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 22 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 389 245 248
Rank change year-on-year -144 +3 +160
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 306 341 363
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 1.05% 0.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.66% 1.16% 1.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 200 194 248
10th Percentile £320 £302 £362
25th Percentile £406 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £556 £580 £625
90th Percentile £681 £670 £702
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +8.42% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 7 3
10th Percentile - £17.89 -
25th Percentile £16.33 £40.28 -
Median hourly rate £22.25 £63.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -64.96% +166.81% -73.56%
75th Percentile £35.63 £65.25 -
90th Percentile £66.05 £66.05 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.92 £66.50 -
% change year-on-year -71.56% - -

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 46,027 29,389 32,594
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.35% 90.49% 85.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,906 18,237 19,938
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,152 1,808 1,420
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.24 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.69
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.09% -1.10%
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.08 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.61% -48.10% +1.18%

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 22 September 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 22 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Task Automation in the UK

Task Automation
Top 16 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 22 September 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 -148 261 £500 - 395
UK excluding London -111 157 £515 +8.42% 219
London -95 110 £450 -10.00% 197
Work from Home -76 86 £500 - 165
North of England -53 64 £500 +5.26% 65
South East -40 49 £538 +18.20% 53
Yorkshire -30 36 £516 +7.48% 17
North West -52 24 £492 +3.61% 37
Midlands -73 16 £600 +17.94% 23
Scotland -37 12 £438 -4.89% 7
West Midlands -70 11 £600 +15.50% 13
South West -39 8 £535 +2.88% 26
East of England -45 8 £503 +11.67% 23
East Midlands -15 5 £500 +19.76% 10
North East -32 4 £275 +37.50% 11
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 16

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 33 (10.78%) SharePoint
2 16 (5.23%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.96%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (1.63%) JBoss
5 4 (1.31%) Confluence
5 4 (1.31%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.98%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.98%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.98%) WebLogic Portal
7 2 (0.65%) CMS
7 2 (0.65%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.33%) Apache
8 1 (0.33%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.33%) FactoryTalk
8 1 (0.33%) IIS
8 1 (0.33%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.33%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 7 (2.29%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.98%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.33%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 7 (2.29%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (1.96%) Remedy AR System
3 4 (1.31%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.98%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.33%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.33%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.33%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.33%) PeopleSoft HCM
5 1 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.33%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 116 (37.91%) Azure
2 75 (24.51%) AWS
3 49 (16.01%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (11.11%) Entra ID
5 31 (10.13%) GitHub
6 30 (9.80%) GCP
7 29 (9.48%) Power Platform
8 28 (9.15%) Azure DevOps
9 23 (7.52%) GitHub Actions
10 21 (6.86%) Amazon S3
10 21 (6.86%) Microsoft Copilot
11 19 (6.21%) Power Automate
12 18 (5.88%) AWS Lambda
