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 31 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 391 264 255
Rank change year-on-year -127 -9 +179
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 308 339 370
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.57% 1.03% 0.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.68% 1.14% 1.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 190 261
10th Percentile £300 £306 £363
25th Percentile £400 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.55% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £556 £588 £638
90th Percentile £640 £671 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -4.88%
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 45,455 29,807 32,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.45% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,783 18,569 20,737
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,905 1,767 1,609
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.75 £17.30 £18.89
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +3.56%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.31 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.49% -47.37% +14.67%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 -108 268 £492 -1.60% 197
UK excluding London -86 157 £500 +5.26% 114
London -86 118 £451 -9.75% 108
Work from Home -61 88 £500 - 77
North of England -49 63 £500 +5.26% 17
South East -39 49 £515 +4.47% 33
Yorkshire -27 37 £500 +4.17% 5
North West -48 22 £492 +3.58% 12
Midlands -64 16 £588 +14.08% 23
Scotland -36 13 £469 -0.79% 3
South West -38 11 £325 -37.50% 19
West Midlands -61 9 £600 +15.50% 17
East Midlands -11 7 £413 +7.14% 6
North East -33 4 £275 +37.50%
East of England -34 4 £550 +12.24% 13
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 7

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 39 (12.66%) SharePoint
2 21 (6.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.95%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (1.95%) Confluence
4 5 (1.62%) JBoss
5 4 (1.30%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.97%) CMS
7 2 (0.65%) Apache
7 2 (0.65%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.32%) FactoryTalk
8 1 (0.32%) IIS
8 1 (0.32%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.32%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 7 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.95%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.30%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.62%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.30%) Remedy AR System
3 2 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.32%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.32%) FLEXCUBE
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.32%) PeopleSoft HCM
4 1 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.32%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 119 (38.64%) Azure
2 74 (24.03%) AWS
3 56 (18.18%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (12.66%) Entra ID
5 35 (11.36%) GitHub
6 32 (10.39%) Azure DevOps
7 31 (10.06%) Power Platform
8 27 (8.77%) GitHub Actions
9 25 (8.12%) Azure Monitor
10 23 (7.47%) GCP
11 21 (6.82%) Microsoft Copilot
12 20 (6.49%) Power Automate
13 18 (5.84%) Amazon S3
14 17 (5.52%) Datadog
15 15 (4.87%) OneDrive
16 14 (4.55%) OpenShift
17 13 (4.22%) AWS Lambda
17 13 (4.22%) Azure Key Vault
17 13 (4.22%) SaaS
17 13 (4.22%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 49 (15.91%) DNS
2 31 (10.06%) DHCP
3 28 (9.09%) VPN
4 25 (8.12%) Firewall
5 20 (6.49%) TCP/IP
6 16 (5.19%) Network Security
7 10 (3.25%) SAN
7 10 (3.25%) VLAN
8 9 (2.92%) WAN
9 8 (2.60%) SD-WAN
9 8 (2.60%) SSH
10 7 (2.27%) Kerberos
11 5 (1.62%) BIG-IP
11 5 (1.62%) LAN
11 5 (1.62%) Wireless
12 4 (1.30%) Intranet
12 4 (1.30%) PSTN
12 4 (1.30%) Skype
13 3 (0.97%) SSL
13 3 (0.97%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (9.74%) SQL Server
2 13 (4.22%) Power BI
