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 2 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 365 260 284
Rank change year-on-year -105 +24 +176
Contract jobs citing Task Automation 312 313 344
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 1.01% 0.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.71% 1.11% 0.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 213 169 262
10th Percentile £300 £306 £388
25th Percentile £400 £408 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £575 £582 £675
90th Percentile £625 £679 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £475 £525
% change year-on-year -1.26% -9.52% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 16 3
10th Percentile - £19.91 -
25th Percentile £16.33 £21.00 -
Median hourly rate £19.57 £29.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -33.66% +23.95% -73.56%
75th Percentile £24.29 £65.25 -
90th Percentile £46.40 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.33 £23.33 -
% change year-on-year -30.00% - -

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 43,739 28,136 37,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.86% 85.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,189 17,763 23,600
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -3.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,627 1,381 2,550
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.45%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +75.84% -34.42% +8.91%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 -91 270 £460 -8.00% 119
UK excluding London -101 159 £469 -1.26% 80
London -70 125 £460 -8.96% 47
Work from Home -57 101 £500 -3.57% 51
North of England -34 67 £500 +5.26% 22
Yorkshire -4 50 £500 +25.00% 3
South East -27 43 £403 -19.50% 32
Scotland -31 18 £508 +10.93% 4
Midlands -52 15 £500 +2.56% 7
South West -38 13 £363 -30.29% 10
North West -53 12 £459 -3.37% 16
West Midlands -58 11 £575 +15.00% 3
North East -27 5 £275 -26.67% 3
East Midlands -21 4 £413 +7.14% 4
Wales -14 2 £543 +106.67% 1
East of England -42 1 £400 -11.11% 6

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 36 (11.54%) SharePoint
2 22 (7.05%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (3.21%) Confluence
4 6 (1.92%) Appian
5 5 (1.60%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.96%) Apache
6 3 (0.96%) CMS
7 2 (0.64%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.32%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.32%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 7 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.60%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.64%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (0.96%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.64%) Maximo
2 2 (0.64%) Remedy AR System
3 1 (0.32%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.32%) FLEXCUBE
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.32%) PeopleSoft HCM
3 1 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.32%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 141 (45.19%) Azure
2 79 (25.32%) AWS
3 55 (17.63%) Microsoft 365
4 50 (16.03%) Entra ID
5 37 (11.86%) GitHub
6 36 (11.54%) GCP
7 26 (8.33%) Azure DevOps
8 24 (7.69%) GitHub Actions
8 24 (7.69%) Power Automate
8 24 (7.69%) Power Platform
9 20 (6.41%) OpenShift
10 18 (5.77%) Amazon S3
10 18 (5.77%) Azure Monitor
11 16 (5.13%) Azure Key Vault
12 15 (4.81%) Microsoft Copilot
13 14 (4.49%) PaaS
13 14 (4.49%) Serverless
14 13 (4.17%) OneDrive
14 13 (4.17%) PowerApps
15 12 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 42 (13.46%) DNS
2 31 (9.94%) DHCP
3 21 (6.73%) Firewall
4 20 (6.41%) VPN
5 15 (4.81%) Kerberos
6 13 (4.17%) SAN
7 11 (3.53%) Network Security
8 9 (2.88%) TCP/IP
8 9 (2.88%) WAN
9 8 (2.56%) SD-WAN
9 8 (2.56%) VLAN
10 5 (1.60%) LAN
10 5 (1.60%) SSH
11 4 (1.28%) Cisco Nexus
11 4 (1.28%) Intranet
11 4 (1.28%) SSL
12 3 (0.96%) BGP
12 3 (0.96%) BIG-IP
12 3 (0.96%) Cisco IOS