12 18 (5.88%) Datadog
12 18 (5.88%) Serverless
13 17 (5.56%) Azure Monitor
14 15 (4.90%) AWS CloudFormation
14 15 (4.90%) OneDrive
15 14 (4.58%) SaaS
16 12 (3.92%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 50 (16.34%) DNS
2 29 (9.48%) DHCP
3 28 (9.15%) VPN
4 25 (8.17%) Firewall
5 21 (6.86%) TCP/IP
6 17 (5.56%) Network Security
7 9 (2.94%) VLAN
8 8 (2.61%) SSH
9 7 (2.29%) Kerberos
9 7 (2.29%) SAN
9 7 (2.29%) WAN
10 6 (1.96%) SD-WAN
10 6 (1.96%) Skype
10 6 (1.96%) Wireless
11 5 (1.63%) BIG-IP
12 4 (1.31%) Intranet
12 4 (1.31%) PSTN
12 4 (1.31%) Reverse Proxy
12 4 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
13 3 (0.98%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (7.84%) SQL Server
2 12 (3.92%) Data Warehouse
2 12 (3.92%) Power BI
3 11 (3.59%) Amazon RDS
4 7 (2.29%) Metadata
4 7 (2.29%) MySQL
5 6 (1.96%) Hadoop
5 6 (1.96%) Oracle Database
5 6 (1.96%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.63%) Big Data
6 5 (1.63%) Sybase ASE
7 4 (1.31%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.31%) EDRMS
7 4 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (1.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (0.98%) BigQuery
8 3 (0.98%) Oracle Database 10g
8 3 (0.98%) Oracle Database 11g
8 3 (0.98%) Oracle Database 12c
8 3 (0.98%) SSDT
Development Applications
1 37 (12.09%) Git
2 22 (7.19%) GitLab
3 20 (6.54%) Jenkins
4 11 (3.59%) JIRA
5 5 (1.63%) SonarQube
6 4 (1.31%) Flyway
6 4 (1.31%) Oracle Forms
6 4 (1.31%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.98%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.98%) Oracle APEX
8 2 (0.65%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.65%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.65%) JUnit
8 2 (0.65%) Maven
8 2 (0.65%) Postman
8 2 (0.65%) Selenium
8 2 (0.65%) Snyk
8 2 (0.65%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.33%) TestRail
9 1 (0.33%) webpack
General
1 94 (30.72%) Social Skills
2 56 (18.30%) Analytical Skills
3 52 (16.99%) Finance
4 31 (10.13%) Banking
5 17 (5.56%) Legal
6 14 (4.58%) Public Sector
7 10 (3.27%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (2.29%) Front Office
9 6 (1.96%) Financial Institution
10 3 (0.98%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.98%) Law
10 3 (0.98%) Military
11 2 (0.65%) Billing
11 2 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.65%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.65%) Marketing
11 2 (0.65%) Retail
12 1 (0.33%) Local Government
12 1 (0.33%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 39 (12.75%) Senior
2 32 (10.46%) Support Engineer
3 29 (9.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 22 (7.19%) DevOps Engineer
5 19 (6.21%) Cloud Engineer
6 18 (5.88%) Developer
7 17 (5.56%) Analyst
8 16 (5.23%) DBA
8 16 (5.23%) Platform Engineer
9 14 (4.58%) Consultant
10 12 (3.92%) Data Engineer
10 12 (3.92%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 11 (3.59%) Architect
12 10 (3.27%) Lead
12 10 (3.27%) Linux Engineer
12 10 (3.27%) Site Engineer
13 9 (2.94%) Azure Engineer
14 8 (2.61%) Data Analyst
14 8 (2.61%) Security Engineer
14 8 (2.61%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (21.57%) Terraform
2 29 (9.48%) REST
3 18 (5.88%) React
4 15 (4.90%) ARM Templates
5 12 (3.92%) JSON
6 11 (3.59%) .NET
6 11 (3.59%) CSS
6 11 (3.59%) Node.js
6 11 (3.59%) SPFx
7 10 (3.27%) Elastic Stack
7 10 (3.27%) Kafka
8 9 (2.94%) YAML
9 8 (2.61%) HTML
9 8 (2.61%) SOAP
10 7 (2.29%) Middleware
11 6 (1.96%) JWT
11 6 (1.96%) RESTful
12 5 (1.63%) ASP.NET
12 5 (1.63%) AWS CDK
12 5 (1.63%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.86%) Onboarding
2 20 (6.54%) Cloud Native
3 16 (5.23%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (4.90%) Distributed Systems
5 14 (4.58%) AI Agents
6 13 (4.25%) Data Protection Act
7 12 (3.92%) Clustering
8 11 (3.59%) Management Information System
9 10 (3.27%) Legacy Systems
9 10 (3.27%) Private Cloud
9 10 (3.27%) Replication
10 9 (2.94%) CMDB
10 9 (2.94%) Product Ownership
11 8 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (2.29%) Public Cloud
12 7 (2.29%) Virtual Team
13 6 (1.96%) Blackberry
14 5 (1.63%) Data Centre
14 5 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
14 5 (1.63%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 67 (21.90%) Windows
2 59 (19.28%) Linux
