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 5 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 256 226 371
Rank change year-on-year -30 +145 +83
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 407 357 229
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.15% 0.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.19% 1.28% 0.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 287 222 176
10th Percentile £320 £332 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £596 £575 £613
90th Percentile £750 £669 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £470 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% -6.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 10 0
10th Percentile £47.98 £21.00 -
25th Percentile £50.94 £21.31 -
Median hourly rate £56.25 £26.83 -
Median % change year-on-year +109.65% - -
75th Percentile £61.94 £57.79 -
90th Percentile £65.13 £66.81 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £23.77 -
% change year-on-year +179.79% - -

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 34,128 27,815 38,732
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.17% 89.32% 87.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,612 16,932 25,487
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £498 £500
% change year-on-year -3.52% -0.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,064 868 2,102
10th Percentile £14.51 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.26
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +9.38%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £61.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.04 £31.50 £35.25
% change year-on-year -20.52% -10.64% +18.61%

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 5 February 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 5 February 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 5 February 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 -32 341 £500 +5.26% 129
UK excluding London -23 197 £463 -1.60% 103
London -28 165 £563 +7.14% 38
Work from Home +37 151 £550 +15.79% 54
North of England -37 62 £447 -3.98% 31
South East -18 41 £430 +7.44% 32
Midlands -39 38 £519 +7.23% 13
West Midlands -22 37 £520 +5.59% 8
Yorkshire -34 35 £447 +8.36% 9
Scotland +13 26 £460 -6.36% 5
North West -29 23 £448 -4.68% 16
South West -28 18 £525 +11.70% 16
East of England -26 8 £500 +17.65% 12
North East -11 4 £365 -22.34% 6
Wales - 4 £525 -
Northern Ireland - 2 £683 - 1
East Midlands -25 1 £450 +13.92% 5

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 24 (5.90%) Microsoft Exchange
2 21 (5.16%) SharePoint
3 9 (2.21%) Confluence
4 8 (1.97%) IIS
5 7 (1.72%) Apache
5 7 (1.72%) Appian
6 5 (1.23%) iPlanet
6 5 (1.23%) JBoss
6 5 (1.23%) WebSphere
6 5 (1.23%) WebSphere Application Server
7 4 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.98%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.49%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.49%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.25%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.25%) CMS
9 1 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
9 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 22 (5.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.98%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.74%) Chatbot
3 3 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.49%) Maximo
1 2 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.49%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (0.49%) Oracle ERP
1 2 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 193 (47.42%) Azure
2 137 (33.66%) AWS
3 98 (24.08%) GCP
4 50 (12.29%) Entra ID
5 43 (10.57%) GitHub
6 42 (10.32%) Microsoft 365
7 35 (8.60%) OpenShift
8 30 (7.37%) GitHub Actions
9 25 (6.14%) AWS CloudFormation
9 25 (6.14%) Azure DevOps
10 24 (5.90%) Serverless
11 20 (4.91%) Power Automate
11 20 (4.91%) Power Platform
12 17 (4.18%) Amazon S3
13 13 (3.19%) Amazon EKS
13 13 (3.19%) AWS Lambda
13 13 (3.19%) Datadog
13 13 (3.19%) PaaS
14 12 (2.95%) Azure Monitor
14 12 (2.95%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 37 (9.09%) DNS
2 35 (8.60%) Firewall
3 29 (7.13%) DHCP
4 21 (5.16%) Kerberos
