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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 391 255 250
Rank change year-on-year -136 -5 +188
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 295 345 362
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 1.04% 0.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.65% 1.15% 1.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 198 195 266
10th Percentile £300 £312 £400
25th Percentile £400 £406 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +2.80%
75th Percentile £556 £588 £675
90th Percentile £629 £675 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £508
% change year-on-year +4.17% -5.42% +0.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 9 3
10th Percentile - £18.35 -
25th Percentile £16.33 £26.25 -
Median hourly rate £22.16 £63.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -65.11% +166.81% -73.56%
75th Percentile £24.68 £65.25 -
90th Percentile £38.64 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £65.00 -
% change year-on-year -66.92% - -

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 45,145 29,940 33,399
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.95% 90.42% 85.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,873 18,766 21,491
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £734 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,760 1,664 1,872
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £18.14
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.63 £40.94
% change year-on-year +86.03% -42.28% +2.35%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -129 255 £475 -5.00% 165
UK excluding London -98 156 £500 +4.17% 111
London -95 107 £451 -10.69% 74
Work from Home -73 91 £465 -7.00% 75
North of England -43 65 £500 +4.17% 27
Yorkshire -18 46 £500 -4.76% 6
South East -44 46 £475 -0.52% 30
North West -53 16 £510 +7.37% 19
Midlands -54 16 £575 +15.00% 17
Scotland -24 14 £438 -7.65% 6
South West -39 11 £385 -28.04% 12
West Midlands -65 11 £600 +16.79% 10
East Midlands -17 5 £413 +7.14% 7
East of England -35 3 £550 +15.79% 15
North East -37 3 £275 -26.67% 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 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 43 (14.58%) SharePoint
2 24 (8.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.71%) Confluence
4 4 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.02%) CMS
6 2 (0.68%) Apache
6 2 (0.68%) JBoss
6 2 (0.68%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.34%) Appian
7 1 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.34%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.34%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 7 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.36%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.34%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (1.36%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.02%) Remedy AR System
3 1 (0.34%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.34%) FLEXCUBE
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.34%) PeopleSoft HCM
3 1 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.34%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 124 (42.03%) Azure
2 71 (24.07%) AWS
3 59 (20.00%) Microsoft 365
4 44 (14.92%) Entra ID
5 41 (13.90%) GitHub
6 33 (11.19%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (9.83%) GitHub Actions
8 28 (9.49%) GCP
9 27 (9.15%) Power Platform
10 22 (7.46%) Azure Monitor
11 20 (6.78%) Power Automate
12 19 (6.44%) OpenShift
13 17 (5.76%) Microsoft Copilot
14 16 (5.42%) Azure Key Vault
14 16 (5.42%) Datadog
15 15 (5.08%) Amazon S3
15 15 (5.08%) OneDrive
16 14 (4.75%) PaaS
16 14 (4.75%) PowerApps
17 11 (3.73%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 39 (13.22%) DNS
2 25 (8.47%) DHCP
3 24 (8.14%) Firewall
3 24 (8.14%) VPN
4 16 (5.42%) TCP/IP
5 13 (4.41%) Network Security
5 13 (4.41%) SAN
6 9 (3.05%) VLAN
7 8 (2.71%) SSH
8 7 (2.37%) SD-WAN
8 7 (2.37%) WAN
9 4 (1.36%) Intranet
9 4 (1.36%) Kerberos
9 4 (1.36%) LAN
9 4 (1.36%) Skype
9 4 (1.36%) SNMP
10 3 (1.02%) BGP
