 334 £500 +5.26% 131
UK excluding London -14 193 £485 +3.09% 113
London -7 161 £550 +2.33% 33
Work from Home +24 141 £525 +11.11% 92
North of England -24 61 £450 -2.17% 19
Midlands -20 42 £550 +13.64% 15
West Midlands -8 41 £550 +11.79% 11
South East -1 38 £455 +13.69% 40
Yorkshire -26 33 £450 +9.09% 5
Scotland +9 26 £413 -17.50% 2
North West -31 26 £443 -3.96% 9
South West -23 16 £525 +11.70% 17
East of England -21 8 £500 -16.67% 15
North East -9 2 £475 +1.06% 6
Wales - 2 £506 - 5
Northern Ireland - 2 £683 - 2
East Midlands -24 1 £450 +13.92% 4

Task Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 23 (5.75%) Microsoft Exchange
2 19 (4.75%) Confluence
2 19 (4.75%) SharePoint
3 8 (2.00%) Apache
3 8 (2.00%) IIS
4 5 (1.25%) iPlanet
4 5 (1.25%) JBoss
4 5 (1.25%) OpenStack
4 5 (1.25%) WebSphere
4 5 (1.25%) WebSphere Application Server
5 4 (1.00%) Appian
6 2 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.50%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 2 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.50%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.25%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.25%) CICS
7 1 (0.25%) CMS
7 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2013
7 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
Applications
1 24 (6.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.00%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.50%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.50%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.25%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 4 (1.00%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.50%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.25%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 182 (45.50%) Azure
2 137 (34.25%) AWS
3 91 (22.75%) GCP
4 43 (10.75%) GitHub
5 37 (9.25%) Entra ID
6 36 (9.00%) Microsoft 365
7 35 (8.75%) GitHub Actions
8 33 (8.25%) OpenShift
9 28 (7.00%) Serverless
10 27 (6.75%) Azure DevOps
11 23 (5.75%) Power Platform
12 22 (5.50%) AWS CloudFormation
13 18 (4.50%) Amazon S3
14 16 (4.00%) AWS Lambda
14 16 (4.00%) Power Automate
15 15 (3.75%) Amazon EC2
16 13 (3.25%) Amazon EKS
16 13 (3.25%) Azure AKS
16 13 (3.25%) OneDrive
17 12 (3.00%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 36 (9.00%) Firewall
2 25 (6.25%) DNS
3 18 (4.50%) DHCP
3 18 (4.50%) SSH
4 17 (4.25%) TCP/IP
5 12 (3.00%) Network Security
6 9 (2.25%) Kerberos
6 9 (2.25%) VPN
7 8 (2.00%) WAN
8 6 (1.50%) Cisco IOS
8 6 (1.50%) LAN
9 5 (1.25%) BGP
9 5 (1.25%) NX-OS
9 5 (1.25%) OpenLDAP
9 5 (1.25%) WLAN
10 4 (1.00%) AMQP
10 4 (1.00%) HTTP
11 3 (0.75%) SD-WAN
12 2 (0.50%) DKIM
12 2 (0.50%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (8.75%) SQL Server
2 31 (7.75%) PostgreSQL
3 24 (6.00%) Relational Database
4 22 (5.50%) Oracle Database
5 16 (4.00%) Power BI
6 10 (2.50%) Amazon RDS
6 10 (2.50%) MySQL
7 8 (2.00%) NoSQL
8 7 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.75%) RDBMS
9 6 (1.50%) MongoDB
9 6 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
10 5 (1.25%) Metadata
10 5 (1.25%) Pinecone
10 5 (1.25%) Power Query
10 5 (1.25%) Tableau
11 4 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (1.00%) BigQuery
11 4 (1.00%) Data Lake
11 4 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 64 (16.00%) Git
2 50 (12.50%) Jenkins
3 40 (10.00%) GitLab
4 27 (6.75%) JIRA
5 15 (3.75%) Sonatype Nexus
6 13 (3.25%) Bitbucket
7 11 (2.75%) CircleCI
7 11 (2.75%) Maven
8 9 (2.25%) JUnit
8 9 (2.25%) SonarQube
9 7 (1.75%) Postman
10 6 (1.50%) Artifactory
