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

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 402 262 255
Rank change year-on-year -140 -7 +173
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 301 335 368
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 1.02% 0.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.66% 1.13% 1.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 200 191 259
10th Percentile £300 £306 £362
25th Percentile £400 £403 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £520
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -6.25% -0.95%
75th Percentile £556 £586 £638
90th Percentile £672 £670 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £482
% change year-on-year +5.26% -1.45% -4.79%
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 29,569 32,758
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.55% 90.41% 85.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,932 18,352 20,483
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.31%
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 2,947 1,755 1,552
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.42
25th Percentile £17.63 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.69
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -41.09% +2.13%
75th Percentile £67.89 £45.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.40 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +87.36% -47.37% +12.13%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -121 261 £492 -1.60% 260
UK excluding London -106 153 £500 +5.26% 127
London -87 114 £450 -10.00% 165
Work from Home -71 87 £500 - 99
North of England -56 60 £500 +5.26% 28
South East -44 48 £515 +4.47% 27
Yorkshire -24 33 £515 +7.29% 8
North West -56 23 £492 +4.04% 18
Midlands -71 16 £588 +14.08% 22
Scotland -45 12 £469 - 7
South West -36 11 £325 -37.50% 21
West Midlands -63 9 £600 +15.50% 17
East Midlands -14 7 £413 +7.14% 5
East of England -39 5 £480 -2.04% 13
North East -36 4 £275 +37.50% 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 9

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 32 (10.63%) SharePoint
2 13 (4.32%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.99%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (1.99%) Confluence
4 5 (1.66%) JBoss
5 4 (1.33%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (1.00%) CMS
7 2 (0.66%) Apache
7 2 (0.66%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.33%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.33%) FactoryTalk
8 1 (0.33%) IIS
8 1 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.33%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.33%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.33%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.33%) WebLogic Portal
Applications
1 7 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (2.33%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.33%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.33%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (1.99%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (1.66%) Remedy AR System
3 4 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.66%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.66%) 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 EBS R12
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
1 109 (36.21%) Azure
2 72 (23.92%) AWS
3 49 (16.28%) Microsoft 365
4 31 (10.30%) Entra ID
5 30 (9.97%) Power Platform
6 29 (9.63%) GitHub
7 25 (8.31%) Azure DevOps
8 21 (6.98%) Amazon S3
8 21 (6.98%) GCP
8 21 (6.98%) GitHub Actions
8 21 (6.98%) Microsoft Copilot
9 20 (6.64%) Power Automate
10 16 (5.32%) AWS Lambda
10 16 (5.32%) Azure Monitor
10 16 (5.32%) Serverless
11 15 (4.98%) Datadog
11 15 (4.98%) OneDrive
12 14 (4.65%) SaaS
13 13 (4.32%) AWS CloudFormation