3 12 (3.90%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (2.92%) Amazon RDS
4 9 (2.92%) Big Data
5 7 (2.27%) Relational Database
6 6 (1.95%) Hadoop
6 6 (1.95%) Metadata
6 6 (1.95%) MySQL
6 6 (1.95%) Sybase ASE
7 5 (1.62%) Data Lake
7 5 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (1.30%) EDRMS
8 4 (1.30%) Snowflake Schema
8 4 (1.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.97%) BigQuery
9 3 (0.97%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.97%) Tableau
10 2 (0.65%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 35 (11.36%) Git
2 25 (8.12%) GitLab
3 22 (7.14%) Jenkins
4 12 (3.90%) JIRA
5 5 (1.62%) SonarQube
6 4 (1.30%) Oracle Forms
6 4 (1.30%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.97%) AdminStudio
7 3 (0.97%) Flyway
7 3 (0.97%) InstallShield
7 3 (0.97%) Selenium
8 2 (0.65%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.65%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.65%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.65%) JUnit
8 2 (0.65%) Maven
8 2 (0.65%) Postman
8 2 (0.65%) Snyk
8 2 (0.65%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.32%) Visual Studio
General
1 105 (34.09%) Social Skills
2 60 (19.48%) Analytical Skills
3 48 (15.58%) Finance
4 29 (9.42%) Banking
5 17 (5.52%) Legal
5 17 (5.52%) Public Sector
6 13 (4.22%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (1.95%) Front Office
9 5 (1.62%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.30%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.97%) Law
11 3 (0.97%) Military
11 3 (0.97%) Retail
12 2 (0.65%) Billing
12 2 (0.65%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.65%) Marketing
13 1 (0.32%) Local Government
13 1 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 32 (10.39%) Senior
2 29 (9.42%) Support Engineer
3 28 (9.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 23 (7.47%) Developer
5 19 (6.17%) DevOps Engineer
6 18 (5.84%) DBA
7 17 (5.52%) Platform Engineer
8 16 (5.19%) Analyst
8 16 (5.19%) Consultant
9 15 (4.87%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 13 (4.22%) Cloud Engineer
10 13 (4.22%) Data Engineer
11 12 (3.90%) Architect
12 11 (3.57%) Site Engineer
13 10 (3.25%) Lead
13 10 (3.25%) Linux Engineer
13 10 (3.25%) Systems Engineer
14 9 (2.92%) Administrator
15 8 (2.60%) Security Engineer
15 8 (2.60%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (17.21%) Terraform
2 35 (11.36%) REST
3 18 (5.84%) .NET
4 14 (4.55%) SOAP
5 12 (3.90%) ARM Templates
5 12 (3.90%) Microsoft Graph
5 12 (3.90%) React
6 11 (3.57%) CSS
6 11 (3.57%) JSON
6 11 (3.57%) Kafka
6 11 (3.57%) SPFx
7 9 (2.92%) .NET Framework
7 9 (2.92%) Elastic Stack
7 9 (2.92%) YAML
8 8 (2.60%) HTML
8 8 (2.60%) Web Services
9 7 (2.27%) AWS CDK
10 5 (1.62%) LangChain
10 5 (1.62%) Node.js
10 5 (1.62%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.47%) Onboarding
2 16 (5.19%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (4.87%) Cloud Native
4 14 (4.55%) AI Agents
5 13 (4.22%) Product Ownership
6 12 (3.90%) Distributed Systems
7 11 (3.57%) Clustering
7 11 (3.57%) Data Protection Act
7 11 (3.57%) Management Information System
7 11 (3.57%) Replication
8 10 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (2.92%) Private Cloud
10 7 (2.27%) CMDB
10 7 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
10 7 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (1.95%) Data Centre
11 6 (1.95%) Public Cloud
12 5 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
12 5 (1.62%) Autonomous Agent
12 5 (1.62%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 70 (22.73%) Windows
2 57 (18.51%) Linux
3 27 (8.77%) Windows Server
4 22 (7.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (5.19%) Windows 10
6 11 (3.57%) Unix
7 10 (3.25%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (1.95%) Mac OS
8 6 (1.95%) Windows 7
9 5 (1.62%) Android
9 5 (1.62%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (0.97%) VMS
10 3 (0.97%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.65%) AIX
