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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 263 257 425
Rank change year-on-year -6 +168 +38
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 330 363 241
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.01% 0.95% 0.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.12% 1.10% 0.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 187 252 168
10th Percentile £304 £351 £356
25th Percentile £400 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -9.09% -4.35%
75th Percentile £585 £625 £663
90th Percentile £670 £708 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £550
% change year-on-year - -13.64% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 1
10th Percentile £17.89 - -
25th Percentile £40.28 - -
Median hourly rate £63.50 £23.80 £90.00
Median % change year-on-year +166.81% -73.56% +100.00%
75th Percentile £65.25 - -
90th Percentile £66.05 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 - -

All Process and 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 29,589 32,869 44,907
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.52% 85.60% 89.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,385 20,313 30,580
10th Percentile £300 £310 £314
25th Percentile £403 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,782 1,485 1,560
10th Percentile £14.23 £14.84 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £18.77
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% +1.18% +46.55%
75th Percentile £43.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £66.95 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £43.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -47.67% +7.50% +73.91%

Task Automation
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Task Automation 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 14 September 2025.

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 14 September 2025.

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 14 September 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 -28 271 £500 - 151
UK excluding London -5 158 £475 - 125
London -12 132 £500 -9.09% 62
Work from Home +10 100 £500 -4.76% 74
North of England -16 45 £475 +2.70% 22
Midlands -3 33 £515 +3.00% 24
West Midlands -7 28 £520 +3.90% 18
Scotland +21 26 £468 -4.59% 13
North West -9 24 £475 +8.57% 10
East of England +21 20 £450 +5.88% 9
South East -10 20 £493 +4.79% 46
Yorkshire -17 20 £480 -7.69% 6
South West +4 9 £520 -5.45% 10
Wales +9 5 £263 -46.15% 4
East Midlands -1 5 £385 -14.25% 6
North East -3 1 £200 -56.76% 6