5 18 (4.42%) SSH
6 17 (4.18%) TCP/IP
7 14 (3.44%) Network Security
8 12 (2.95%) VPN
9 8 (1.97%) WAN
10 7 (1.72%) LAN
11 4 (0.98%) AMQP
11 4 (0.98%) HTTP
11 4 (0.98%) WLAN
12 3 (0.74%) Cisco IOS
12 3 (0.74%) SSL
13 2 (0.49%) Cisco Nexus
13 2 (0.49%) NetScaler
13 2 (0.49%) SD-WAN
13 2 (0.49%) SMTP
13 2 (0.49%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (7.37%) SQL Server
2 27 (6.63%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (5.16%) Relational Database
4 14 (3.44%) Power BI
5 13 (3.19%) Oracle Database
6 10 (2.46%) Amazon RDS
6 10 (2.46%) MySQL
7 9 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
8 8 (1.97%) Pinecone
9 6 (1.47%) RDBMS
10 5 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
10 5 (1.23%) Metadata
10 5 (1.23%) MongoDB
10 5 (1.23%) NoSQL
10 5 (1.23%) Power Query
10 5 (1.23%) Tableau
11 4 (0.98%) BigQuery
11 4 (0.98%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (0.98%) InfluxDB
11 4 (0.98%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 55 (13.51%) Jenkins
2 45 (11.06%) Git
3 36 (8.85%) GitLab
4 18 (4.42%) JIRA
5 17 (4.18%) Sonatype Nexus
6 10 (2.46%) CircleCI
7 8 (1.97%) Bitbucket
7 8 (1.97%) Maven
8 7 (1.72%) MLflow
9 6 (1.47%) SonarQube
10 5 (1.23%) Artifactory
10 5 (1.23%) Bitbucket Server
10 5 (1.23%) CA Release Automation
10 5 (1.23%) Gatling
10 5 (1.23%) JMeter
10 5 (1.23%) JUnit
10 5 (1.23%) LoadRunner
10 5 (1.23%) Postman
10 5 (1.23%) Selenium
11 4 (0.98%) Cypress.io
General
1 158 (38.82%) Social Skills
2 70 (17.20%) Finance
3 58 (14.25%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (9.58%) Public Sector
5 26 (6.39%) Banking
6 7 (1.72%) Investment Banking
6 7 (1.72%) Legal
6 7 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (1.47%) Retail
8 5 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (0.98%) Games
9 4 (0.98%) Military
9 4 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.74%) Financial Institution
10 3 (0.74%) Front Office
10 3 (0.74%) Law
11 2 (0.49%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.49%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 48 (11.79%) Developer
2 41 (10.07%) Architect
3 37 (9.09%) CyberArk Architect
4 27 (6.63%) Administrator
4 27 (6.63%) DevOps Engineer
5 23 (5.65%) Analyst
6 22 (5.41%) Automation Engineer
7 21 (5.16%) Platform Engineer
7 21 (5.16%) Senior
8 18 (4.42%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 17 (4.18%) Java Developer
10 15 (3.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 14 (3.44%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 14 (3.44%) DBA
12 13 (3.19%) Lead
13 12 (2.95%) Site Engineer
14 11 (2.70%) Data Engineer
14 11 (2.70%) Network Engineer
14 11 (2.70%) Support Engineer
15 10 (2.46%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (15.72%) REST
2 54 (13.27%) LDAP
3 41 (10.07%) SOAP
4 32 (7.86%) OAuth
5 25 (6.14%) Elastic Stack
5 25 (6.14%) Node.js
6 23 (5.65%) SAML
7 18 (4.42%) .NET
8 16 (3.93%) Web Services
9 13 (3.19%) Kafka
10 12 (2.95%) Pandas
10 12 (2.95%) RESTful
11 11 (2.70%) Microsoft Graph
12 10 (2.46%) FastAPI
12 10 (2.46%) JWT
12 10 (2.46%) NumPy
13 9 (2.21%) JSON
13 9 (2.21%) OpenID
13 9 (2.21%) PyTorch
14 8 (1.97%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 43 (10.57%) Enterprise Software
1 43 (10.57%) Security Posture
2 22 (5.41%) Cloud Native
2 22 (5.41%) Onboarding
3 20 (4.91%) Replication
4 13 (3.19%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.21%) Low-Code
7 8 (1.97%) Clustering
7 8 (1.97%) Data Centre
8 7 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (1.72%) PKI
8 7 (1.72%) Private Cloud
9 5 (1.23%) AI Agents
9 5 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (1.23%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (1.23%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.23%) Product Ownership
10 4 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (0.98%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 109 (26.78%) Linux
2 86 (21.13%) Windows
3 36 (8.85%) Windows Server
4 28 (6.88%) Unix
5 13 (3.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (1.97%) CentOS
6 8 (1.97%) VMS
7 4 (0.98%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.98%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.74%) AIX