3 23 (7.52%) Windows Server
4 21 (6.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (4.58%) Windows 10
6 13 (4.25%) Unix
6 13 (4.25%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (2.61%) Android
8 7 (2.29%) Mac OS
8 7 (2.29%) Windows 7
9 6 (1.96%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (0.98%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.65%) AIX
11 2 (0.65%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.65%) VMS
11 2 (0.65%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.65%) zOS
12 1 (0.33%) MVS
12 1 (0.33%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (30.07%) CI/CD
2 79 (25.82%) DevOps
3 68 (22.22%) ITIL
4 67 (21.90%) Infrastructure as Code
5 66 (21.57%) Problem-Solving
6 65 (21.24%) Agile
7 53 (17.32%) AI
8 50 (16.34%) Continuous Improvement
9 48 (15.69%) Migration
10 45 (14.71%) Observability
10 45 (14.71%) Root Cause Analysis
11 43 (14.05%) Workflow
12 40 (13.07%) Performance Tuning
13 38 (12.42%) ITSM
14 35 (11.44%) Runbook
15 34 (11.11%) Disaster Recovery
16 33 (10.78%) Analytics
16 33 (10.78%) Containerisation
16 33 (10.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 29 (9.48%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 136 (44.44%) Python
2 111 (36.27%) PowerShell
3 62 (20.26%) SQL
4 54 (17.65%) Bash
5 36 (11.76%) JavaScript
6 17 (5.56%) Bicep
6 17 (5.56%) Java
7 15 (4.90%) Go
8 13 (4.25%) TypeScript
9 12 (3.92%) T-SQL
10 11 (3.59%) Shell Script
11 9 (2.94%) PL/SQL
12 7 (2.29%) C#
13 5 (1.63%) Perl
13 5 (1.63%) VBScript
14 2 (0.65%) REXX
14 2 (0.65%) Scala
15 1 (0.33%) JCL
15 1 (0.33%) Korn
15 1 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 104 (33.99%) Security Cleared
2 67 (21.90%) SC Cleared
3 38 (12.42%) DV Cleared
4 33 (10.78%) Degree
5 20 (6.54%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (4.58%) Azure Certification
6 14 (4.58%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (1.96%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.98%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 3 (0.98%) CCNA
9 3 (0.98%) CCNP
10 2 (0.65%) CIPD
10 2 (0.65%) CISM
10 2 (0.65%) CISSP
10 2 (0.65%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.65%) GSEC
10 2 (0.65%) OSCP
11 1 (0.33%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (6.86%) Data Quality
2 18 (5.88%) SLA
3 12 (3.92%) QA
4 8 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.96%) NIST
6 4 (1.31%) HIPAA
6 4 (1.31%) SOC 2
7 2 (0.65%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.33%) GDPR
8 1 (0.33%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.33%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.33%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 63 (20.59%) Active Directory
2 30 (9.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (9.15%) Docker
4 14 (4.58%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (4.58%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (3.27%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (1.96%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.96%) NFS
6 6 (1.96%) vSphere
7 2 (0.65%) BitLocker
7 2 (0.65%) Firmware
7 2 (0.65%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.33%) NDS
8 1 (0.33%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 1 (0.33%) OpenSSH
8 1 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 44 (14.38%) Ansible
2 41 (13.40%) Kubernetes
3 27 (8.82%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (7.84%) SCCM
5 18 (5.88%) Grafana
6 17 (5.56%) SCOM
7 16 (5.23%) Prometheus
7 16 (5.23%) Puppet
8 14 (4.58%) vCenter Server
9 11 (3.59%) Progress Chef
9 11 (3.59%) Red Hat Satellite
10 8 (2.61%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (2.29%) Failover Clustering
12 5 (1.63%) Oracle RMAN
13 3 (0.98%) Istio
13 3 (0.98%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 2 (0.65%) Data Guard
14 2 (0.65%) linkerd
14 2 (0.65%) Podman
14 2 (0.65%) WSUS
Vendors
1 107 (34.97%) Microsoft
2 34 (11.11%) VMware
3 24 (7.84%) Google
4 22 (7.19%) Oracle
4 22 (7.19%) ServiceNow
5 20 (6.54%) Red Hat
6 17 (5.56%) Splunk
7 15 (4.90%) SolarWinds
8 12 (3.92%) Broadcom
9 11 (3.59%) Cisco
10 8 (2.61%) BMC
11 7 (2.29%) AppDynamics
11 7 (2.29%) Citrix
11 7 (2.29%) OpenAI
11 7 (2.29%) Remedy
12 6 (1.96%) Ivanti
12 6 (1.96%) Okta
13 5 (1.63%) BeyondTrust
13 5 (1.63%) Dynatrace
13 5 (1.63%) F5