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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 387 255 245
Rank change year-on-year -132 -10 +200
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 310 340 369
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.58% 1.04% 0.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.68% 1.15% 1.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 206 191 264
10th Percentile £300 £306 £381
25th Percentile £400 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.58% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £556 £588 £638
90th Percentile £625 £671 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £488
% change year-on-year +4.71% -2.05% -2.50%
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 45,469 29,582 33,102
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.43% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,813 18,412 20,921
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,891 1,754 1,674
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.92 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.80% -46.07% +6.25%

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 August 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 August 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 28 August 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 -117 269 £485 -3.00% 356
UK excluding London -102 157 £500 +4.71% 155
London -102 119 £451 -9.75% 232
Work from Home -69 90 £500 - 134
North of England -46 63 £500 +5.26% 27
South East -31 48 £515 +4.47% 41
Yorkshire -27 37 £500 +4.17% 4
North West -46 22 £492 +3.58% 22
Midlands -62 17 £588 +14.08% 27
Scotland -28 13 £469 -0.79% 6
South West -27 11 £325 -37.50% 27
West Midlands -70 10 £600 +15.50% 21
East Midlands -15 7 £413 +7.14% 6
North East -36 4 £275 +37.50% 1
East of England -37 4 £550 +12.24% 17
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 10

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 39 (12.58%) SharePoint
2 21 (6.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.94%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (1.94%) Confluence
4 5 (1.61%) JBoss
5 4 (1.29%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.97%) CMS
7 2 (0.65%) Apache
7 2 (0.65%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.32%) FactoryTalk
8 1 (0.32%) IIS
8 1 (0.32%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.32%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 7 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.29%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.61%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (1.29%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.29%) Remedy AR System
3 2 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.32%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.32%) FLEXCUBE
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.32%) PeopleSoft HCM
4 1 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.32%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 120 (38.71%) Azure
2 74 (23.87%) AWS
3 57 (18.39%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (12.58%) Entra ID
5 35 (11.29%) GitHub
6 32 (10.32%) Azure DevOps
6 32 (10.32%) Power Platform
7 27 (8.71%) GitHub Actions
8 25 (8.06%) Azure Monitor
9 23 (7.42%) GCP
10 21 (6.77%) Microsoft Copilot
11 20 (6.45%) Power Automate
12 18 (5.81%) Amazon S3
13 17 (5.48%) Datadog
14 15 (4.84%) OneDrive
15 14 (4.52%) OpenShift
16 13 (4.19%) AWS Lambda
16 13 (4.19%) Azure Key Vault
16 13 (4.19%) SaaS
16 13 (4.19%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 49 (15.81%) DNS
2 31 (10.00%) DHCP
3 28 (9.03%) VPN
4 25 (8.06%) Firewall
5 20 (6.45%) TCP/IP
6 16 (5.16%) Network Security
7 10 (3.23%) SAN
7 10 (3.23%) VLAN
8 9 (2.90%) WAN
9 8 (2.58%) SD-WAN
9 8 (2.58%) SSH
10 7 (2.26%) Kerberos
11 5 (1.61%) BIG-IP
11 5 (1.61%) LAN
11 5 (1.61%) Wireless
12 4 (1.29%) Intranet
12 4 (1.29%) PSTN
12 4 (1.29%) Skype
13 3 (0.97%) SNMP
