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 28 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 231 347
Rank change year-on-year -63 +116 +106
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 374 338 265
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.80% 1.15% 0.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.94% 1.27% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 285 201 206
10th Percentile £313 £332 £394
25th Percentile £400 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £613 £594 £675
90th Percentile £750 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £454 £475 £553
% change year-on-year -4.42% -14.03% +0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 13 2
10th Percentile - £21.00 -
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.22 -
Median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -21.34% +21.85% -53.56%
75th Percentile £35.15 £65.00 -
90th Percentile £41.66 £65.62 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £24.66 -
% change year-on-year -7.50% - -

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 39,735 26,655 37,382
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.81% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,044 17,231 24,097
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £631 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,068 2,424
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.98 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.25 £29.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.08% -16.71% -6.27%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.24 £59.44
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £28.00 £35.98
% change year-on-year +50.00% -22.17% -0.07%

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 28 April 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 28 April 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 28 April 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 -58 316 £479 -4.30% 102
UK excluding London -80 178 £454 -4.42% 80
London -35 158 £575 +6.98% 44
Work from Home -2 139 £550 +4.76% 50
North of England -52 65 £454 -4.42% 15
Yorkshire -22 50 £457 -8.14% 5
South East -36 43 £403 -1.95% 23
Scotland -15 28 £500 +5.82% 6
Midlands -64 21 £503 +5.89% 14
West Midlands -57 17 £550 +12.82% 11
South West -51 15 £400 -15.79% 5
North West -53 10 £450 -5.26% 8
North East -18 5 £365 -22.34% 2
East Midlands -37 4 £413 +4.43% 3
East of England -44 3 £450 -20.35% 14
Wales - 2 £543 - 4
Northern Ireland - 1 £675 - 2

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 31 (8.29%) SharePoint
2 30 (8.02%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (2.67%) Confluence
4 8 (2.14%) Appian
5 4 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.80%) Apache
7 2 (0.53%) CMS
7 2 (0.53%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.53%) Oracle Workflow
7 2 (0.53%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.53%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.27%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.27%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 11 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.60%) Chatbot
3 4 (1.07%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.53%) Maximo
1 2 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 193 (51.60%) Azure
2 126 (33.69%) AWS
3 75 (20.05%) GCP
4 58 (15.51%) Entra ID
5 52 (13.90%) Microsoft 365
6 43 (11.50%) GitHub
7 34 (9.09%) OpenShift
8 29 (7.75%) GitHub Actions
9 27 (7.22%) Power Platform
10 25 (6.68%) Azure DevOps
11 23 (6.15%) Amazon S3
12 21 (5.61%) Azure Monitor
12 21 (5.61%) PaaS
12 21 (5.61%) Power Automate
13 18 (4.81%) Serverless
14 17 (4.55%) Azure Key Vault
15 16 (4.28%) AWS CloudFormation
15 16 (4.28%) Azure App Service
15 16 (4.28%) Azure Service Bus
15 16 (4.28%) Azure WebJobs
Communications & Networking
1 38 (10.16%) DNS
2 31 (8.29%) DHCP
3 19 (5.08%) Firewall
4 18 (4.81%) Kerberos
5 16 (4.28%) SSH
6 13 (3.48%) VPN
7 9 (2.41%) Network Security
7 9 (2.41%) TCP/IP
8 7 (1.87%) SAN
8 7 (1.87%) WAN
9 6 (1.60%) LAN
10 5 (1.34%) SD-WAN
11 4 (1.07%) Cisco Nexus
11 4 (1.07%) VLAN
12 3 (0.80%) SSL
13 2 (0.53%) Cisco IOS
13 2 (0.53%) NAS
13 2 (0.53%) Reverse Proxy
