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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 385 263 257
Rank change year-on-year -122 -6 +168
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 305 330 363
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 1.01% 0.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.67% 1.12% 1.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 202 187 252
10th Percentile £300 £304 £351
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -9.09%
75th Percentile £556 £585 £625
90th Percentile £669 £670 £708
UK excluding London median daily rate £511 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +7.57% - -13.64%
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 45,698 29,594 32,877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 90.53% 85.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,784 18,388 20,318
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £726 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,048 1,782 1,485
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.44 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £66.95 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.22% -47.67% +7.50%

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 14 September 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 14 September 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 14 September 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 -115 263 £495 -1.00% 545
UK excluding London -101 156 £511 +7.57% 230
London -101 112 £450 -10.00% 337
Work from Home -72 90 £500 - 203
North of England -57 63 £500 +5.26% 59
South East -27 47 £515 +4.57% 57
Yorkshire -20 34 £518 +7.84% 19
North West -51 25 £492 +3.61% 34
Midlands -64 16 £588 +14.08% 29
Scotland -36 11 £438 -6.42% 14
South West -45 10 £325 -37.50% 27
West Midlands -65 9 £600 +15.50% 20
East of England -42 8 £503 +11.67% 26
East Midlands -14 7 £413 +7.14% 9
North East -36 4 £275 +37.50% 6
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 13

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 33 (10.82%) SharePoint
2 15 (4.92%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (1.64%) Confluence
3 5 (1.64%) JBoss
4 4 (1.31%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.98%) CMS
5 3 (0.98%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.98%) WebLogic
5 3 (0.98%) WebLogic Portal
6 2 (0.66%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.33%) Apache
7 1 (0.33%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.33%) FactoryTalk
7 1 (0.33%) IIS
7 1 (0.33%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.33%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 7 (2.30%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.31%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.33%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 7 (2.30%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (1.97%) Remedy AR System
3 4 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (1.31%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.98%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.33%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.33%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.33%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.33%) PeopleSoft HCM
5 1 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.33%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 113 (37.05%) Azure
2 71 (23.28%) AWS
3 51 (16.72%) Microsoft 365
4 31 (10.16%) Entra ID
4 31 (10.16%) GitHub
5 29 (9.51%) Power Platform
6 27 (8.85%) Azure DevOps
7 23 (7.54%) GCP
7 23 (7.54%) GitHub Actions
8 22 (7.21%) Microsoft Copilot
9 20 (6.56%) Amazon S3
9 20 (6.56%) Power Automate
10 17 (5.57%) AWS Lambda
10 17 (5.57%) Azure Monitor
10 17 (5.57%) Datadog
10 17 (5.57%) Serverless
11 15 (4.92%) AWS CloudFormation
11 15 (4.92%) OneDrive
11 15 (4.92%) SaaS
12 13 (4.26%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 50 (16.39%) DNS
2 29 (9.51%) DHCP
3 28 (9.18%) VPN
4 24 (7.87%) Firewall
5 20 (6.56%) TCP/IP
6 16 (5.25%) Network Security
7 10 (3.28%) VLAN
8 8 (2.62%) SSH
9 7 (2.30%) Kerberos
