How is the 0 to 100 score worked out?

Six dimensions, each on a five-rung ladder from level 0 to level 4. Your six levels are added, which gives a total out of 24, and that total is stretched across a 0 to 100 scale. Nothing is weighted more heavily than anything else.

What do the bands actually mean?

75 and above is Running a practice. 50 to 74 is Working, unevenly. 25 to 49 is A few things automated. Below 25 is Everything by hand. The cutoffs are fixed and published here, not adjusted afterwards to make a number land better.

How is this different from the automation readiness quiz?

The readiness quiz asks whether you should automate your first thing, for a company that has automated nothing. This asks whether what you already run is any good, for a company that has. If nothing runs on its own yet, start there.

What is the fragile-at-scale warning?

It appears when Coverage is level 3 or 4 while Ownership or Observability is level 0 or 1: plenty running, almost nothing holding it up. That scores better than everything by hand and behaves worse: a silent failure reaches further before anyone notices.

Is 62 good? What does an average company score?

No sourced figure exists for what a typical UK company scores on this ladder, so none is quoted. Your score compares your answers to the top rung of each ladder and nothing else. An invented average would feel more meaningful and be worth less.

Why does it give one job rather than a list of improvements?

Because a list of eighteen improvements gets read and not done. The next rung on your weakest dimension is one sentence, it is written on the ladder itself rather than generated, and it is the thing that moves the score.

Score your automation maturity

Six dimensions, each on a named five-rung ladder: coverage, connections, ownership, documentation, observability and change safety. A score out of 100, and the one rung to climb next.

FREE
NO EMAIL
5 MINUTES
NOTHING SAVED OR SENT

How much of your repetitive work runs on its own?

COVERAGE

Do your systems talk to each other, or do people carry the data?

CONNECTIONS

MATURITY SO FAR

25

out of 100, banded as

A few things automated

YOUR NEXT RUNG · COVERAGE

Take the pattern that already works in one team and run it in a second one.

WORKED EXAMPLE, NOT YOUR ANSWERS

A thirty-person firm has automated a fair amount over two years: invoice reminders, a lead handover, a nightly export. Coverage comes back at level 3, change safety is decent because the person who built it is careful, and it scores 54.

Observability is level 1: somebody notices when the output looks wrong. That is the fragile shape, and the tool says so by name rather than letting a healthy-looking 54 hide it. The next rung is one sentence and a week's work, not a programme.

54 out of 100

Banded "Working, unevenly", and flagged fragile at scale. Coverage 3, Connections 2, Ownership 2, Documentation 2, Observability 1, Change safety 3.

NEXT RUNG · OBSERVABILITY

Send failures somewhere, anywhere, rather than letting them fail in silence.

The six ladders, top and bottom

Every dimension runs from level 0 to level 4, and the two ends are printed here so it is clear what the scale measures before you answer anything. The three middle rungs are in the tool.

DIMENSION	LEVEL 0	LEVEL 4
Coverage	Every repeated job is done by a person, every time.	New repetitive work gets automated as a matter of course, not as a project.
Connections	People copy data between systems by hand.	New tools are chosen partly on whether they connect, checked before buying.
Ownership	Nobody owns any of it. Whatever exists, exists by accident.	Ownership survives people leaving. Handover is a step, not a crisis.
Documentation	Nothing is written down.	Notes are updated as part of changing the thing, not afterwards.
Observability	A customer or a colleague tells you, eventually.	You can see what ran, what did not and how long it took, without asking anyone.
Change safety	It breaks, nobody knows why, and somebody rebuilds it from memory.	Changes are tested and reversible, and you know how to put it back.

How the score works

How is the 0 to 100 score worked out?: Six dimensions, each on a five-rung ladder from level 0 to level 4. Your six levels are added, which gives a total out of 24, and that total is stretched across a 0 to 100 scale. Nothing is weighted more heavily than anything else.
What do the bands actually mean?: 75 and above is Running a practice. 50 to 74 is Working, unevenly. 25 to 49 is A few things automated. Below 25 is Everything by hand. The cutoffs are fixed and published here, not adjusted afterwards to make a number land better.
How is this different from the automation readiness quiz?: The readiness quiz asks whether you should automate your first thing, for a company that has automated nothing. This asks whether what you already run is any good, for a company that has. If nothing runs on its own yet, start there.
What is the fragile-at-scale warning?: It appears when Coverage is level 3 or 4 while Ownership or Observability is level 0 or 1: plenty running, almost nothing holding it up. That scores better than everything by hand and behaves worse: a silent failure reaches further before anyone notices.
Is 62 good? What does an average company score?: No sourced figure exists for what a typical UK company scores on this ladder, so none is quoted. Your score compares your answers to the top rung of each ladder and nothing else. An invented average would feel more meaningful and be worth less.
Why does it give one job rather than a list of improvements?: Because a list of eighteen improvements gets read and not done. The next rung on your weakest dimension is one sentence, it is written on the ladder itself rather than generated, and it is the thing that moves the score.

Carry on next door

Automation readiness quiz

The other end of the same question. If nothing runs on its own yet, start there instead: it asks whether you are ready to build a first one.

Open it

Audit one workflow

Once the scorecard says Coverage is your weak rung, this finds the specific step worth covering first.

Open it

The rung, not the number

If the next rung looks like a week of work you cannot spare, that is worth twenty minutes with us. If it looks obvious, do it, or hand it to us, and re-run this in a quarter.

Book twenty minutes