10 6 (1.50%) Selenium
11 5 (1.25%) Bitbucket Server
11 5 (1.25%) CA Release Automation
11 5 (1.25%) Cypress.io
11 5 (1.25%) Gradle
11 5 (1.25%) JMeter
11 5 (1.25%) LoadRunner
11 5 (1.25%) webpack
General
1 161 (40.25%) Social Skills
2 65 (16.25%) Finance
3 55 (13.75%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (8.50%) Public Sector
5 29 (7.25%) Banking
6 8 (2.00%) Investment Banking
7 7 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (1.50%) Retail
9 5 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.25%) Legal
9 5 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (1.00%) Front Office
10 4 (1.00%) Games
10 4 (1.00%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.75%) Law
12 2 (0.50%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.50%) Military
12 2 (0.50%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.50%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 43 (10.75%) Developer
2 42 (10.50%) Architect
3 37 (9.25%) CyberArk Architect
4 29 (7.25%) DevOps Engineer
5 28 (7.00%) Administrator
5 28 (7.00%) Senior
6 25 (6.25%) Automation Engineer
7 22 (5.50%) Analyst
8 19 (4.75%) Platform Engineer
8 19 (4.75%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 18 (4.50%) Java Developer
10 16 (4.00%) DBA
11 14 (3.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 14 (3.50%) Lead
12 12 (3.00%) Consultant
12 12 (3.00%) Network Engineer
12 12 (3.00%) Site Engineer
12 12 (3.00%) Support Engineer
13 10 (2.50%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 9 (2.25%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (17.75%) REST
2 47 (11.75%) LDAP
3 41 (10.25%) SOAP
4 23 (5.75%) Elastic Stack
5 22 (5.50%) Node.js
6 15 (3.75%) .NET
6 15 (3.75%) FastAPI
6 15 (3.75%) OAuth
7 13 (3.25%) Kafka
8 12 (3.00%) Web Services
9 9 (2.25%) JSON
9 9 (2.25%) Microsoft Graph
9 9 (2.25%) pytest
9 9 (2.25%) SAML
9 9 (2.25%) YAML
10 8 (2.00%) GraphQL
10 8 (2.00%) Pandas
10 8 (2.00%) RESTful
11 7 (1.75%) boto
11 7 (1.75%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 44 (11.00%) Security Posture
2 41 (10.25%) Enterprise Software
3 23 (5.75%) Onboarding
4 18 (4.50%) Cloud Native
5 16 (4.00%) Distributed Systems
6 9 (2.25%) Data Centre
6 9 (2.25%) Private Cloud
6 9 (2.25%) Replication
7 8 (2.00%) Clustering
7 8 (2.00%) Linux Command Line
8 7 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (1.75%) Low-Code
8 7 (1.75%) PKI
9 6 (1.50%) AI Agents
10 5 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.25%) Management Information System
11 4 (1.00%) Data Structures
11 4 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
11 4 (1.00%) NHS
11 4 (1.00%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 112 (28.00%) Linux
2 70 (17.50%) Windows
3 28 (7.00%) Unix
4 23 (5.75%) Windows Server
5 13 (3.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (2.25%) VMS
7 8 (2.00%) CentOS
8 4 (1.00%) AIX
8 4 (1.00%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.75%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.25%) Android
10 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.25%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 165 (41.25%) Problem-Solving
2 137 (34.25%) CI/CD
3 112 (28.00%) DevOps
4 71 (17.75%) Infrastructure as Code
5 69 (17.25%) Agile
6 59 (14.75%) Containerisation
7 55 (13.75%) SIEM
8 45 (11.25%) Site Reliability Engineering
8 45 (11.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 42 (10.50%) Migration
10 41 (10.25%) Technical Leadership
11 40 (10.00%) Privileged Access Management
12 39 (9.75%) ITSM
13 37 (9.25%) Observability
14 36 (9.00%) Configuration Management