9 7 (2.30%) SAN
9 7 (2.30%) WAN
10 6 (1.97%) SD-WAN
11 5 (1.64%) BIG-IP
11 5 (1.64%) Skype
11 5 (1.64%) Wireless
12 4 (1.31%) Intranet
12 4 (1.31%) PSTN
12 4 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
13 3 (0.98%) LAN
13 3 (0.98%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (8.52%) SQL Server
2 11 (3.61%) Amazon RDS
2 11 (3.61%) Power BI
3 10 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
4 7 (2.30%) Sybase ASE
5 6 (1.97%) Hadoop
5 6 (1.97%) Metadata
5 6 (1.97%) MySQL
5 6 (1.97%) Oracle Database
6 5 (1.64%) Big Data
6 5 (1.64%) Relational Database
7 4 (1.31%) EDRMS
7 4 (1.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.98%) Oracle Database 10g
8 3 (0.98%) Oracle Database 11g
8 3 (0.98%) Oracle Database 12c
8 3 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.98%) Snowflake Schema
8 3 (0.98%) SSDT
Development Applications
1 35 (11.48%) Git
2 22 (7.21%) GitLab
3 20 (6.56%) Jenkins
4 13 (4.26%) JIRA
5 5 (1.64%) SonarQube
6 4 (1.31%) Flyway
6 4 (1.31%) Oracle Forms
6 4 (1.31%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.98%) AdminStudio
7 3 (0.98%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.98%) InstallShield
7 3 (0.98%) Oracle APEX
8 2 (0.66%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.66%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.66%) JUnit
8 2 (0.66%) Maven
8 2 (0.66%) Postman
8 2 (0.66%) Selenium
8 2 (0.66%) Snyk
8 2 (0.66%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 97 (31.80%) Social Skills
2 51 (16.72%) Analytical Skills
3 50 (16.39%) Finance
4 29 (9.51%) Banking
5 18 (5.90%) Legal
6 17 (5.57%) Public Sector
7 11 (3.61%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.97%) Front Office
10 5 (1.64%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.31%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.98%) Law
12 3 (0.98%) Military
13 2 (0.66%) Billing
13 2 (0.66%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.66%) Marketing
13 2 (0.66%) Retail
14 1 (0.33%) International Banking
14 1 (0.33%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 39 (12.79%) Senior
2 31 (10.16%) Support Engineer
3 29 (9.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 23 (7.54%) DevOps Engineer
5 19 (6.23%) Cloud Engineer
6 18 (5.90%) DBA
7 16 (5.25%) Platform Engineer
8 15 (4.92%) Analyst
9 14 (4.59%) Consultant
10 13 (4.26%) Developer
11 12 (3.93%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 11 (3.61%) Architect
12 11 (3.61%) Data Engineer
12 11 (3.61%) Lead
13 10 (3.28%) Linux Engineer
13 10 (3.28%) Site Engineer
14 9 (2.95%) Administrator
14 9 (2.95%) Systems Engineer
15 8 (2.62%) Security Engineer
15 8 (2.62%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (19.67%) Terraform
2 29 (9.51%) REST
3 14 (4.59%) ARM Templates
4 13 (4.26%) React
5 12 (3.93%) JSON
6 11 (3.61%) .NET
6 11 (3.61%) CSS
6 11 (3.61%) SPFx
7 10 (3.28%) Elastic Stack
8 9 (2.95%) Kafka
9 8 (2.62%) HTML
9 8 (2.62%) SOAP
9 8 (2.62%) YAML
10 6 (1.97%) Node.js
11 5 (1.64%) ASP.NET
11 5 (1.64%) AWS CDK
11 5 (1.64%) LangChain
11 5 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
12 4 (1.31%) ASP.NET Core
12 4 (1.31%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.54%) Onboarding
2 15 (4.92%) Cloud Native
2 15 (4.92%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (4.59%) AI Agents
4 13 (4.26%) Data Protection Act
5 12 (3.93%) Clustering
5 12 (3.93%) Product Ownership
5 12 (3.93%) Replication
6 11 (3.61%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (3.61%) Management Information System
7 10 (3.28%) Legacy Systems
8 9 (2.95%) CMDB
8 9 (2.95%) Private Cloud
9 8 (2.62%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
10 7 (2.30%) Public Cloud
10 7 (2.30%) Virtual Team
11 5 (1.64%) Autonomous Agent
11 5 (1.64%) Blackberry
11 5 (1.64%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 70 (22.95%) Windows
2 62 (20.33%) Linux
3 24 (7.87%) Windows Server
4 21 (6.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (5.57%) Windows 10
6 15 (4.92%) Unix
7 12 (3.93%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (2.30%) Android
8 7 (2.30%) Mac OS
8 7 (2.30%) Windows 7