11 2 (0.65%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.65%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.65%) Rocky
11 2 (0.65%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.65%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (27.60%) CI/CD
2 80 (25.97%) DevOps
3 75 (24.35%) Problem-Solving
4 68 (22.08%) ITIL
5 61 (19.81%) AI
6 57 (18.51%) Agile
7 55 (17.86%) Infrastructure as Code
8 47 (15.26%) Observability
9 46 (14.94%) Continuous Improvement
10 45 (14.61%) Analytics
11 42 (13.64%) Migration
12 40 (12.99%) Performance Tuning
13 38 (12.34%) Disaster Recovery
13 38 (12.34%) Root Cause Analysis
13 38 (12.34%) Workflow
14 34 (11.04%) Runbook
15 33 (10.71%) High Availability
16 32 (10.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 32 (10.39%) ITSM
17 29 (9.42%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 127 (41.23%) Python
2 120 (38.96%) PowerShell
3 61 (19.81%) SQL
4 52 (16.88%) Bash
5 35 (11.36%) JavaScript
6 18 (5.84%) Java
7 17 (5.52%) Bicep
8 15 (4.87%) TypeScript
9 14 (4.55%) C#
10 11 (3.57%) Shell Script
11 10 (3.25%) Go
11 10 (3.25%) T-SQL
12 9 (2.92%) Kusto Query Language
13 6 (1.95%) PL/SQL
13 6 (1.95%) VBScript
14 4 (1.30%) Scala
15 3 (0.97%) Perl
16 2 (0.65%) REXX
17 1 (0.32%) ABAP
17 1 (0.32%) JCL
Qualifications
1 101 (32.79%) Security Cleared
2 63 (20.45%) SC Cleared
3 36 (11.69%) DV Cleared
4 34 (11.04%) Degree
5 20 (6.49%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (3.25%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.62%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.62%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (1.30%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.97%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (0.97%) CCNA
10 3 (0.97%) CCNP
11 2 (0.65%) CIPD
11 2 (0.65%) CISM
11 2 (0.65%) CISSP
11 2 (0.65%) GSEC
11 2 (0.65%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.65%) MCITP
11 2 (0.65%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (8.12%) Data Quality
2 16 (5.19%) SLA
3 9 (2.92%) QA
4 8 (2.60%) NIST
5 5 (1.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.65%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.32%) GDPR
7 1 (0.32%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.32%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.32%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 65 (21.10%) Active Directory
2 30 (9.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (8.77%) Docker
4 11 (3.57%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (3.57%) VMware ESXi
5 9 (2.92%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (2.27%) Hyper-V
6 7 (2.27%) NFS
7 5 (1.62%) vSphere
8 2 (0.65%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.65%) Firmware
8 2 (0.65%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.32%) NDS
9 1 (0.32%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 1 (0.32%) OpenSSH
9 1 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.32%) UAG
Systems Management
1 48 (15.58%) Ansible
2 35 (11.36%) Kubernetes
3 30 (9.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (8.44%) SCCM
5 16 (5.19%) Grafana
5 16 (5.19%) Puppet
6 14 (4.55%) Prometheus
6 14 (4.55%) SCOM
7 12 (3.90%) Progress Chef
8 11 (3.57%) Red Hat Satellite
8 11 (3.57%) vCenter Server
9 6 (1.95%) Failover Clustering
9 6 (1.95%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.97%) Istio
10 3 (0.97%) WSUS
11 2 (0.65%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.65%) Foglight
11 2 (0.65%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.65%) Nagios
11 2 (0.65%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 113 (36.69%) Microsoft
2 34 (11.04%) VMware
3 21 (6.82%) ServiceNow
4 20 (6.49%) Oracle
5 19 (6.17%) Google
5 19 (6.17%) Red Hat
6 16 (5.19%) Splunk
7 12 (3.90%) SolarWinds
8 11 (3.57%) Cisco
9 9 (2.92%) Broadcom
10 8 (2.60%) Databricks
10 8 (2.60%) OpenAI
11 7 (2.27%) AppDynamics
12 6 (1.95%) BMC
12 6 (1.95%) Sybase
13 5 (1.62%) Citrix
13 5 (1.62%) Dynatrace
13 5 (1.62%) F5
13 5 (1.62%) Ivanti
13 5 (1.62%) Remedy