13 13 (4.32%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 50 (16.61%) DNS
2 31 (10.30%) DHCP
3 27 (8.97%) VPN
4 24 (7.97%) Firewall
5 20 (6.64%) TCP/IP
6 16 (5.32%) Network Security
7 10 (3.32%) VLAN
8 9 (2.99%) SAN
8 9 (2.99%) WAN
9 8 (2.66%) SD-WAN
9 8 (2.66%) SSH
10 7 (2.33%) Kerberos
11 5 (1.66%) BIG-IP
11 5 (1.66%) LAN
11 5 (1.66%) Skype
11 5 (1.66%) Wireless
12 4 (1.33%) Intranet
12 4 (1.33%) PSTN
13 3 (1.00%) SSL
13 3 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.97%) SQL Server
2 12 (3.99%) Power BI
3 11 (3.65%) Data Warehouse
4 10 (3.32%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (2.33%) Sybase ASE
6 6 (1.99%) Big Data
6 6 (1.99%) Hadoop
6 6 (1.99%) Metadata
6 6 (1.99%) MySQL
6 6 (1.99%) Relational Database
7 4 (1.33%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.33%) EDRMS
7 4 (1.33%) Oracle Database
7 4 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (1.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (1.00%) BigQuery
8 3 (1.00%) Snowflake Schema
8 3 (1.00%) Tableau
9 2 (0.66%) Data Vault
9 2 (0.66%) Tableau Server
Development Applications
1 34 (11.30%) Git
2 24 (7.97%) GitLab
3 20 (6.64%) Jenkins
4 13 (4.32%) JIRA
5 5 (1.66%) SonarQube
6 4 (1.33%) Oracle Forms
6 4 (1.33%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (1.00%) AdminStudio
7 3 (1.00%) Flyway
7 3 (1.00%) InstallShield
7 3 (1.00%) Selenium
8 2 (0.66%) Artifactory
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%) Snyk
8 2 (0.66%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio
General
1 99 (32.89%) Social Skills
2 54 (17.94%) Analytical Skills
3 47 (15.61%) Finance
4 29 (9.63%) Banking
5 17 (5.65%) Legal
5 17 (5.65%) Public Sector
6 11 (3.65%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (1.99%) Front Office
9 5 (1.66%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.33%) Investment Banking
11 3 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (1.00%) Law
11 3 (1.00%) Military
11 3 (1.00%) Retail
12 2 (0.66%) Billing
12 2 (0.66%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.66%) Marketing
13 1 (0.33%) Local Government
13 1 (0.33%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 34 (11.30%) Senior
2 29 (9.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 29 (9.63%) Support Engineer
3 20 (6.64%) DevOps Engineer
4 17 (5.65%) DBA
4 17 (5.65%) Platform Engineer
5 16 (5.32%) Analyst
5 16 (5.32%) Consultant
6 14 (4.65%) Cloud Engineer
7 13 (4.32%) Architect
7 13 (4.32%) Developer
7 13 (4.32%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 12 (3.99%) Data Engineer
9 11 (3.65%) Lead
10 10 (3.32%) Linux Engineer
10 10 (3.32%) Site Engineer
10 10 (3.32%) Systems Engineer
11 9 (2.99%) Administrator
12 8 (2.66%) AWS Engineer
12 8 (2.66%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (17.94%) Terraform
2 29 (9.63%) REST
3 13 (4.32%) React
4 12 (3.99%) ARM Templates
4 12 (3.99%) JSON
5 11 (3.65%) .NET
5 11 (3.65%) CSS
5 11 (3.65%) SPFx
6 10 (3.32%) Kafka
7 9 (2.99%) Elastic Stack
7 9 (2.99%) YAML
8 8 (2.66%) HTML
9 7 (2.33%) SOAP
10 6 (1.99%) AWS CDK
10 6 (1.99%) Node.js
11 5 (1.66%) ASP.NET
11 5 (1.66%) LangChain
11 5 (1.66%) Oracle Fusion
12 4 (1.33%) Software Packaging
12 4 (1.33%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.64%) Onboarding
2 15 (4.98%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (4.65%) AI Agents
3 14 (4.65%) Cloud Native
4 13 (4.32%) Product Ownership
5 12 (3.99%) Replication
6 11 (3.65%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (3.65%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (3.65%) Management Information System
7 10 (3.32%) Clustering
7 10 (3.32%) Legacy Systems
8 9 (2.99%) Private Cloud
9 8 (2.66%) CMDB
9 8 (2.66%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (2.33%) Data Centre
10 7 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (1.99%) Public Cloud