8 3 (0.74%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.49%) Android
9 2 (0.49%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (38.82%) Problem-Solving
2 139 (34.15%) CI/CD
3 103 (25.31%) DevOps
4 71 (17.44%) Infrastructure as Code
5 66 (16.22%) Containerisation
6 58 (14.25%) Agile
7 57 (14.00%) SIEM
8 47 (11.55%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 46 (11.30%) Continuous Improvement
9 46 (11.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 44 (10.81%) Observability
11 43 (10.57%) Disaster Recovery
11 43 (10.57%) High Availability
11 43 (10.57%) Migration
11 43 (10.57%) Technical Leadership
12 41 (10.07%) AI
13 40 (9.83%) Configuration Management
13 40 (9.83%) Identity Access Management
13 40 (9.83%) Privileged Access Management
13 40 (9.83%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 217 (53.32%) Python
2 158 (38.82%) PowerShell
3 71 (17.44%) Bash
4 70 (17.20%) SQL
5 53 (13.02%) Java
6 39 (9.58%) Shell Script
7 28 (6.88%) Go
8 26 (6.39%) JavaScript
9 22 (5.41%) TypeScript
10 18 (4.42%) C#
11 14 (3.44%) Kusto Query Language
12 12 (2.95%) VBA
13 10 (2.46%) Perl
14 9 (2.21%) Bicep
15 7 (1.72%) PL/SQL
16 6 (1.47%) Groovy
17 3 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 3 (0.74%) PHP
17 3 (0.74%) Ruby
18 2 (0.49%) Korn
Qualifications
1 140 (34.40%) Security Cleared
2 108 (26.54%) SC Cleared
3 28 (6.88%) Degree
4 25 (6.14%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.69%) Computer Science Degree
5 15 (3.69%) DV Cleared
6 13 (3.19%) Azure Certification
7 10 (2.46%) CISSP
8 9 (2.21%) AWS Certification
8 9 (2.21%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.23%) CCNP
10 5 (1.23%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.23%) OCP
10 5 (1.23%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (0.98%) CFCE
11 4 (0.98%) GCFA
11 4 (0.98%) GCIA
11 4 (0.98%) GCIH
11 4 (0.98%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (9.34%) GDPR
2 24 (5.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 18 (4.42%) NIST
4 16 (3.93%) Data Quality
5 14 (3.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 10 (2.46%) QA
7 7 (1.72%) SLA
8 5 (1.23%) HIPAA
8 5 (1.23%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.98%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.49%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.49%) EU AI Act
10 2 (0.49%) GRC
11 1 (0.25%) COBIT
11 1 (0.25%) GMP
11 1 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.25%) PMO
System Software
1 93 (22.85%) Active Directory
2 65 (15.97%) Docker
3 24 (5.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.97%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.23%) Tivoli Directory Server
6 4 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.98%) KVM
7 3 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.74%) Xen
8 2 (0.49%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.25%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.25%) HDFS
9 1 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.25%) RHEV
9 1 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.25%) vSphere
9 1 (0.25%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 86 (21.13%) Kubernetes
1 86 (21.13%) Terraform
2 69 (16.95%) Ansible
3 46 (11.30%) Grafana
4 38 (9.34%) Prometheus
5 25 (6.14%) Single Sign-On
6 23 (5.65%) Progress Chef
7 16 (3.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 15 (3.69%) Microsoft Intune
9 14 (3.44%) Puppet
10 12 (2.95%) SCCM
11 11 (2.70%) Oracle RMAN
12 7 (1.72%) Podman
13 6 (1.47%) CA Single Sign-On
13 6 (1.47%) NetBackup
13 6 (1.47%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 5 (1.23%) CA Wily
14 5 (1.23%) Kibana
14 5 (1.23%) logstash
14 5 (1.23%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 106 (26.04%) Microsoft
2 51 (12.53%) CyberArk
3 41 (10.07%) BeyondTrust
4 37 (9.09%) Oracle
5 36 (8.85%) Google
6 34 (8.35%) Centrify
7 33 (8.11%) Splunk
8 26 (6.39%) VMware
9 19 (4.67%) Okta
10 18 (4.42%) Red Hat
11 16 (3.93%) ServiceNow
12 15 (3.69%) OpenAI
13 10 (2.46%) Cisco
14 8 (1.97%) Databricks
15 7 (1.72%) Automation Anywhere
15 7 (1.72%) IBM
15 7 (1.72%) Palo Alto
15 7 (1.72%) UiPath
16 6 (1.47%) AppDynamics
16 6 (1.47%) Veritas