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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 335 250 296
Rank change year-on-year -85 +46 +151
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 323 312 326
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 1.05% 0.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.75% 1.15% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 169 254
10th Percentile £310 £324 £400
25th Percentile £401 £408 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% -
75th Percentile £603 £582 £675
90th Percentile £750 £679 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £475 £531
% change year-on-year -0.63% -10.59% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 17 3
10th Percentile - £20.13 -
25th Percentile £16.33 £21.00 -
Median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -21.34% +21.85% -73.56%
75th Percentile £24.29 £65.25 -
90th Percentile £50.82 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.57 £22.88 -
% change year-on-year -14.45% - -

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 42,883 27,154 37,300
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.85% 91.05% 85.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,719 17,238 23,736
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,572 1,254 2,607
10th Percentile £14.70 £14.20 £12.70
25th Percentile £20.07 £17.79 £16.04
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.40 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.07% -32.27% +7.05%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.19 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.08 £38.12
% change year-on-year +79.46% -34.22% +17.29%

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 19 June 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 19 June 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 19 June 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 -78 278 £495 -1.00% 76
UK excluding London -90 159 £472 -0.63% 61
London -50 138 £525 +5.00% 28
Work from Home -29 113 £550 +3.77% 33
North of England -28 67 £500 +5.26% 18
Yorkshire -15 51 £500 +8.11% 4
South East -38 39 £403 -19.50% 19
Scotland -30 21 £500 +11.11% 4
Midlands -61 15 £500 +5.26% 9
South West -29 13 £363 -30.29% 6
North West -43 11 £459 -3.37% 12
West Midlands -60 11 £575 +15.00% 5
North East -32 5 £275 -26.67% 2
East Midlands -21 4 £413 +5.77% 4
Wales -14 2 £543 +106.67% 1
East of England -50 1 £400 -11.11% 4
Northern Ireland - 1 £675 - 3

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 34 (10.53%) SharePoint
2 21 (6.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (3.10%) Confluence
4 7 (2.17%) Appian
5 4 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.93%) Apache
7 2 (0.62%) CMS
7 2 (0.62%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.31%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 6 (1.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.55%) Chatbot
2 5 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.62%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.62%) Maximo
2 2 (0.62%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.31%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.31%) FLEXCUBE
3 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.31%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 159 (49.23%) Azure
2 95 (29.41%) AWS
3 55 (17.03%) GCP
4 53 (16.41%) Microsoft 365
5 47 (14.55%) Entra ID
6 37 (11.46%) GitHub
7 25 (7.74%) Power Automate
8 24 (7.43%) GitHub Actions
8 24 (7.43%) Power Platform
9 23 (7.12%) Azure DevOps
10 20 (6.19%) OpenShift
11 17 (5.26%) Azure Monitor
12 16 (4.95%) Amazon S3
13 15 (4.64%) Azure Key Vault
14 14 (4.33%) Microsoft Copilot
14 14 (4.33%) PaaS
15 13 (4.02%) PowerApps
16 12 (3.72%) OneDrive
16 12 (3.72%) Serverless
17 11 (3.41%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 39 (12.07%) DNS
2 33 (10.22%) DHCP
3 20 (6.19%) Firewall
4 18 (5.57%) VPN
5 15 (4.64%) Kerberos
6 13 (4.02%) SAN
7 11 (3.41%) Network Security
8 9 (2.79%) WAN
9 8 (2.48%) SD-WAN
9 8 (2.48%) TCP/IP
