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 7 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 253 222 388
Rank change year-on-year -31 +166 +73
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 403 355 230
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.03% 1.14% 0.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.19% 1.28% 0.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 284 221 176
10th Percentile £325 £332 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £449
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £601 £575 £603
90th Percentile £750 £656 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £470 £500
% change year-on-year -1.06% -6.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 10 0
10th Percentile £47.98 £21.00 -
25th Percentile £50.94 £21.31 -
Median hourly rate £56.25 £26.83 -
Median % change year-on-year +109.65% - -
75th Percentile £61.94 £57.79 -
90th Percentile £65.13 £66.81 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £23.77 -
% change year-on-year +179.79% - -

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 33,986 27,793 39,321
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.08% 89.38% 87.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,549 16,924 25,862
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £716 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -3.88% -0.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,070 859 2,130
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +7.69%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.50 £61.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.51 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.20% -9.97% +11.43%

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 7 February 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 7 February 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 7 February 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 -42 338 £500 +5.26% 109
UK excluding London -36 197 £465 -1.06% 86
London -15 163 £575 +9.52% 32
Work from Home +34 151 £540 +12.98% 56
North of England -39 62 £449 -3.55% 24
South East -15 41 £430 +7.44% 27
Midlands -32 38 £519 +7.23% 11
West Midlands -24 37 £520 +5.59% 7
Yorkshire -30 37 £450 +9.09% 8
Scotland +8 26 £460 -4.17% 2
North West -34 21 £448 -4.68% 11
South West -30 18 £525 +11.11% 14
East of England -29 8 £500 +8.11% 12
North East -13 4 £365 -22.34% 5
Wales - 4 £525 - 1
Northern Ireland - 2 £683 - 1
East Midlands -29 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 24 (5.96%) Microsoft Exchange
2 21 (5.21%) SharePoint
3 9 (2.23%) Confluence
4 8 (1.99%) IIS
5 7 (1.74%) Appian
6 6 (1.49%) Apache
7 5 (1.24%) iPlanet
7 5 (1.24%) JBoss
7 5 (1.24%) WebSphere
7 5 (1.24%) WebSphere Application Server
8 4 (0.99%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.50%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.50%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.25%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.25%) CMS
11 1 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 20 (4.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.99%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.74%) Chatbot
3 3 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.50%) Maximo
1 2 (0.50%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
1 2 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 193 (47.89%) Azure
2 137 (34.00%) AWS
3 99 (24.57%) GCP
4 50 (12.41%) Entra ID
5 41 (10.17%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (9.93%) GitHub
7 37 (9.18%) OpenShift
8 29 (7.20%) GitHub Actions
9 25 (6.20%) AWS CloudFormation
9 25 (6.20%) Azure DevOps
10 23 (5.71%) Serverless
11 19 (4.71%) Power Automate
11 19 (4.71%) Power Platform
12 16 (3.97%) Amazon S3
13 13 (3.23%) Amazon EKS
13 13 (3.23%) Datadog
14 12 (2.98%) AWS Lambda
14 12 (2.98%) Azure Monitor
14 12 (2.98%) OneDrive
14 12 (2.98%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 37 (9.18%) DNS
2 33 (8.19%) Firewall
3 29 (7.20%) DHCP
4 21 (5.21%) Kerberos
5 18 (4.47%) SSH
6 16 (3.97%) TCP/IP