Task 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 21 (6.36%) Confluence
2 10 (3.03%) Apache
3 7 (2.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (2.12%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.52%) IIS
5 4 (1.21%) iPlanet
5 4 (1.21%) JBoss
5 4 (1.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 4 (1.21%) Oracle Workflow
5 4 (1.21%) WebLogic
5 4 (1.21%) WebSphere
5 4 (1.21%) WebSphere Application Server
6 3 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.61%) OpenEdge
7 2 (0.61%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.30%) CICS
8 1 (0.30%) CMS
8 1 (0.30%) IBM Domino
8 1 (0.30%) MQSeries
8 1 (0.30%) Tomcat
Applications
1 17 (5.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.21%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.61%) Siemens NX
4 1 (0.30%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.30%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.30%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 4 (1.21%) Oracle EBS
1 4 (1.21%) Oracle EBS R12
1 4 (1.21%) Oracle ERP
1 4 (1.21%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.61%) SAP CO
2 2 (0.61%) SAP FI
2 2 (0.61%) SAP FI/CO
2 2 (0.61%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.30%) Eikon
3 1 (0.30%) Eze OMS
3 1 (0.30%) Fidessa
3 1 (0.30%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 1 (0.30%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 104 (31.52%) Azure
2 93 (28.18%) AWS
3 55 (16.67%) GCP
4 35 (10.61%) GitHub
5 27 (8.18%) GitHub Actions
6 23 (6.97%) Microsoft 365
7 18 (5.45%) OpenShift
7 18 (5.45%) Serverless
8 16 (4.85%) Amazon S3
8 16 (4.85%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (4.85%) Power Platform
9 15 (4.55%) Entra ID
10 14 (4.24%) Amazon EC2
11 13 (3.94%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (3.03%) AWS CloudFormation
12 10 (3.03%) Azure AKS
13 9 (2.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 9 (2.73%) Azure Logic Apps
13 9 (2.73%) GitHub Copilot
13 9 (2.73%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 47 (14.24%) Firewall
2 15 (4.55%) DNS
3 14 (4.24%) VPN
4 13 (3.94%) Network Security
5 10 (3.03%) DHCP
6 8 (2.42%) BGP
6 8 (2.42%) TCP/IP
7 7 (2.12%) WAN
8 5 (1.52%) Cisco IOS
8 5 (1.52%) NX-OS
8 5 (1.52%) OpenLDAP
8 5 (1.52%) PSTN
8 5 (1.52%) SAN
8 5 (1.52%) Software-Defined Networking
8 5 (1.52%) VLAN
8 5 (1.52%) VoIP
9 4 (1.21%) Kerberos
9 4 (1.21%) NAS
9 4 (1.21%) SSL
9 4 (1.21%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (9.70%) SQL Server
2 21 (6.36%) Oracle Database
3 17 (5.15%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (4.24%) Relational Database
5 12 (3.64%) NoSQL
6 10 (3.03%) BigQuery
6 10 (3.03%) Power BI
7 8 (2.42%) Big Data
8 7 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (1.82%) MySQL
9 6 (1.82%) Redis
9 6 (1.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (1.52%) RDBMS
11 4 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (1.21%) Metadata
11 4 (1.21%) MongoDB
11 4 (1.21%) Oracle BI EE
12 3 (0.91%) DB2
12 3 (0.91%) Looker
12 3 (0.91%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 59 (17.88%) Git
2 39 (11.82%) Jenkins
3 36 (10.91%) JIRA
4 26 (7.88%) GitLab
5 16 (4.85%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (2.42%) Artifactory
6 8 (2.42%) Bitbucket
6 8 (2.42%) SonarQube
7 7 (2.12%) Cypress.io
7 7 (2.12%) JUnit
7 7 (2.12%) Postman
8 6 (1.82%) Maven
8 6 (1.82%) Selenium
9 5 (1.52%) CircleCI
10 4 (1.21%) Bitbucket Server
10 4 (1.21%) CA Release Automation
10 4 (1.21%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.91%) Gradle
11 3 (0.91%) Mockito
11 3 (0.91%) Snyk
General
1 98 (29.70%) Social Skills
2 60 (18.18%) Finance
3 49 (14.85%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (10.00%) Banking
5 29 (8.79%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.94%) Manufacturing
7 10 (3.03%) Investment Banking
8 9 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (2.12%) Legal
9 7 (2.12%) Marketing
9 7 (2.12%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.82%) Electronics
10 6 (1.82%) Front Office
11 4 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.21%) Law
12 3 (0.91%) Games
12 3 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.61%) Military
13 2 (0.61%) Retail
Job Titles
1 36 (10.91%) Senior
2 32 (9.70%) DevOps Engineer
3 24 (7.27%) Analyst
3 24 (7.27%) Developer
4 20 (6.06%) Administrator
5 18 (5.45%) Network Engineer
5 18 (5.45%) Python Engineer
6 16 (4.85%) Automation Engineer
6 16 (4.85%) DBA
7 13 (3.94%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 12 (3.64%) Data Engineer
9 11 (3.33%) Support Engineer
10 10 (3.03%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 10 (3.03%) Consultant
10 10 (3.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 9 (2.73%) Data Analyst
11 9 (2.73%) NetBackup Engineer
11 9 (2.73%) Site Engineer
12 8 (2.42%) AWS Engineer
12 8 (2.42%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (6.67%) REST
2 16 (4.85%) OAuth
3 15 (4.55%) FastAPI
4 13 (3.94%) LDAP
4 13 (3.94%) RESTful
5 11 (3.33%) Elastic Stack
5 11 (3.33%) GraphQL
5 11 (3.33%) Kafka
5 11 (3.33%) OpenID
5 11 (3.33%) SAML
6 9 (2.73%) .NET
6 9 (2.73%) React
7 8 (2.42%) Node.js
7 8 (2.42%) YAML