10 3 (1.02%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (1.02%) OSPF
10 3 (1.02%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (10.51%) SQL Server
2 12 (4.07%) Power BI
3 9 (3.05%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (2.71%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (2.37%) MySQL
5 7 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (2.37%) Relational Database
6 6 (2.03%) Big Data
6 6 (2.03%) Metadata
6 6 (2.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (2.03%) Sybase ASE
7 4 (1.36%) EDRMS
7 4 (1.36%) Snowflake Schema
7 4 (1.36%) Tableau
8 3 (1.02%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (1.02%) DTS
8 3 (1.02%) Hadoop
8 3 (1.02%) MongoDB
8 3 (1.02%) Oracle Database
8 3 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 32 (10.85%) Git
2 27 (9.15%) GitLab
2 27 (9.15%) Jenkins
3 16 (5.42%) JIRA
4 6 (2.03%) SonarQube
4 6 (2.03%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (1.36%) Flyway
6 3 (1.02%) AdminStudio
6 3 (1.02%) InstallShield
6 3 (1.02%) Selenium
7 2 (0.68%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.68%) Claude Code
7 2 (0.68%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.68%) JUnit
7 2 (0.68%) Maven
7 2 (0.68%) Postman
7 2 (0.68%) Snyk
7 2 (0.68%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.34%) MLflow
8 1 (0.34%) REST Assured
General
1 102 (34.58%) Social Skills
2 52 (17.63%) Analytical Skills
3 48 (16.27%) Finance
4 29 (9.83%) Banking
5 17 (5.76%) Public Sector
6 16 (5.42%) Legal
7 11 (3.73%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (2.37%) Financial Institution
10 6 (2.03%) Front Office
11 5 (1.69%) Investment Banking
12 4 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (1.02%) Law
13 3 (1.02%) Military
14 2 (0.68%) Retail
15 1 (0.34%) Billing
15 1 (0.34%) International Banking
15 1 (0.34%) Local Government
15 1 (0.34%) Marketing
15 1 (0.34%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 28 (9.49%) Developer
2 24 (8.14%) Senior
3 22 (7.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 21 (7.12%) DBA
4 21 (7.12%) Support Engineer
5 18 (6.10%) Consultant
6 17 (5.76%) DevOps Engineer
7 16 (5.42%) Platform Engineer
8 15 (5.08%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 12 (4.07%) Analyst
9 12 (4.07%) Site Engineer
10 11 (3.73%) Azure Developer
10 11 (3.73%) SQL DBA
11 10 (3.39%) Architect
11 10 (3.39%) Cloud Engineer
11 10 (3.39%) Data Engineer
11 10 (3.39%) Lead
12 9 (3.05%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 9 (3.05%) Microsoft 365 Developer
13 8 (2.71%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (12.54%) REST
2 22 (7.46%) .NET
3 16 (5.42%) SOAP
4 15 (5.08%) Microsoft Graph
5 12 (4.07%) .NET Framework
5 12 (4.07%) ARM Templates
5 12 (4.07%) React
5 12 (4.07%) Web Services
6 11 (3.73%) CSS
6 11 (3.73%) JSON
6 11 (3.73%) SPFx
7 9 (3.05%) Elastic Stack
8 8 (2.71%) AWS CDK
8 8 (2.71%) HTML
9 7 (2.37%) Kafka
10 6 (2.03%) Node.js
10 6 (2.03%) YAML
11 5 (1.69%) ASP.NET
11 5 (1.69%) LangChain
12 4 (1.36%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.80%) Onboarding
2 16 (5.42%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (4.75%) AI Agents
4 12 (4.07%) Distributed Systems
4 12 (4.07%) Legacy Systems
4 12 (4.07%) Replication
5 11 (3.73%) Cloud Native
5 11 (3.73%) Product Ownership
6 10 (3.39%) Management Information System
7 9 (3.05%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (2.71%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (2.37%) Clustering
9 7 (2.37%) CMDB
9 7 (2.37%) Private Cloud
9 7 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (2.03%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (2.03%) Data Centre
11 5 (1.69%) FlexPod
11 5 (1.69%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.69%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 61 (20.68%) Windows
2 59 (20.00%) Linux
3 22 (7.46%) Windows Server
4 21 (7.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (3.73%) Unix
6 10 (3.39%) Windows 10
7 7 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (2.03%) VMS
9 5 (1.69%) CoreOS
9 5 (1.69%) Data ONTAP
9 5 (1.69%) Mac OS
10 4 (1.36%) Android
11 2 (0.68%) AIX