9 8 (2.48%) VLAN
10 6 (1.86%) SSH
11 5 (1.55%) LAN
12 4 (1.24%) Cisco Nexus
12 4 (1.24%) Intranet
12 4 (1.24%) SSL
13 3 (0.93%) BGP
13 3 (0.93%) BIG-IP
13 3 (0.93%) Cisco IOS
13 3 (0.93%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (11.15%) SQL Server
2 12 (3.72%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (3.10%) Data Warehouse
3 10 (3.10%) Power BI
4 7 (2.17%) Amazon RDS
4 7 (2.17%) Metadata
4 7 (2.17%) Pinecone
5 6 (1.86%) MySQL
5 6 (1.86%) Snowflake Schema
5 6 (1.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 5 (1.55%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.24%) Big Data
7 4 (1.24%) EDRMS
7 4 (1.24%) Sybase ASE
7 4 (1.24%) Tableau
8 3 (0.93%) DTS
8 3 (0.93%) MongoDB
8 3 (0.93%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.93%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 28 (8.67%) Jenkins
2 25 (7.74%) GitLab
3 21 (6.50%) Git
4 19 (5.88%) JIRA
5 10 (3.10%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (2.17%) MLflow
7 5 (1.55%) SonarQube
8 4 (1.24%) Flyway
9 3 (0.93%) AdminStudio
9 3 (0.93%) InstallShield
10 2 (0.62%) Selenium
11 1 (0.31%) Eclipse
11 1 (0.31%) HP UFT
11 1 (0.31%) IntelliJ
11 1 (0.31%) JMeter
11 1 (0.31%) JUnit
11 1 (0.31%) Maven
11 1 (0.31%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.31%) TestNG
11 1 (0.31%) Visual Studio
General
1 134 (41.49%) Social Skills
2 58 (17.96%) Finance
3 41 (12.69%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (7.74%) Public Sector
5 24 (7.43%) Banking
6 13 (4.02%) Legal
7 12 (3.72%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.48%) Financial Institution
9 5 (1.55%) Front Office
9 5 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.24%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.62%) Military
11 2 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.62%) Retail
12 1 (0.31%) Law
12 1 (0.31%) Local Government
12 1 (0.31%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.31%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 34 (10.53%) Developer
2 31 (9.60%) Architect
3 23 (7.12%) CyberArk Architect
4 21 (6.50%) DBA
5 18 (5.57%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 18 (5.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 16 (4.95%) Consultant
7 15 (4.64%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 13 (4.02%) Automation Engineer
8 13 (4.02%) Senior
9 12 (3.72%) DevOps Engineer
9 12 (3.72%) Platform Engineer
9 12 (3.72%) Support Engineer
10 11 (3.41%) Analyst
10 11 (3.41%) Azure Developer
10 11 (3.41%) Data Engineer
10 11 (3.41%) Site Engineer
11 10 (3.10%) Administrator
11 10 (3.10%) Technical Support
12 9 (2.79%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (17.65%) REST
2 36 (11.15%) LDAP
3 34 (10.53%) SOAP
4 22 (6.81%) .NET
4 22 (6.81%) OAuth
5 19 (5.88%) Web Services
6 15 (4.64%) SAML
7 14 (4.33%) Microsoft Graph
8 12 (3.72%) .NET Framework
8 12 (3.72%) JWT
8 12 (3.72%) RESTful
9 11 (3.41%) CSS
9 11 (3.41%) Elastic Stack
9 11 (3.41%) JSON
9 11 (3.41%) Node.js
10 10 (3.10%) Pandas
10 10 (3.10%) PyTorch
10 10 (3.10%) React
10 10 (3.10%) SPFx
11 9 (2.79%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 29 (8.98%) Enterprise Software
2 24 (7.43%) Replication
2 24 (7.43%) Security Posture
3 22 (6.81%) Onboarding
4 18 (5.57%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (4.33%) Distributed Systems
6 13 (4.02%) Hybrid Cloud
7 12 (3.72%) Cloud Native
8 11 (3.41%) AI Agents
8 11 (3.41%) Data Protection Act
8 11 (3.41%) Product Ownership
9 7 (2.17%) Data Centre
9 7 (2.17%) Low-Code
9 7 (2.17%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.86%) Virtual Team
11 5 (1.55%) Clustering
11 5 (1.55%) FlexPod
11 5 (1.55%) Management Information System
12 4 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (1.24%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 73 (22.60%) Windows
2 57 (17.65%) Linux
3 29 (8.98%) Windows Server
4 18 (5.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (3.41%) Unix
6 9 (2.79%) Windows 10
7 8 (2.48%) Mac OS
8 6 (1.86%) VMS
9 5 (1.55%) CoreOS
9 5 (1.55%) Data ONTAP
10 2 (0.62%) AIX