8 7 (2.12%) Flask
8 7 (2.12%) SailPoint
9 6 (1.82%) ARM Templates
9 6 (1.82%) LangChain
10 5 (1.52%) Hugging Face
10 5 (1.52%) mypy
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.45%) Distributed Systems
2 15 (4.55%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.64%) Enterprise Software
3 12 (3.64%) Onboarding
4 11 (3.33%) Management Information System
5 10 (3.03%) Cyber Threat
6 9 (2.73%) AI Agents
6 9 (2.73%) Private Cloud
7 8 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (2.42%) Public Cloud
7 8 (2.42%) Security Posture
8 7 (2.12%) Replication
9 6 (1.82%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.82%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
10 5 (1.52%) Clustering
11 4 (1.21%) Security Operations Centre
12 3 (0.91%) Data Structures
12 3 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
12 3 (0.91%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 75 (22.73%) Linux
2 52 (15.76%) Windows
3 31 (9.39%) Unix
4 14 (4.24%) Windows Server
5 7 (2.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (1.82%) Mac OS
7 5 (1.52%) Windows 10
8 4 (1.21%) CentOS
8 4 (1.21%) VMS
9 3 (0.91%) AIX
10 2 (0.61%) Solaris
10 2 (0.61%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.30%) Debian
11 1 (0.30%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (34.55%) Problem-Solving
2 102 (30.91%) CI/CD
3 99 (30.00%) DevOps
4 69 (20.91%) Agile
5 57 (17.27%) Containerisation
6 56 (16.97%) Infrastructure as Code
7 42 (12.73%) Disaster Recovery
8 36 (10.91%) Migration
9 35 (10.61%) High Availability
10 34 (10.30%) Artificial Intelligence
11 32 (9.70%) Site Reliability Engineering
12 27 (8.18%) Identity Access Management
13 25 (7.58%) Configuration Management
13 25 (7.58%) Data Protection
14 24 (7.27%) Analytics
14 24 (7.27%) Microservices
14 24 (7.27%) Software Engineering
15 22 (6.67%) Cloud Security
15 22 (6.67%) Computer Science
15 22 (6.67%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 199 (60.30%) Python
2 99 (30.00%) PowerShell
3 70 (21.21%) Bash
4 65 (19.70%) SQL
5 43 (13.03%) Java
6 29 (8.79%) Shell Script
7 24 (7.27%) Go
8 14 (4.24%) JavaScript
8 14 (4.24%) Perl
9 12 (3.64%) Bicep
9 12 (3.64%) TypeScript
10 11 (3.33%) C#
11 7 (2.12%) Groovy
11 7 (2.12%) PL/SQL
12 6 (1.82%) T-SQL
13 5 (1.52%) VBA
14 4 (1.21%) Kusto Query Language
15 3 (0.91%) VB
16 2 (0.61%) PHP
16 2 (0.61%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 66 (20.00%) Security Cleared
2 54 (16.36%) SC Cleared
3 30 (9.09%) Degree
4 18 (5.45%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (1.82%) CCNP
6 6 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
6 6 (1.82%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.82%) Master's Degree
6 6 (1.82%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (1.52%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.52%) CISSP
7 5 (1.52%) GIAC
8 4 (1.21%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.21%) CFCE
8 4 (1.21%) GCFA
8 4 (1.21%) GCIA
8 4 (1.21%) GCIH
9 3 (0.91%) CCDP
10 2 (0.61%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.15%) GDPR
2 16 (4.85%) QA
3 13 (3.94%) Data Quality
4 11 (3.33%) HIPAA
5 10 (3.03%) NIST
6 7 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (1.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 4 (1.21%) SLA
8 4 (1.21%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.61%) EU AI Act
10 2 (0.61%) PMO
11 1 (0.30%) IFRS
11 1 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.30%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 59 (17.88%) Docker
2 33 (10.00%) Active Directory
3 20 (6.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (4.55%) Oracle RAC
5 10 (3.03%) Firmware
6 8 (2.42%) Hyper-V
7 5 (1.52%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (1.21%) Tivoli Directory Server
9 3 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.91%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.91%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.30%) iptables
10 1 (0.30%) KVM
10 1 (0.30%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.30%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 75 (22.73%) Kubernetes
2 70 (21.21%) Terraform
3 56 (16.97%) Ansible
4 25 (7.58%) Grafana
5 23 (6.97%) Prometheus
6 15 (4.55%) Oracle RMAN
6 15 (4.55%) Progress Chef
7 12 (3.64%) Puppet
7 12 (3.64%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (3.33%) Data Guard
9 10 (3.03%) NetBackup
9 10 (3.03%) SCCM
10 9 (2.73%) yum
11 6 (1.82%) Microsoft Intune
11 6 (1.82%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 4 (1.21%) CA Single Sign-On
12 4 (1.21%) CA Wily
12 4 (1.21%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
12 4 (1.21%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
12 4 (1.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 87 (26.36%) Microsoft
2 40 (12.12%) Oracle
3 37 (11.21%) Google
4 25 (7.58%) VMware
5 21 (6.36%) Splunk
6 18 (5.45%) Cisco
7 16 (4.85%) CyberArk
8 13 (3.94%) Atlassian
8 13 (3.94%) SAP
9 11 (3.33%) BeyondTrust
9 11 (3.33%) Palo Alto
9 11 (3.33%) Veritas
10 10 (3.03%) F5
11 8 (2.42%) IBM
11 8 (2.42%) Red Hat
11 8 (2.42%) ServiceNow
12 7 (2.12%) OpenAI
12 7 (2.12%) Ping Identity
13 6 (1.82%) Okta
14 5 (1.52%) Databricks