UK automation day-rate explorer
Real, sourced UK contractor day rates for the roles closest to automation work, plus an honest range for your own experience level. Never a single confident-sounding number.
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| Title | Median, per day | Typical range | Wider range | Rates quoted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
RPA Developer Closest match to: someone hands-on building a single bot or workflow. | £475 | £413 to £538 | £358 to £607 | 28small sample |
Automation Engineer Closest match to: building and looking after several automations across your systems. | £500 | £400 to £600 | not published | 121 |
Business Analyst Closest match to: mapping the process properly before anything gets built. | £500 | £425 to £600 | £363 to £675 | 1376 |
AI Engineer Closest match to: work built around a language model or machine learning, not fixed rules. | £588 | not published | not published | not published |
Solutions Architect Closest match to: designing how several systems fit together before anyone builds anything. | £625 | £525 to £713 | not published | 1194 |
Source: ITJobsWatch, UK contract rate data, 6 months to 26 Aug 2026. Shown exactly as published, including the smaller sample on the RPA Developer row: a thin sample shown honestly is more useful than a thicker-looking number that is not real.
Get a range for the work you actually have
AUTOMATION ENGINEER, 3 TO 7 YEARS
£400-£600
a day. Both ends are published figures, not an estimate.
WORKED EXAMPLE, NOT A QUOTE
A mid-level engagement, three to seven years doing this, mapping a process before anything gets built, sits in the table's Business Analyst band.
£425 to £600 a day
Both ends are published figures, from 1,376 real UK contract rates, not an estimate.
Where the numbers come from
- Where do these figures come from?
- ITJobsWatch, which tracks UK contract job adverts and publishes the day rates actually quoted in them. Every figure on this page is real, UK-wide, and was checked on 26 August 2026, the day this table was built.
- Why does the RPA Developer row say small sample?
- Because it is: 28 quoted rates, against 1,376 for Business Analyst. It is shown exactly as published rather than hidden, or quietly blended into a bigger, steadier-looking number.
- Why does AI Engineer only show a median, with no range?
- Because that is all ITJobsWatch publishes for that specific title. Rather than invent a plausible-looking range, the estimator builds one from an assumption that is visible and adjustable, and says plainly when it has done that.
- What does the assumption width control actually do?
- Only one thing: it fills in a bound ITJobsWatch has not published, as a percentage either side of whatever real figure is closest. It never changes a number that is already sourced. Move it and watch which figures actually shift.
- Is this what Cadral charges?
- No. This is the UK contractor market for related job titles, a real benchmark before any conversation about price. Our own work is a fixed price, quoted in writing before anything starts.
- Why UK-wide rather than broken down by region?
- Because the one regional breakdown checked, Business Analyst, showed £500 UK-wide against £475 outside London: too small a difference, from one data point, to apply as a rule across every row. Treat London-based work as sitting toward the upper end of each range.
The range says what to ask for
A quote well outside these ranges is worth a question, in either direction. Twenty minutes covers the specifics an average cannot.
Ran your numbers? Send us the figures and we will come back with a fixed price, or book twenty minutes and talk them through.
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