7 12 (2.98%) Network Security
7 12 (2.98%) VPN
8 7 (1.74%) WAN
9 6 (1.49%) LAN
10 4 (0.99%) AMQP
10 4 (0.99%) HTTP
11 3 (0.74%) Cisco IOS
11 3 (0.74%) SSL
11 3 (0.74%) WLAN
12 2 (0.50%) BGP
12 2 (0.50%) DWDM
12 2 (0.50%) Internet
12 2 (0.50%) SAN
12 2 (0.50%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (6.95%) SQL Server
2 26 (6.45%) PostgreSQL
3 20 (4.96%) Relational Database
4 13 (3.23%) Oracle Database
4 13 (3.23%) Power BI
5 10 (2.48%) Amazon RDS
5 10 (2.48%) MySQL
6 8 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (1.99%) Pinecone
7 6 (1.49%) RDBMS
8 5 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (1.24%) Metadata
8 5 (1.24%) MongoDB
8 5 (1.24%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.99%) BigQuery
9 4 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (0.99%) InfluxDB
9 4 (0.99%) Power Query
9 4 (0.99%) Snowflake Schema
9 4 (0.99%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 54 (13.40%) Jenkins
2 43 (10.67%) Git
3 36 (8.93%) GitLab
4 18 (4.47%) JIRA
5 17 (4.22%) Sonatype Nexus
6 10 (2.48%) CircleCI
7 8 (1.99%) Bitbucket
7 8 (1.99%) Maven
8 7 (1.74%) MLflow
9 6 (1.49%) SonarQube
10 5 (1.24%) Artifactory
10 5 (1.24%) Bitbucket Server
10 5 (1.24%) CA Release Automation
10 5 (1.24%) Gatling
10 5 (1.24%) JMeter
10 5 (1.24%) JUnit
10 5 (1.24%) LoadRunner
10 5 (1.24%) Postman
10 5 (1.24%) Selenium
11 4 (0.99%) Cypress.io
General
1 158 (39.21%) Social Skills
2 71 (17.62%) Finance
3 56 (13.90%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (9.43%) Public Sector
5 27 (6.70%) Banking
6 7 (1.74%) Investment Banking
6 7 (1.74%) Legal
6 7 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.24%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.24%) Retail
9 4 (0.99%) Games
9 4 (0.99%) Military
9 4 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.74%) Financial Institution
10 3 (0.74%) Law
11 2 (0.50%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.50%) Front Office
11 2 (0.50%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 47 (11.66%) Developer
2 41 (10.17%) Architect
3 37 (9.18%) CyberArk Architect
4 27 (6.70%) Administrator
4 27 (6.70%) DevOps Engineer
5 22 (5.46%) Automation Engineer
6 21 (5.21%) Analyst
6 21 (5.21%) Platform Engineer
6 21 (5.21%) Senior
7 17 (4.22%) Java Developer
7 17 (4.22%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 15 (3.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 14 (3.47%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
9 14 (3.47%) DBA
10 13 (3.23%) Lead
11 12 (2.98%) Site Engineer
12 11 (2.73%) Support Engineer
13 10 (2.48%) Consultant
13 10 (2.48%) Data Engineer
14 9 (2.23%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (15.63%) REST
2 54 (13.40%) LDAP
3 41 (10.17%) SOAP
4 32 (7.94%) OAuth
5 25 (6.20%) Elastic Stack
5 25 (6.20%) Node.js
6 23 (5.71%) SAML
7 16 (3.97%) .NET
7 16 (3.97%) Web Services
8 13 (3.23%) Kafka
9 12 (2.98%) RESTful
10 11 (2.73%) Microsoft Graph
10 11 (2.73%) Pandas
11 10 (2.48%) FastAPI
11 10 (2.48%) JWT
11 10 (2.48%) NumPy
12 9 (2.23%) JSON
12 9 (2.23%) OpenID
12 9 (2.23%) PyTorch
13 8 (1.99%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 44 (10.92%) Security Posture
2 43 (10.67%) Enterprise Software
3 22 (5.46%) Cloud Native
3 22 (5.46%) Onboarding
4 20 (4.96%) Replication
5 13 (3.23%) Distributed Systems
6 10 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (2.23%) Low-Code
8 8 (1.99%) Clustering
8 8 (1.99%) Data Centre
9 7 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
9 7 (1.74%) PKI
9 7 (1.74%) Private Cloud
10 6 (1.49%) Management Information System
11 5 (1.24%) AI Agents
11 5 (1.24%) Linux Command Line
11 5 (1.24%) Product Ownership
12 4 (0.99%) Security Operations Centre
12 4 (0.99%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 111 (27.54%) Linux
2 87 (21.59%) Windows
3 37 (9.18%) Windows Server
4 28 (6.95%) Unix
5 15 (3.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (2.48%) VMS
7 8 (1.99%) CentOS
8 4 (0.99%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.99%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.74%) AIX
