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

6 months to
17 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 389 260 249
Rank change year-on-year -129 -11 +128
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 330 348 359
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 1.05% 0.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.70% 1.15% 1.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 212 202 237
10th Percentile £321 £311 £354
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £567 £575 £625
90th Percentile £669 £626 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £478 £470
% change year-on-year +7.85% +1.60% -6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 7 3
10th Percentile £16.33 £17.89 -
25th Percentile £18.54 £40.28 -
Median hourly rate £25.00 £63.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -60.63% +166.81% -
75th Percentile £62.45 £65.25 -
90th Percentile £65.00 £66.05 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £66.50 -
% change year-on-year -65.41% - -

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.

6 months to
17 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 46,912 30,155 32,241
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.87% 90.56% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,167 18,750 19,390
10th Percentile £325 £300 £309
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,500 1,913 1,230
10th Percentile £13.51 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.75 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.24 £25.08 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.51% -37.31% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.24 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +67.26% -44.79% -8.14%

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 17 October 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 17 October 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 17 October 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 -131 281 £500 +2.56% 400
UK excluding London -111 172 £515 +7.85% 185
London -114 112 £463 -3.39% 221
Work from Home -78 98 £500 +2.09% 159
North of England -50 72 £500 +11.11% 54
South East -44 48 £538 +12.57% 51
Yorkshire -12 42 £515 +10.75% 13
North West -43 26 £492 +9.36% 36
Midlands -62 17 £600 +15.50% 14
South West -31 14 £513 -6.82% 27
Scotland -34 13 £438 -5.41% 10
West Midlands -63 13 £600 +14.83% 6
East of England -34 9 £480 +6.67% 20
East Midlands -11 4 - - 8
North East -38 4 £275 +37.50% 5
Northern Ireland +5 1 - - 6

Task Automation Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

RankSkillShareJob Ads
1CI/CD31.5%104
2DevOps28.5%94
3Infrastructure as Code23.9%79
4ITIL21.8%72
5Problem-Solving20.9%69
6Agile20.3%67
7AI16.7%55
8Continuous Improvement16.4%54
9Migration16.1%53
9Observability16.1%53
11Root Cause Analysis14.5%48
11Workflow14.5%48
13Performance Tuning13.3%44
14Containerisation13.0%43
15Infrastructure Engineering11.5%38
15ITSM11.5%38
15Runbook11.5%38
18Disaster Recovery11.2%37
19Analytics10.3%34
20Platform Engineering9.7%32