14 36 (9.00%) Continuous Improvement
14 36 (9.00%) Integration Patterns
14 36 (9.00%) Root Cause Analysis
14 36 (9.00%) Workflow
15 35 (8.75%) AI
Programming Languages
1 221 (55.25%) Python
2 143 (35.75%) PowerShell
3 72 (18.00%) Bash
4 70 (17.50%) SQL
5 54 (13.50%) Java
6 48 (12.00%) Shell Script
7 35 (8.75%) Go
8 26 (6.50%) JavaScript
9 20 (5.00%) TypeScript
10 15 (3.75%) C#
11 12 (3.00%) Kusto Query Language
11 12 (3.00%) VBA
12 11 (2.75%) Bicep
12 11 (2.75%) Perl
13 8 (2.00%) Groovy
14 6 (1.50%) PL/SQL
15 5 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 4 (1.00%) T-SQL
17 3 (0.75%) PHP
17 3 (0.75%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 129 (32.25%) Security Cleared
2 98 (24.50%) SC Cleared
3 27 (6.75%) BPSS Clearance
4 26 (6.50%) Degree
5 16 (4.00%) DV Cleared
6 13 (3.25%) Azure Certification
7 11 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (2.25%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.75%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.75%) CISSP
10 6 (1.50%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (1.25%) OCP
11 5 (1.25%) Oracle Certification
12 4 (1.00%) CCNP
13 3 (0.75%) ACCA
13 3 (0.75%) CCDP
13 3 (0.75%) CIMA
13 3 (0.75%) GIAC
13 3 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.75%) GDPR
2 19 (4.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (4.00%) NIST
4 13 (3.25%) Data Quality
4 13 (3.25%) QA
5 7 (1.75%) SLA
6 5 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.75%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.50%) EU AI Act
8 2 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.25%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.25%) COBIT
9 1 (0.25%) GRC
9 1 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 1 (0.25%) PMO
9 1 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 84 (21.00%) Active Directory
2 64 (16.00%) Docker
3 24 (6.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (2.75%) Oracle RAC
5 5 (1.25%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 5 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (1.00%) Firmware
6 4 (1.00%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.75%) KVM
7 3 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.75%) Xen
8 2 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.25%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.25%) HDFS
9 1 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.25%) RHEV
9 1 (0.25%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.25%) vSphere
9 1 (0.25%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 83 (20.75%) Kubernetes
2 80 (20.00%) Terraform
3 75 (18.75%) Ansible
4 47 (11.75%) Grafana
5 37 (9.25%) Prometheus
6 20 (5.00%) Progress Chef
7 15 (3.75%) SCCM
8 14 (3.50%) Puppet
9 13 (3.25%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (3.00%) Data Guard
10 12 (3.00%) Microsoft Intune
11 11 (2.75%) Oracle RMAN
12 9 (2.25%) yum
13 8 (2.00%) Podman
14 6 (1.50%) CA Single Sign-On
14 6 (1.50%) Kibana
14 6 (1.50%) NetBackup
15 5 (1.25%) CA Wily
15 5 (1.25%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
15 5 (1.25%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 99 (24.75%) Microsoft
2 54 (13.50%) CyberArk
3 48 (12.00%) Oracle
4 42 (10.50%) BeyondTrust
5 34 (8.50%) Centrify
6 31 (7.75%) Splunk
7 30 (7.50%) Google
8 26 (6.50%) VMware
9 15 (3.75%) Red Hat
9 15 (3.75%) ServiceNow
10 14 (3.50%) Atlassian
11 12 (3.00%) Cisco
12 11 (2.75%) OpenAI
13 9 (2.25%) SAP
14 7 (1.75%) F5
14 7 (1.75%) IBM
14 7 (1.75%) Palo Alto
15 6 (1.50%) AppDynamics
15 6 (1.50%) Databricks
15 6 (1.50%) Veritas