12 3 (0.96%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (11.54%) SQL Server
2 11 (3.53%) Data Warehouse
3 10 (3.21%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (3.21%) Power BI
4 8 (2.56%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (2.24%) Metadata
5 7 (2.24%) MySQL
6 6 (1.92%) Pinecone
6 6 (1.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (1.92%) Sybase ASE
7 5 (1.60%) Snowflake Schema
8 4 (1.28%) Big Data
8 4 (1.28%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.28%) EDRMS
8 4 (1.28%) Relational Database
8 4 (1.28%) Tableau
9 3 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.96%) MongoDB
9 3 (0.96%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 27 (8.65%) Jenkins
2 25 (8.01%) GitLab
3 24 (7.69%) Git
4 19 (6.09%) JIRA
5 9 (2.88%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (1.92%) MLflow
7 5 (1.60%) SonarQube
8 4 (1.28%) Flyway
9 3 (0.96%) AdminStudio
9 3 (0.96%) InstallShield
10 2 (0.64%) Selenium
11 1 (0.32%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.32%) Cypress.io
11 1 (0.32%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.32%) SoapUI
11 1 (0.32%) TestNG
11 1 (0.32%) TestRail
11 1 (0.32%) VersionOne
11 1 (0.32%) WebDriver
11 1 (0.32%) WiX
General
1 120 (38.46%) Social Skills
2 57 (18.27%) Finance
3 44 (14.10%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (8.33%) Banking
5 23 (7.37%) Public Sector
6 15 (4.81%) Legal
7 13 (4.17%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.56%) Financial Institution
9 5 (1.60%) Front Office
9 5 (1.60%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.96%) Law
11 2 (0.64%) Military
11 2 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.64%) Retail
12 1 (0.32%) International Banking
12 1 (0.32%) Local Government
12 1 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 32 (10.26%) Developer
2 21 (6.73%) DBA
3 18 (5.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 16 (5.13%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
4 16 (5.13%) Consultant
4 16 (5.13%) Site Reliability Engineer
5 15 (4.81%) Senior
5 15 (4.81%) Support Engineer
6 14 (4.49%) Architect
7 12 (3.85%) Analyst
7 12 (3.85%) Automation Engineer
7 12 (3.85%) Data Engineer
7 12 (3.85%) DevOps Engineer
7 12 (3.85%) Site Engineer
8 11 (3.53%) Azure Developer
9 10 (3.21%) Administrator
9 10 (3.21%) Platform Engineer
9 10 (3.21%) Technical Support
10 9 (2.88%) AWS Engineer
10 9 (2.88%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (13.46%) REST
2 23 (7.37%) .NET
3 21 (6.73%) OAuth
4 19 (6.09%) LDAP
4 19 (6.09%) SOAP
5 17 (5.45%) Web Services
6 15 (4.81%) Microsoft Graph
6 15 (4.81%) SAML
7 12 (3.85%) .NET Framework
8 11 (3.53%) CSS
8 11 (3.53%) Elastic Stack
8 11 (3.53%) JWT
8 11 (3.53%) React
9 10 (3.21%) AWS CDK
9 10 (3.21%) JSON
9 10 (3.21%) Node.js
9 10 (3.21%) RESTful
9 10 (3.21%) SPFx
10 9 (2.88%) Pandas
10 9 (2.88%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.01%) Replication
2 22 (7.05%) Onboarding
3 17 (5.45%) Legacy Systems
4 16 (5.13%) Distributed Systems
5 13 (4.17%) Cloud Native
5 13 (4.17%) Enterprise Software
5 13 (4.17%) Hybrid Cloud
6 12 (3.85%) AI Agents
7 11 (3.53%) Data Protection Act
7 11 (3.53%) Product Ownership
8 9 (2.88%) Security Posture
9 7 (2.24%) Data Centre
9 7 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (2.24%) Virtual Team
10 6 (1.92%) Low-Code
10 6 (1.92%) Management Information System
11 5 (1.60%) Autonomous Agent
11 5 (1.60%) Clustering
11 5 (1.60%) CMDB
11 5 (1.60%) FlexPod
Operating Systems
1 73 (23.40%) Windows
2 58 (18.59%) Linux
3 30 (9.62%) Windows Server
4 19 (6.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 13 (4.17%) Unix
6 9 (2.88%) Windows 10
7 8 (2.56%) Mac OS
8 6 (1.92%) VMS
9 5 (1.60%) CoreOS
9 5 (1.60%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.96%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.64%) AIX
11 2 (0.64%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.64%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.32%) Android
