diff --git a/build.gradle b/build.gradle
index 0e68e8f04..26695687c 100644
--- a/build.gradle
+++ b/build.gradle
@@ -93,3 +93,20 @@ allprojects {
 evaluationDependsOnChildren()
 
 check.dependsOn subprojects*.check
+
+// updateVersion: Task to auto increment to the next development iteration
+task updateVersion {
+    onlyIf { System.getProperty('newVersion') }
+    doLast {
+        ext.newVersion = System.getProperty('newVersion')
+        println "Setting version to ${newVersion}."
+        // String tokenization to support -SNAPSHOT
+        ant.replaceregexp(match: opensearch_version.tokenize('-')[0], replace: newVersion.tokenize('-')[0], flags:'g', byline:true) {
+            fileset(dir: projectDir) {
+                // Include the required files that needs to be updated with new Version
+                include(name: "alerting/build.gradle")
+            }
+        }
+        ant.replaceregexp(file:'build.gradle', match: '"opensearch.version", "\\d.*"', replace: '"opensearch.version", "' + newVersion.tokenize('-')[0] + '-SNAPSHOT"', flags:'g', byline:true)
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file