13 2 (0.53%) SNMP
13 2 (0.53%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (9.63%) SQL Server
2 20 (5.35%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (4.28%) Power BI
4 10 (2.67%) Amazon RDS
4 10 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
5 9 (2.41%) Relational Database
6 8 (2.14%) Oracle Database
6 8 (2.14%) Pinecone
7 7 (1.87%) Tableau
8 6 (1.60%) Metadata
8 6 (1.60%) Snowflake Schema
9 5 (1.34%) Data Lake
9 5 (1.34%) DynamoDB
9 5 (1.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (1.07%) Amazon Redshift
10 4 (1.07%) Big Data
10 4 (1.07%) InfluxDB
10 4 (1.07%) MongoDB
10 4 (1.07%) Oracle Reports
10 4 (1.07%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 38 (10.16%) Jenkins
2 32 (8.56%) GitLab
3 30 (8.02%) Git
4 19 (5.08%) JIRA
5 11 (2.94%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (2.14%) MLflow
7 5 (1.34%) CircleCI
7 5 (1.34%) Gatling
7 5 (1.34%) JMeter
7 5 (1.34%) LoadRunner
8 4 (1.07%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.80%) AdminStudio
9 3 (0.80%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.80%) Flyway
9 3 (0.80%) InstallShield
9 3 (0.80%) Maven
9 3 (0.80%) Selenium
10 2 (0.53%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.53%) Postman
10 2 (0.53%) Snyk
General
1 150 (40.11%) Social Skills
2 63 (16.84%) Finance
3 47 (12.57%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (9.36%) Public Sector
5 26 (6.95%) Banking
6 11 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
7 8 (2.14%) Legal
8 7 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.60%) Investment Banking
9 6 (1.60%) Retail
10 4 (1.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.07%) Law
11 3 (0.80%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.80%) Military
11 3 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.53%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (0.53%) Front Office
12 2 (0.53%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.27%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.27%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 46 (12.30%) Developer
2 43 (11.50%) Architect
3 37 (9.89%) CyberArk Architect
4 23 (6.15%) Administrator
5 22 (5.88%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 21 (5.61%) Automation Engineer
6 21 (5.61%) DBA
7 19 (5.08%) Analyst
7 19 (5.08%) DevOps Engineer
8 16 (4.28%) Site Engineer
9 15 (4.01%) Platform Engineer
10 14 (3.74%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 14 (3.74%) Consultant
10 14 (3.74%) Java Developer
11 13 (3.48%) Azure Developer
11 13 (3.48%) Senior
12 12 (3.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 11 (2.94%) Data Engineer
14 10 (2.67%) Microsoft 365 Developer
14 10 (2.67%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (17.11%) REST
2 50 (13.37%) LDAP
2 50 (13.37%) SOAP
3 26 (6.95%) OAuth
4 24 (6.42%) Web Services
5 23 (6.15%) .NET
6 17 (4.55%) .NET Framework
6 17 (4.55%) SAML
7 16 (4.28%) Microsoft Graph
7 16 (4.28%) Node.js
8 14 (3.74%) Elastic Stack
8 14 (3.74%) Kafka
9 12 (3.21%) JWT
9 12 (3.21%) RESTful
10 11 (2.94%) Pandas
10 11 (2.94%) PyTorch
11 10 (2.67%) FastAPI
11 10 (2.67%) NumPy
12 9 (2.41%) scikit-learn
12 9 (2.41%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 43 (11.50%) Enterprise Software
1 43 (11.50%) Security Posture
2 22 (5.88%) Replication
3 20 (5.35%) Onboarding
4 13 (3.48%) Cloud Native
4 13 (3.48%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (3.21%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (3.21%) Legacy Systems
6 11 (2.94%) Product Ownership
7 10 (2.67%) Data Protection Act
8 9 (2.41%) Clustering
8 9 (2.41%) Low-Code
9 8 (2.14%) Data Centre
10 5 (1.34%) FlexPod
10 5 (1.34%) PKI
11 4 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.07%) Data Structures
11 4 (1.07%) NHS
11 4 (1.07%) Virtual Team
12 3 (0.80%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 83 (22.19%) Linux
2 74 (19.79%) Windows
3 33 (8.82%) Windows Server
4 18 (4.81%) Unix
5 17 (4.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (2.67%) VMS
7 9 (2.41%) Mac OS
8 7 (1.87%) Windows 10
9 5 (1.34%) CoreOS
9 5 (1.34%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.80%) CentOS
11 2 (0.53%) AIX