11 2 (0.68%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.68%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.34%) CentOS
12 1 (0.34%) Solaris
12 1 (0.34%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.34%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (27.12%) DevOps
2 78 (26.44%) CI/CD
3 72 (24.41%) Problem-Solving
4 61 (20.68%) ITIL
5 57 (19.32%) AI
6 54 (18.31%) Agile
7 51 (17.29%) Infrastructure as Code
8 45 (15.25%) Migration
9 41 (13.90%) Analytics
9 41 (13.90%) Continuous Improvement
9 41 (13.90%) Observability
10 37 (12.54%) Disaster Recovery
11 35 (11.86%) Performance Tuning
12 34 (11.53%) Workflow
13 33 (11.19%) High Availability
14 31 (10.51%) Change Management
15 30 (10.17%) Data Protection
16 28 (9.49%) Containerisation
17 27 (9.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 27 (9.15%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 118 (40.00%) Python
2 109 (36.95%) PowerShell
3 55 (18.64%) SQL
4 49 (16.61%) Bash
5 30 (10.17%) JavaScript
6 18 (6.10%) C#
7 16 (5.42%) Java
7 16 (5.42%) TypeScript
8 12 (4.07%) Bicep
8 12 (4.07%) Kusto Query Language
8 12 (4.07%) T-SQL
9 10 (3.39%) Go
10 8 (2.71%) Shell Script
11 6 (2.03%) PL/SQL
12 4 (1.36%) VBScript
13 2 (0.68%) ActionScript
13 2 (0.68%) Scala
14 1 (0.34%) ABAP
14 1 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.34%) REXX
Qualifications
1 84 (28.47%) Security Cleared
2 53 (17.97%) SC Cleared
3 32 (10.85%) Degree
4 29 (9.83%) DV Cleared
5 19 (6.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (4.07%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (2.71%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.69%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (1.69%) OCP
8 5 (1.69%) Oracle Certification
9 4 (1.36%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (1.02%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (1.02%) CCNA
10 3 (1.02%) CCNP
11 2 (0.68%) CIPD
11 2 (0.68%) CISSP
11 2 (0.68%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.68%) MCITP
11 2 (0.68%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (7.12%) Data Quality
2 11 (3.73%) SLA
3 8 (2.71%) QA
4 7 (2.37%) NIST
5 6 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.02%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.68%) GDPR
8 1 (0.34%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.34%) GRC
8 1 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 57 (19.32%) Active Directory
2 26 (8.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (8.47%) Docker
4 12 (4.07%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (3.73%) NFS
6 8 (2.71%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (2.71%) vSphere
7 7 (2.37%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (2.03%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.68%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.68%) Firmware
9 2 (0.68%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.34%) NDS
10 1 (0.34%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 1 (0.34%) OpenSSH
10 1 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.34%) UAG
10 1 (0.34%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 52 (17.63%) Ansible
1 52 (17.63%) Terraform
2 39 (13.22%) Kubernetes
3 31 (10.51%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (6.10%) SCCM
5 15 (5.08%) Grafana
6 12 (4.07%) Prometheus
6 12 (4.07%) Puppet
7 11 (3.73%) Progress Chef
8 10 (3.39%) vCenter Server
9 9 (3.05%) SCOM
10 8 (2.71%) Red Hat Satellite
11 6 (2.03%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (1.69%) SnapMirror
13 3 (1.02%) Foglight
13 3 (1.02%) PowerCLI
13 3 (1.02%) WSUS
14 2 (0.68%) Data Guard
14 2 (0.68%) Nessus
14 2 (0.68%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 108 (36.61%) Microsoft
2 34 (11.53%) VMware
3 24 (8.14%) ServiceNow
4 22 (7.46%) Google
5 19 (6.44%) Red Hat
6 16 (5.42%) Oracle
6 16 (5.42%) Splunk
7 11 (3.73%) Cisco
8 10 (3.39%) Databricks
8 10 (3.39%) SolarWinds
9 9 (3.05%) OpenAI
10 7 (2.37%) AppDynamics
11 6 (2.03%) Bloomberg
11 6 (2.03%) Broadcom
11 6 (2.03%) Citrix
11 6 (2.03%) Palo Alto
11 6 (2.03%) Sybase
12 5 (1.69%) BMC
12 5 (1.69%) F5
12 5 (1.69%) NetApp