9 3 (0.74%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.50%) Android
10 2 (0.50%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.50%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.50%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (38.46%) Problem-Solving
2 137 (34.00%) CI/CD
3 101 (25.06%) DevOps
4 68 (16.87%) Infrastructure as Code
5 64 (15.88%) Containerisation
6 57 (14.14%) SIEM
7 56 (13.90%) Agile
8 47 (11.66%) Continuous Improvement
8 47 (11.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 46 (11.41%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 45 (11.17%) Disaster Recovery
10 45 (11.17%) Migration
11 44 (10.92%) Observability
12 43 (10.67%) High Availability
12 43 (10.67%) Technical Leadership
13 41 (10.17%) Configuration Management
14 40 (9.93%) AI
14 40 (9.93%) Identity Access Management
14 40 (9.93%) Privileged Access Management
14 40 (9.93%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 214 (53.10%) Python
2 158 (39.21%) PowerShell
3 71 (17.62%) Bash
4 66 (16.38%) SQL
5 51 (12.66%) Java
6 38 (9.43%) Shell Script
7 27 (6.70%) Go
8 26 (6.45%) JavaScript
9 21 (5.21%) TypeScript
10 17 (4.22%) C#
11 14 (3.47%) Kusto Query Language
12 11 (2.73%) VBA
13 10 (2.48%) Perl
14 8 (1.99%) Bicep
15 7 (1.74%) PL/SQL
16 6 (1.49%) Groovy
17 3 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 3 (0.74%) PHP
17 3 (0.74%) Ruby
18 2 (0.50%) Korn
Qualifications
1 139 (34.49%) Security Cleared
2 107 (26.55%) SC Cleared
3 28 (6.95%) Degree
4 25 (6.20%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 15 (3.72%) DV Cleared
6 13 (3.23%) Azure Certification
7 11 (2.73%) CISSP
8 9 (2.23%) AWS Certification
8 9 (2.23%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.74%) OCP
9 7 (1.74%) Oracle Certification
10 6 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (1.24%) CCNP
11 5 (1.24%) Master's Degree
12 4 (0.99%) CISM
12 4 (0.99%) GCFA
12 4 (0.99%) GCIA
12 4 (0.99%) GCIH
12 4 (0.99%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (9.43%) GDPR
2 24 (5.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 18 (4.47%) NIST
4 14 (3.47%) Data Quality
4 14 (3.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (2.48%) QA
6 7 (1.74%) SLA
7 5 (1.24%) HIPAA
7 5 (1.24%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.99%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.50%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.50%) EU AI Act
9 2 (0.50%) GRC
10 1 (0.25%) COBIT
10 1 (0.25%) GMP
10 1 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.25%) PMO
System Software
1 93 (23.08%) Active Directory
2 62 (15.38%) Docker
3 26 (6.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.24%) Tivoli Directory Server
6 4 (0.99%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.99%) KVM
7 3 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.74%) vSphere
7 3 (0.74%) Xen
8 2 (0.50%) NFS
8 2 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
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 ESXi
9 1 (0.25%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 85 (21.09%) Kubernetes
2 84 (20.84%) Terraform
3 71 (17.62%) Ansible
4 45 (11.17%) Grafana
5 37 (9.18%) Prometheus
6 25 (6.20%) Single Sign-On
7 23 (5.71%) Progress Chef
8 16 (3.97%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (3.72%) Microsoft Intune
10 14 (3.47%) Puppet
11 12 (2.98%) SCCM
12 11 (2.73%) Oracle RMAN
13 7 (1.74%) Podman
14 6 (1.49%) CA Single Sign-On
14 6 (1.49%) NetBackup
14 6 (1.49%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
15 5 (1.24%) CA Wily
15 5 (1.24%) Kibana
15 5 (1.24%) logstash
15 5 (1.24%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 103 (25.56%) Microsoft
2 51 (12.66%) CyberArk
3 41 (10.17%) BeyondTrust
4 37 (9.18%) Google
4 37 (9.18%) Oracle
5 34 (8.44%) Centrify
6 33 (8.19%) Splunk
7 28 (6.95%) VMware
8 20 (4.96%) Red Hat
9 19 (4.71%) Okta
10 16 (3.97%) ServiceNow
11 14 (3.47%) OpenAI
12 9 (2.23%) Cisco
13 8 (1.99%) Databricks
14 7 (1.74%) Automation Anywhere
14 7 (1.74%) IBM
14 7 (1.74%) UiPath
15 6 (1.49%) AppDynamics
15 6 (1.49%) Palo Alto
15 6 (1.49%) Veritas