11 2 (0.53%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.27%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.27%) Rocky
12 1 (0.27%) Solaris
12 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.27%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (37.97%) Problem-Solving
2 120 (32.09%) CI/CD
3 87 (23.26%) DevOps
4 58 (15.51%) Agile
5 55 (14.71%) Infrastructure as Code
6 53 (14.17%) Disaster Recovery
7 50 (13.37%) AI
7 50 (13.37%) Analytics
8 47 (12.57%) High Availability
8 47 (12.57%) Migration
8 47 (12.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 46 (12.30%) Observability
10 45 (12.03%) Containerisation
11 44 (11.76%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 44 (11.76%) Technical Leadership
12 43 (11.50%) Continuous Improvement
12 43 (11.50%) SIEM
13 38 (10.16%) Privileged Access Management
14 37 (9.89%) Integration Patterns
14 37 (9.89%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 179 (47.86%) Python
2 147 (39.30%) PowerShell
3 68 (18.18%) SQL
4 46 (12.30%) Bash
4 46 (12.30%) Java
5 30 (8.02%) Shell Script
6 25 (6.68%) JavaScript
7 23 (6.15%) C#
8 22 (5.88%) Go
9 21 (5.61%) Kusto Query Language
10 19 (5.08%) TypeScript
11 10 (2.67%) PL/SQL
11 10 (2.67%) T-SQL
12 4 (1.07%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 3 (0.80%) Bicep
13 3 (0.80%) Perl
13 3 (0.80%) PHP
13 3 (0.80%) VBA
14 2 (0.53%) ActionScript
14 2 (0.53%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 132 (35.29%) Security Cleared
2 105 (28.07%) SC Cleared
3 30 (8.02%) Degree
4 22 (5.88%) BPSS Clearance
4 22 (5.88%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.21%) DV Cleared
6 8 (2.14%) OCP
6 8 (2.14%) Oracle Certification
7 7 (1.87%) CISSP
8 6 (1.60%) AWS Certification
8 6 (1.60%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (1.34%) Azure Certification
10 4 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (1.07%) CISM
11 3 (0.80%) CCNA
11 3 (0.80%) CCNP
11 3 (0.80%) JNCIA
11 3 (0.80%) JNCIS
11 3 (0.80%) Master's Degree
12 2 (0.53%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (7.49%) GDPR
2 23 (6.15%) Data Quality
3 21 (5.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 16 (4.28%) NIST
5 14 (3.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 9 (2.41%) QA
7 5 (1.34%) PCI DSS
7 5 (1.34%) SLA
8 3 (0.80%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.53%) GRC
9 2 (0.53%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.27%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.27%) COBIT
10 1 (0.27%) GMP
10 1 (0.27%) PMO
System Software
1 95 (25.40%) Active Directory
2 37 (9.89%) Docker
3 22 (5.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (4.01%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (1.60%) Hyper-V
5 6 (1.60%) vSphere
6 5 (1.34%) NFS
6 5 (1.34%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.80%) Xen
8 2 (0.53%) KVM
8 2 (0.53%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.27%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.27%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.27%) HDFS
9 1 (0.27%) RHEV
9 1 (0.27%) UAG
9 1 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.27%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.27%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 72 (19.25%) Kubernetes
2 67 (17.91%) Terraform
3 66 (17.65%) Ansible
4 30 (8.02%) Grafana
5 25 (6.68%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (6.68%) Prometheus
6 20 (5.35%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (3.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 14 (3.74%) Progress Chef
8 11 (2.94%) SCCM
9 8 (2.14%) Puppet
10 6 (1.60%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 5 (1.34%) Oracle RMAN
11 5 (1.34%) SnapMirror
12 4 (1.07%) Nessus
12 4 (1.07%) SCOM
13 3 (0.80%) Argo
13 3 (0.80%) Data Guard
13 3 (0.80%) Foglight
13 3 (0.80%) OpenVAS
Vendors
1 104 (27.81%) Microsoft
2 39 (10.43%) CyberArk
3 34 (9.09%) BeyondTrust
3 34 (9.09%) Centrify
4 28 (7.49%) Oracle
4 28 (7.49%) VMware
5 23 (6.15%) Google
6 21 (5.61%) Red Hat
6 21 (5.61%) ServiceNow
7 19 (5.08%) Okta
8 15 (4.01%) OpenAI
8 15 (4.01%) Splunk
9 13 (3.48%) Databricks
10 9 (2.41%) Cisco
11 8 (2.14%) Automation Anywhere
11 8 (2.14%) UiPath
12 5 (1.34%) F5
12 5 (1.34%) Informatica
12 5 (1.34%) NetApp
12 5 (1.34%) Palo Alto