10 2 (0.62%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.31%) Android
11 1 (0.31%) Rocky
11 1 (0.31%) Solaris
11 1 (0.31%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.31%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (31.27%) Problem-Solving
2 85 (26.32%) CI/CD
3 69 (21.36%) DevOps
4 65 (20.12%) AI
5 53 (16.41%) Agile
6 47 (14.55%) Disaster Recovery
6 47 (14.55%) High Availability
7 46 (14.24%) Migration
8 44 (13.62%) ITIL
9 40 (12.38%) Analytics
10 39 (12.07%) Continuous Improvement
10 39 (12.07%) Infrastructure as Code
11 37 (11.46%) Observability
12 36 (11.15%) Workflow
13 34 (10.53%) Containerisation
13 34 (10.53%) ITSM
13 34 (10.53%) Technical Leadership
14 33 (10.22%) Change Management
15 32 (9.91%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 32 (9.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 149 (46.13%) Python
2 130 (40.25%) PowerShell
3 58 (17.96%) SQL
4 37 (11.46%) Bash
5 28 (8.67%) JavaScript
6 27 (8.36%) Java
7 19 (5.88%) C#
8 18 (5.57%) TypeScript
9 14 (4.33%) Go
10 12 (3.72%) Kusto Query Language
11 10 (3.10%) Shell Script
12 9 (2.79%) T-SQL
13 8 (2.48%) PL/SQL
14 5 (1.55%) Bicep
15 2 (0.62%) ActionScript
15 2 (0.62%) Scala
15 2 (0.62%) VBScript
16 1 (0.31%) ABAP
16 1 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 1 (0.31%) VB
Qualifications
1 110 (34.06%) Security Cleared
2 85 (26.32%) SC Cleared
3 27 (8.36%) Degree
4 21 (6.50%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (5.57%) DV Cleared
6 10 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.48%) Microsoft Certification
8 5 (1.55%) OCP
8 5 (1.55%) Oracle Certification
9 4 (1.24%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (1.24%) CISSP
10 3 (0.93%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.93%) CCNP
11 2 (0.62%) CCNA
11 2 (0.62%) CISM
11 2 (0.62%) JNCIA
11 2 (0.62%) JNCIS
11 2 (0.62%) MCTS
11 2 (0.62%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (7.74%) Data Quality
2 15 (4.64%) GDPR
3 13 (4.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 12 (3.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (3.41%) NIST
6 10 (3.10%) QA
7 6 (1.86%) SLA
8 3 (0.93%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.93%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.62%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.31%) GMP
10 1 (0.31%) GRC
System Software
1 80 (24.77%) Active Directory
2 26 (8.05%) Docker
3 18 (5.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (4.02%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (3.41%) NFS
6 7 (2.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (2.17%) vSphere
7 5 (1.55%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.62%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.62%) Firmware
8 2 (0.62%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.31%) KVM
9 1 (0.31%) OpenSSH
9 1 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.31%) UAG
9 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.31%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 51 (15.79%) Kubernetes
2 49 (15.17%) Ansible
3 46 (14.24%) Terraform
4 25 (7.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (5.57%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (4.64%) SCCM
7 13 (4.02%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 12 (3.72%) Grafana
9 11 (3.41%) Prometheus
10 8 (2.48%) Progress Chef
11 6 (1.86%) Red Hat Satellite
12 5 (1.55%) Puppet
12 5 (1.55%) SnapMirror
13 4 (1.24%) Nessus
13 4 (1.24%) SCOM
14 3 (0.93%) Foglight
14 3 (0.93%) OpenVAS
14 3 (0.93%) PowerCLI
14 3 (0.93%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.93%) WSUS
Vendors
1 99 (30.65%) Microsoft
2 26 (8.05%) Google
3 25 (7.74%) VMware
4 24 (7.43%) CyberArk
5 23 (7.12%) ServiceNow
6 21 (6.50%) BeyondTrust
6 21 (6.50%) Centrify
6 21 (6.50%) Red Hat
7 18 (5.57%) OpenAI
8 17 (5.26%) Okta
9 15 (4.64%) Oracle
10 14 (4.33%) Splunk
11 12 (3.72%) Databricks
12 9 (2.79%) Cisco
13 7 (2.17%) Automation Anywhere
13 7 (2.17%) Palo Alto
13 7 (2.17%) UiPath
14 6 (1.86%) AppDynamics
14 6 (1.86%) Bloomberg
14 6 (1.86%) Citrix