12 5 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
12 5 (1.66%) Autonomous Agent
12 5 (1.66%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 69 (22.92%) Windows
2 58 (19.27%) Linux
3 25 (8.31%) Windows Server
4 21 (6.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (5.32%) Windows 10
6 13 (4.32%) Unix
7 11 (3.65%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (1.99%) Android
8 6 (1.99%) Mac OS
8 6 (1.99%) Windows 7
9 5 (1.66%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (1.00%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.66%) AIX
11 2 (0.66%) Apple iOS
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 2016
11 2 (0.66%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (27.91%) CI/CD
2 75 (24.92%) DevOps
3 70 (23.26%) Problem-Solving
4 68 (22.59%) ITIL
5 60 (19.93%) Agile
6 57 (18.94%) Infrastructure as Code
7 56 (18.60%) AI
8 46 (15.28%) Continuous Improvement
9 44 (14.62%) Migration
10 38 (12.62%) Observability
10 38 (12.62%) Performance Tuning
10 38 (12.62%) Root Cause Analysis
10 38 (12.62%) Workflow
11 36 (11.96%) Disaster Recovery
12 35 (11.63%) Runbook
13 34 (11.30%) ITSM
14 33 (10.96%) Analytics
14 33 (10.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 31 (10.30%) High Availability
16 28 (9.30%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 128 (42.52%) Python
2 112 (37.21%) PowerShell
3 59 (19.60%) SQL
4 53 (17.61%) Bash
5 36 (11.96%) JavaScript
6 17 (5.65%) Bicep
6 17 (5.65%) Java
7 14 (4.65%) TypeScript
8 12 (3.99%) Shell Script
9 11 (3.65%) Go
9 11 (3.65%) T-SQL
10 7 (2.33%) C#
10 7 (2.33%) PL/SQL
11 6 (1.99%) VBScript
12 4 (1.33%) Perl
13 3 (1.00%) Scala
14 2 (0.66%) REXX
15 1 (0.33%) ABAP
15 1 (0.33%) JCL
15 1 (0.33%) Korn
Qualifications
1 99 (32.89%) Security Cleared
2 61 (20.27%) SC Cleared
3 37 (12.29%) DV Cleared
4 31 (10.30%) Degree
5 17 (5.65%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (3.32%) Azure Certification
6 10 (3.32%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (1.66%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (1.00%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 3 (1.00%) CCNA
8 3 (1.00%) 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%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (7.31%) Data Quality
2 17 (5.65%) SLA
3 11 (3.65%) QA
4 8 (2.66%) NIST
5 5 (1.66%) 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 64 (21.26%) Active Directory
2 30 (9.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (8.64%) Docker
4 12 (3.99%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (3.32%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (3.32%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (2.33%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.99%) NFS
8 4 (1.33%) 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
10 1 (0.33%) UAG
Systems Management
1 47 (15.61%) Ansible
2 33 (10.96%) Kubernetes
3 30 (9.97%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (8.64%) SCCM
5 17 (5.65%) Grafana
6 16 (5.32%) Puppet
7 15 (4.98%) Prometheus
7 15 (4.98%) SCOM
8 12 (3.99%) Progress Chef
8 12 (3.99%) vCenter Server
9 11 (3.65%) Red Hat Satellite
10 7 (2.33%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (1.99%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (1.00%) Istio
12 3 (1.00%) Oracle RMAN
12 3 (1.00%) WSUS
13 2 (0.66%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.66%) linkerd
13 2 (0.66%) Nagios
13 2 (0.66%) Podman
Vendors
1 103 (34.22%) Microsoft
2 34 (11.30%) VMware
3 22 (7.31%) Oracle
4 20 (6.64%) ServiceNow
5 18 (5.98%) Red Hat
6 17 (5.65%) Google
6 17 (5.65%) Splunk
7 13 (4.32%) SolarWinds
8 11 (3.65%) Cisco
9 10 (3.32%) Broadcom
10 7 (2.33%) AppDynamics
10 7 (2.33%) BMC
10 7 (2.33%) OpenAI
10 7 (2.33%) Sybase
11 6 (1.99%) Remedy
12 5 (1.66%) Citrix
12 5 (1.66%) Databricks
12 5 (1.66%) F5
12 5 (1.66%) Ivanti
13 4 (1.33%) BeyondTrust