12 1 (0.32%) CentOS
12 1 (0.32%) Solaris
12 1 (0.32%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.32%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (26.92%) Problem-Solving
2 81 (25.96%) CI/CD
3 70 (22.44%) DevOps
4 64 (20.51%) AI
5 54 (17.31%) Agile
6 49 (15.71%) High Availability
6 49 (15.71%) ITIL
7 48 (15.38%) Disaster Recovery
8 47 (15.06%) Migration
9 41 (13.14%) Analytics
9 41 (13.14%) Continuous Improvement
10 39 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
11 38 (12.18%) Workflow
12 37 (11.86%) Observability
13 35 (11.22%) Containerisation
14 33 (10.58%) Change Management
14 33 (10.58%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 30 (9.62%) Performance Tuning
16 29 (9.29%) RBAC
17 28 (8.97%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 137 (43.91%) Python
2 117 (37.50%) PowerShell
3 60 (19.23%) SQL
4 40 (12.82%) Bash
5 27 (8.65%) JavaScript
6 25 (8.01%) Java
7 19 (6.09%) C#
8 18 (5.77%) TypeScript
9 14 (4.49%) Go
10 12 (3.85%) Kusto Query Language
11 9 (2.88%) Shell Script
11 9 (2.88%) T-SQL
12 7 (2.24%) PL/SQL
13 6 (1.92%) Bicep
14 2 (0.64%) ActionScript
14 2 (0.64%) Scala
14 2 (0.64%) VBScript
15 1 (0.32%) ABAP
15 1 (0.32%) Perl
15 1 (0.32%) REXX
Qualifications
1 94 (30.13%) Security Cleared
2 69 (22.12%) SC Cleared
3 30 (9.62%) Degree
4 22 (7.05%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (6.41%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.88%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (1.60%) OCP
8 5 (1.60%) Oracle Certification
9 4 (1.28%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.28%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (1.28%) CISSP
10 3 (0.96%) CCNP
11 2 (0.64%) CCNA
11 2 (0.64%) CISM
11 2 (0.64%) JNCIA
11 2 (0.64%) JNCIS
11 2 (0.64%) MCTS
11 2 (0.64%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (8.01%) Data Quality
2 15 (4.81%) GDPR
3 13 (4.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 11 (3.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (3.21%) NIST
6 9 (2.88%) QA
7 7 (2.24%) SLA
8 3 (0.96%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.96%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.64%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.32%) GMP
10 1 (0.32%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.32%) GRC
System Software
1 65 (20.83%) Active Directory
2 26 (8.33%) Docker
3 20 (6.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (4.49%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (3.53%) NFS
6 7 (2.24%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (2.24%) vSphere
7 5 (1.60%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.64%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.64%) Firmware
9 2 (0.64%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.32%) KVM
10 1 (0.32%) OpenSSH
10 1 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.32%) UAG
10 1 (0.32%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 51 (16.35%) Ansible
2 49 (15.71%) Kubernetes
3 48 (15.38%) Terraform
4 26 (8.33%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (5.77%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (4.81%) SCCM
7 13 (4.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 12 (3.85%) Grafana
9 11 (3.53%) Prometheus
10 9 (2.88%) Progress Chef
11 6 (1.92%) Puppet
11 6 (1.92%) Red Hat Satellite
11 6 (1.92%) SCOM
12 5 (1.60%) SnapMirror
12 5 (1.60%) vCenter Server
13 4 (1.28%) Nessus
14 3 (0.96%) Foglight
14 3 (0.96%) OpenVAS
14 3 (0.96%) PowerCLI
14 3 (0.96%) WSUS
Vendors
1 103 (33.01%) Microsoft
2 27 (8.65%) VMware
3 23 (7.37%) Google
3 23 (7.37%) ServiceNow
4 21 (6.73%) Red Hat
5 18 (5.77%) Okta
6 16 (5.13%) OpenAI
7 15 (4.81%) Oracle
7 15 (4.81%) Splunk
8 12 (3.85%) Databricks
9 9 (2.88%) Cisco
10 7 (2.24%) Palo Alto
11 6 (1.92%) AppDynamics
11 6 (1.92%) Automation Anywhere
11 6 (1.92%) Bloomberg
11 6 (1.92%) Citrix
11 6 (1.92%) CyberArk
11 6 (1.92%) Sybase
11 6 (1.92%) UiPath
12 5 (1.60%) NetApp