automation jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-09-28, automation appears in 9,122 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — Software Engineer has the most postings mentioning automation, with demand down 46% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-09-28
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Frequently asked questions about automation
+Is automation in demand in 2026?
Yes. automation appears in 9,122 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28, with demand down 46% vs the prior 4 weeks. Software Engineer accounts for the most postings mentioning automation (10.9% of all postings mentioning automation).
+What jobs require automation?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28, among roles with at least 20 postings, the highest shares mentioning automation are Spacecraft Operations Engineer (81.5% of that role’s postings mention automation), AI Operations Manager (42.9% of that role’s postings mention automation), Site Reliability Engineering Manager (41.2% of that role’s postings mention automation).
+What skills are commonly paired with automation?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-09-28), automation most often appears alongside Python, CI/CD, SQL, observability, AWS.
+Where is automation most in demand?
As of 2026-09-28, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring automation are New York City, San Francisco, London, Bengaluru, Toronto, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new automation content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning automation alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new automation content from your Skillenai account.
Weekly job postings requiring automation — last 90 days
Salary distribution
Box = 25th–75th percentile · tick = median · whisker = 10th–90th · USD, annualized
Roles most likely to require automation
Among roles with at least 20 postings in the same period.
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | % of role postings mentioning skill |
|---|---|---|
| Spacecraft Operations Engineer | 22 | 81.5% |
| AI Operations Manager | 12 | 42.9% |
| Site Reliability Engineering Manager | 21 | 41.2% |
| Lead Engineer | 29 | 40.3% |
| Enterprise Security Engineer | 10 | 29.4% |
| Platform Engineering Manager | 11 | 27.5% |
| Production Engineer | 14 | 27.5% |
| Propulsion Test Engineer | 6 | 27.3% |
| Product Operations Manager | 6 | 24.0% |
| Creative Technologist | 5 | 23.8% |
Roles with the most automation postings
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | Share of skill postings |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 995 | 10.9% |
| Product Manager | 514 | 5.6% |
| Site Reliability Engineer | 396 | 4.3% |
| DevOps Engineer | 238 | 2.6% |
| Security Engineer | 230 | 2.5% |
| Engineering Manager | 181 | 2.0% |
| Program Manager | 166 | 1.8% |
| Systems Engineer | 143 | 1.6% |
| Business Analyst | 127 | 1.4% |
| Data Analyst | 127 | 1.4% |
Top metros hiring for automation
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | 320 | 3.5% |
| San Francisco | 298 | 3.3% |
| London | 240 | 2.6% |
| Bengaluru | 190 | 2.1% |
| Toronto | 113 | 1.2% |
| Boston | 109 | 1.2% |
| Singapore | 100 | 1.1% |
| Austin | 99 | 1.1% |
| Hyderabad | 99 | 1.1% |
Skills commonly paired with automation
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How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Role prevalence divides postings mentioning automation by all postings for each role in the same window, ranking roles with at least 20 postings. Role distribution divides each role’s automation postings by all automation postings, including postings without a role. Shares need not sum to 100% for the displayed roles. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills).
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- 14af8560954a732e
- data_as_of
- 2026-09-28
- window_days
- 90
The demand, skills, and geo numbers on this page come from the same Skillenai labor market index that powers our API. Use it for compensation benchmarking, hiring-competition analysis, and skill-adoption tracking.
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