Which of these numbers are real, and which are ours to set?

One is anchored: £500 a day is the published UK contract median for an Automation Engineer (ITJobsWatch, six months to 26 August 2026, 121 quoted rates). Everything else, the £2,500 build included, is a round number waiting for yours, and every field is editable.

Why is our own people's time a budget line?

Because it is the line that gets missed and then blamed. Someone has to walk us through the process, surface the edge cases and sign off the result, and that time is never free. Budget for it and it stops being a surprise.

Why twenty percent contingency and not ten, or forty?

Twenty is the default because it is roughly the point at which a budget survives the first surprise without a second conversation. It is a judgement, not a measurement, which is why it is a slider. Move it and see what it does.

What is the difference between year one and the years after it?

Discovery and building happen once; running cost happens every year. The headline is year one, and underneath it sits the smaller number that comes back annually whether you build anything new or not. Carry only the first figure and month thirteen brings a surprise.

Does this tell us whether automating is worth it?

No. This is the cost side only. Whether it pays back is the ROI calculator's question, and it is a different one: this tool tells you what to ask finance for, that one tells you what you get in return.

What does it deliberately leave out?

Change management, a failed build that has to be redone, and any software licence you would have bought anyway. The first two have no honest number and the third is not caused by the automation, so the figure you get is the conservative one.

AI budget planner

What to put in the budget line for automation, before anyone has quoted you anything. Build, discovery, your own people's time, running cost and contingency, split so you can see which part comes back every year.

FREE
NO EMAIL
2 MINUTES
NOTHING SAVED OR SENT

01What you are automating

Processes you want automated in year one

What one build costs, one off

£

Default £2,500, the same figure the ROI calculator on this site uses. Change it to whatever you have been quoted.

02Before anything gets built

Days spent mapping the processes properly

Day rate for that work

£

Default £500: the published median UK contract day rate for an Automation Engineer (ITJobsWatch, 6 months to 26 August 2026, 121 quoted rates).

03What it costs you internally

Hours of your own people's time, across the year

Answering questions, finding the edge cases, testing it against real data. Free at the point of use, not free.Loaded hourly cost of those people

£

Salary plus employer National Insurance, pension and the desk. Your figure, not a benchmark.Running cost per automation, per month

£

Model or API usage, hosting, any licence the automation needs to keep working.Contingency20%Nothing lands on the first estimate. Twenty percent is the default because it is the point at which a budget stops needing a second conversation.

BUDGET FOR YEAR ONE

£13,872

£120 a month of that comes back every year after. The other 73% is one off.

Mapping it first3 days at £500: £1,500
Building it3 × £2,500: £7,500
Your own people's time40 hours at £28: £1,120
Running it for 12 months£120 a month: £1,440
Contingency20% of everything above: £2,312
Year one, all in: £13,872
Every year after, if you build nothing newRunning cost only. No build, no discovery, no contingency.: £1,440

WORKED EXAMPLE, NOT A QUOTE

Three processes automated in a year. Three days mapping them before anything is built, at £500 a day. £2,500 a build. Forty hours of your own people’s time at £28 an hour. £40 a month each to run, plus twenty percent contingency.

£13,872

in year one. £120 a month of that keeps coming after the building stops, which is the line most budgets forget.

Those are the numbers the planner opens on. Change any of them and every figure in the planner moves as you type.

What this budget assumes

Which of these numbers are real, and which are ours to set?: One is anchored: £500 a day is the published UK contract median for an Automation Engineer (ITJobsWatch, six months to 26 August 2026, 121 quoted rates). Everything else, the £2,500 build included, is a round number waiting for yours, and every field is editable.
Why is our own people's time a budget line?: Because it is the line that gets missed and then blamed. Someone has to walk us through the process, surface the edge cases and sign off the result, and that time is never free. Budget for it and it stops being a surprise.
Why twenty percent contingency and not ten, or forty?: Twenty is the default because it is roughly the point at which a budget survives the first surprise without a second conversation. It is a judgement, not a measurement, which is why it is a slider. Move it and see what it does.
What is the difference between year one and the years after it?: Discovery and building happen once; running cost happens every year. The headline is year one, and underneath it sits the smaller number that comes back annually whether you build anything new or not. Carry only the first figure and month thirteen brings a surprise.
Does this tell us whether automating is worth it?: No. This is the cost side only. Whether it pays back is the ROI calculator's question, and it is a different one: this tool tells you what to ask finance for, that one tells you what you get in return.
What does it deliberately leave out?: Change management, a failed build that has to be redone, and any software licence you would have bought anyway. The first two have no honest number and the third is not caused by the automation, so the figure you get is the conservative one.

Carry on next door

Automation ROI calculator

This tool gives you the cost. That one says whether the job is worth paying it for, and how many months until it pays for itself.

Open it

Staffing model calculator

Four ways to get the same work done, priced against one workload and ranked.

Open it

A number you can take to whoever holds the budget

The figure is only as good as the build cost you put in it. Twenty minutes with us replaces that guess with a fixed price, quoted in writing before anything starts.

Book twenty minutes

A chat panel asking to build the Monday numbers, the reply that the dashboard and digest are live, source panels joined by teal threads, and a run log. — What a planned budget buys: the reporting run, illustrated. The figures are an illustration of a run, not a client's results.

Ran your numbers? Send us the figures and we will come back with a fixed price, or book twenty minutes and talk them through.

Book twenty minutes →Send us the brief

Elsewhere on this site

Each service is its own page. Pricing, the FAQ, the Manchester company page, the free tools and the blog sit alongside them.