9 6 (1.97%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (0.98%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.66%) AIX
11 2 (0.66%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.66%) Rocky
11 2 (0.66%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.66%) VMS
11 2 (0.66%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.66%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.66%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (28.52%) CI/CD
2 81 (26.56%) DevOps
3 69 (22.62%) Problem-Solving
4 68 (22.30%) ITIL
5 63 (20.66%) Agile
6 62 (20.33%) Infrastructure as Code
7 57 (18.69%) AI
8 50 (16.39%) Continuous Improvement
9 48 (15.74%) Migration
10 41 (13.44%) Observability
10 41 (13.44%) Root Cause Analysis
11 39 (12.79%) Workflow
12 38 (12.46%) Performance Tuning
13 36 (11.80%) ITSM
14 35 (11.48%) Disaster Recovery
15 34 (11.15%) Runbook
16 33 (10.82%) Analytics
16 33 (10.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 32 (10.49%) High Availability
18 29 (9.51%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 130 (42.62%) Python
2 113 (37.05%) PowerShell
3 61 (20.00%) SQL
4 54 (17.70%) Bash
5 36 (11.80%) JavaScript
6 17 (5.57%) Bicep
7 16 (5.25%) Java
8 13 (4.26%) Shell Script
8 13 (4.26%) TypeScript
9 12 (3.93%) T-SQL
10 11 (3.61%) Go
11 9 (2.95%) PL/SQL
12 7 (2.30%) C#
13 5 (1.64%) Perl
13 5 (1.64%) VBScript
14 2 (0.66%) REXX
14 2 (0.66%) Scala
15 1 (0.33%) JCL
15 1 (0.33%) Korn
15 1 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 103 (33.77%) Security Cleared
2 65 (21.31%) SC Cleared
3 37 (12.13%) DV Cleared
4 30 (9.84%) Degree
5 17 (5.57%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (4.26%) Azure Certification
6 13 (4.26%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (1.64%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.64%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.98%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 3 (0.98%) CCNA
8 3 (0.98%) CCNP
9 2 (0.66%) CIPD
9 2 (0.66%) CISM
9 2 (0.66%) CISSP
9 2 (0.66%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.66%) GSEC
9 2 (0.66%) OSCP
10 1 (0.33%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (6.23%) Data Quality
2 17 (5.57%) SLA
3 12 (3.93%) QA
4 6 (1.97%) NIST
5 4 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.66%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.33%) GDPR
7 1 (0.33%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.33%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.33%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 65 (21.31%) Active Directory
2 28 (9.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (8.85%) Docker
4 13 (4.26%) Virtual Machines
4 13 (4.26%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (3.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (1.97%) NFS
7 5 (1.64%) Hyper-V
8 4 (1.31%) vSphere
9 2 (0.66%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.66%) Firmware
9 2 (0.66%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.33%) NDS
10 1 (0.33%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 1 (0.33%) OpenSSH
10 1 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 48 (15.74%) Ansible
2 35 (11.48%) Kubernetes
3 30 (9.84%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (8.85%) SCCM
5 18 (5.90%) Grafana
6 16 (5.25%) Prometheus
6 16 (5.25%) Puppet
6 16 (5.25%) SCOM
7 13 (4.26%) vCenter Server
8 11 (3.61%) Progress Chef
8 11 (3.61%) Red Hat Satellite
9 8 (2.62%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (2.30%) Failover Clustering
11 5 (1.64%) Oracle RMAN
12 3 (0.98%) Istio
12 3 (0.98%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 2 (0.66%) Data Guard
13 2 (0.66%) linkerd
13 2 (0.66%) Podman
13 2 (0.66%) WSUS
Vendors
1 108 (35.41%) Microsoft
2 32 (10.49%) VMware
3 25 (8.20%) Oracle
4 20 (6.56%) Red Hat
5 19 (6.23%) Google
6 18 (5.90%) ServiceNow
7 17 (5.57%) Splunk
8 14 (4.59%) SolarWinds
9 11 (3.61%) Broadcom
9 11 (3.61%) Cisco
10 8 (2.62%) BMC
11 7 (2.30%) AppDynamics
11 7 (2.30%) OpenAI
11 7 (2.30%) Remedy
11 7 (2.30%) Sybase
12 6 (1.97%) Ivanti
13 5 (1.64%) BeyondTrust
13 5 (1.64%) Citrix
13 5 (1.64%) Dynatrace
13 5 (1.64%) F5