13 3 (0.97%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (10.00%) SQL Server
2 14 (4.52%) Power BI
3 13 (4.19%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (2.90%) Amazon RDS
4 9 (2.90%) Big Data
5 7 (2.26%) Relational Database
6 6 (1.94%) Hadoop
6 6 (1.94%) Metadata
6 6 (1.94%) MySQL
6 6 (1.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (1.94%) Sybase ASE
7 5 (1.61%) Data Lake
7 5 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (1.29%) EDRMS
8 4 (1.29%) Snowflake Schema
8 4 (1.29%) Tableau
9 3 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.97%) BigQuery
9 3 (0.97%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.65%) SSDT
Development Applications
1 35 (11.29%) Git
2 25 (8.06%) GitLab
3 22 (7.10%) Jenkins
4 13 (4.19%) JIRA
5 5 (1.61%) SonarQube
5 5 (1.61%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.29%) Oracle Forms
7 3 (0.97%) AdminStudio
7 3 (0.97%) Flyway
7 3 (0.97%) InstallShield
7 3 (0.97%) Selenium
8 2 (0.65%) Artifactory
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%) Snyk
8 2 (0.65%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.32%) Visual Studio
General
1 106 (34.19%) Social Skills
2 60 (19.35%) Analytical Skills
3 51 (16.45%) Finance
4 29 (9.35%) Banking
5 17 (5.48%) Legal
5 17 (5.48%) Public Sector
6 13 (4.19%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (1.94%) Financial Institution
8 6 (1.94%) Front Office
9 4 (1.29%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.97%) Law
10 3 (0.97%) Military
10 3 (0.97%) Retail
11 2 (0.65%) Billing
11 2 (0.65%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.65%) Marketing
12 1 (0.32%) Local Government
12 1 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 31 (10.00%) Senior
2 29 (9.35%) Support Engineer
3 28 (9.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 23 (7.42%) Developer
5 19 (6.13%) DBA
5 19 (6.13%) DevOps Engineer
6 17 (5.48%) Platform Engineer
7 16 (5.16%) Analyst
7 16 (5.16%) Consultant
8 15 (4.84%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 14 (4.52%) Data Engineer
10 13 (4.19%) Cloud Engineer
11 12 (3.87%) Architect
12 11 (3.55%) Site Engineer
13 10 (3.23%) Lead
13 10 (3.23%) Systems Engineer
14 9 (2.90%) Administrator
14 9 (2.90%) Linux Engineer
15 8 (2.58%) Security Engineer
15 8 (2.58%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (17.10%) Terraform
2 35 (11.29%) REST
3 18 (5.81%) .NET
4 14 (4.52%) SOAP
5 12 (3.87%) ARM Templates
5 12 (3.87%) Microsoft Graph
5 12 (3.87%) React
6 11 (3.55%) CSS
6 11 (3.55%) JSON
6 11 (3.55%) Kafka
6 11 (3.55%) SPFx
7 9 (2.90%) .NET Framework
7 9 (2.90%) Elastic Stack
7 9 (2.90%) YAML
8 8 (2.58%) HTML
8 8 (2.58%) Web Services
9 7 (2.26%) AWS CDK
10 5 (1.61%) LangChain
10 5 (1.61%) Node.js
10 5 (1.61%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.42%) Onboarding
2 16 (5.16%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (4.84%) Cloud Native
4 14 (4.52%) AI Agents
5 13 (4.19%) Data Protection Act
5 13 (4.19%) Product Ownership
6 12 (3.87%) Distributed Systems
7 11 (3.55%) Clustering
7 11 (3.55%) Management Information System
7 11 (3.55%) Replication
8 10 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (2.90%) Private Cloud
10 8 (2.58%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (1.94%) CMDB
12 6 (1.94%) Data Centre
12 6 (1.94%) Public Cloud
13 5 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
13 5 (1.61%) Autonomous Agent
13 5 (1.61%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 70 (22.58%) Windows
2 56 (18.06%) Linux
3 27 (8.71%) Windows Server
4 21 (6.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (5.16%) Windows 10
6 11 (3.55%) Unix
7 10 (3.23%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (1.94%) Mac OS
8 6 (1.94%) Windows 7
9 5 (1.61%) Android
9 5 (1.61%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (0.97%) VMS
10 3 (0.97%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.65%) AIX
11 2 (0.65%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.65%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.65%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.65%) zOS
12 1 (0.32%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (27.10%) CI/CD
2 80 (25.81%) DevOps
3 75 (24.19%) Problem-Solving
4 69 (22.26%) ITIL
5 60 (19.35%) AI
6 58 (18.71%) Agile
7 55 (17.74%) Infrastructure as Code
8 46 (14.84%) Continuous Improvement
8 46 (14.84%) Observability
9 44 (14.19%) Analytics
10 43 (13.87%) Migration
11 42 (13.55%) Performance Tuning
12 38 (12.26%) Disaster Recovery
12 38 (12.26%) Root Cause Analysis
12 38 (12.26%) Workflow
13 35 (11.29%) Runbook
14 34 (10.97%) High Availability
15 32 (10.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 32 (10.32%) ITSM
16 31 (10.00%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 127 (40.97%) Python
2 121 (39.03%) PowerShell
3 63 (20.32%) SQL
4 51 (16.45%) Bash
5 35 (11.29%) JavaScript
6 18 (5.81%) Java
7 17 (5.48%) Bicep
8 15 (4.84%) TypeScript
9 14 (4.52%) C#
10 11 (3.55%) T-SQL
11 10 (3.23%) Go
11 10 (3.23%) Shell Script
12 9 (2.90%) Kusto Query Language
13 6 (1.94%) PL/SQL
13 6 (1.94%) VBScript
14 4 (1.29%) Scala
15 3 (0.97%) Perl
16 2 (0.65%) REXX
17 1 (0.32%) ABAP
17 1 (0.32%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 101 (32.58%) Security Cleared
2 64 (20.65%) SC Cleared
3 35 (11.29%) DV Cleared
4 34 (10.97%) Degree
5 20 (6.45%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (3.87%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (3.23%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.61%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.61%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.97%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (0.97%) CCNA
10 3 (0.97%) CCNP
11 2 (0.65%) CIPD
11 2 (0.65%) CISM
11 2 (0.65%) CISSP
11 2 (0.65%) GSEC
11 2 (0.65%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.65%) MCITP
11 2 (0.65%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (8.39%) Data Quality
2 16 (5.16%) SLA
3 9 (2.90%) QA
4 8 (2.58%) NIST
5 5 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.65%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.32%) GDPR
7 1 (0.32%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.32%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.32%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 66 (21.29%) Active Directory
2 30 (9.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (8.39%) Docker
4 11 (3.55%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (3.23%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (2.90%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (2.26%) Hyper-V
7 7 (2.26%) NFS
8 4 (1.29%) vSphere
9 2 (0.65%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.65%) Firmware
9 2 (0.65%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.32%) NDS
10 1 (0.32%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 1 (0.32%) OpenSSH
10 1 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.32%) UAG
10 1 (0.32%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 48 (15.48%) Ansible
2 35 (11.29%) Kubernetes
3 30 (9.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (8.39%) SCCM
5 16 (5.16%) Grafana
5 16 (5.16%) Puppet
6 14 (4.52%) Prometheus
6 14 (4.52%) SCOM
7 12 (3.87%) Progress Chef
7 12 (3.87%) vCenter Server
8 11 (3.55%) Red Hat Satellite
9 6 (1.94%) Failover Clustering
9 6 (1.94%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.97%) Istio
10 3 (0.97%) WSUS
11 2 (0.65%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.65%) Foglight
11 2 (0.65%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.65%) Nagios
11 2 (0.65%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 114 (36.77%) Microsoft
2 34 (10.97%) VMware
3 21 (6.77%) Oracle
3 21 (6.77%) ServiceNow
4 19 (6.13%) Google
4 19 (6.13%) Red Hat
5 16 (5.16%) Splunk
6 12 (3.87%) Cisco
6 12 (3.87%) SolarWinds
7 9 (2.90%) Broadcom
8 8 (2.58%) Databricks
8 8 (2.58%) OpenAI
9 7 (2.26%) AppDynamics
10 6 (1.94%) BMC
10 6 (1.94%) F5
10 6 (1.94%) Sybase
11 5 (1.61%) Citrix
11 5 (1.61%) Ivanti
11 5 (1.61%) Palo Alto
11 5 (1.61%) Remedy