GRC Contract Job Trends

Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring GRC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 8 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 288 387 469
Rank change year-on-year +99 +82 +14
Contract jobs citing GRC 456 170 101
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.52% 0.26%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 4.94% 3.03% 1.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 307 102 72
10th Percentile £401 £350 £375
25th Percentile £463 £410 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £564 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.43% +5.00% -13.04%
75th Percentile £652 £650 £632
90th Percentile £743 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £417 £500
% change year-on-year +25.90% -16.60% -10.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 3 0
10th Percentile - £37.49 -
25th Percentile £64.09 £47.81 -
Median hourly rate £76.00 £65.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +16.92% - -
75th Percentile £85.00 £82.50 -
90th Percentile £90.60 £93.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.00 £66.37 -
% change year-on-year +14.51% - -

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

GRC falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 9,228 5,605 5,263
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.22% 17.04% 13.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,928 3,610 3,258
10th Percentile £331 £280 £291
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £506
Median % change year-on-year - -1.19% -3.62%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £716 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.21% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 564 256 322
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.11
25th Percentile £18.92 £17.47 £14.48
Median hourly rate £39.50 £27.91 £25.77
Median % change year-on-year +41.53% +8.33% -34.79%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £54.84
90th Percentile £81.33 £85.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £24.83 £25.68
% change year-on-year +61.10% -3.32% -28.16%

GRC
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing GRC relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

GRC job vacancy trend in the UK

GRC
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GRC.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GRC

GRC
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing GRC over the 6 months to 8 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for GRC in the UK

GRC
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GRC.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GRC

GRC
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing GRC over the 6 months to 8 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for GRC in the UK

GRC
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing GRC within the UK over the 6 months to 8 August 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +96 408 £574 +9.29% 298
London +57 217 £600 +8.11% 171
UK excluding London +16 199 £525 +25.90% 160
Work from Home +17 134 £550 +10.00% 152
North of England -33 65 £494 +16.24% 33
South East -10 62 £488 -2.50% 55
North West -14 45 £511 +25.01% 19
Midlands -44 29 £638 +59.38% 13
West Midlands -38 23 £583 -2.92% 9
Yorkshire -23 19 £475 +2.70% 11
Scotland -2 18 £533 +25.41% 12
South West -35 16 £563 +35.38% 25
East of England -11 10 £575 +130.92% 19
East Midlands -19 6 £638 +59.38% 4

GRC
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 28 (6.14%) SAS
2 12 (2.63%) Confluence
2 12 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.10%) IIS
4 1 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.22%) NetWeaver
4 1 (0.22%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 9 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.66%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.22%) InfoPath
4 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 38 (8.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (7.68%) SAP GRC
3 3 (0.66%) SAP FI
4 2 (0.44%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.44%) SAP CO
4 2 (0.44%) SAP FI/CO
5 1 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.22%) SAP CCM
5 1 (0.22%) SAP FI-AR
5 1 (0.22%) SAP FI-GL
5 1 (0.22%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 77 (16.89%) Azure
2 50 (10.96%) AWS
3 20 (4.39%) GCP
4 16 (3.51%) SaaS
5 15 (3.29%) Entra ID
6 14 (3.07%) Microsoft 365
7 13 (2.85%) Power Platform
8 12 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.97%) GitHub
9 9 (1.97%) Microsoft Copilot
10 8 (1.75%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (1.54%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (1.54%) SuccessFactors
12 6 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (1.32%) Power Automate
13 5 (1.10%) Copilot Studio
14 4 (0.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 4 (0.88%) Azure Key Vault
14 4 (0.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 3 (0.66%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 15 (3.29%) Network Security
2 5 (1.10%) HTTPS
3 3 (0.66%) Firewall
4 2 (0.44%) Internet
4 2 (0.44%) LAN
4 2 (0.44%) NGFW
4 2 (0.44%) WAN
5 1 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
5 1 (0.22%) Fibre Channel
5 1 (0.22%) HTTP
5 1 (0.22%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (0.22%) iSCSI
5 1 (0.22%) NAS
5 1 (0.22%) SAN
5 1 (0.22%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.85%) Power BI
2 8 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
3 6 (1.32%) Metadata
3 6 (1.32%) Power Query
4 5 (1.10%) Data Lake
5 4 (0.88%) SAP BW
5 4 (0.88%) SAP HANA
6 3 (0.66%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.44%) SQL Server
8 1 (0.22%) Amazon QuickSight
8 1 (0.22%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle Exadata
8 1 (0.22%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.22%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.22%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 16 (3.51%) JIRA
2 5 (1.10%) Git
3 4 (0.88%) Jaeger
4 1 (0.22%) Claude Code
4 1 (0.22%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.22%) Flyway
4 1 (0.22%) GitLab
4 1 (0.22%) Hudson
4 1 (0.22%) Liquibase
4 1 (0.22%) Snyk
General
1 150 (32.89%) Social Skills
2 112 (24.56%) Finance
3 55 (12.06%) Analytical Skills
4 45 (9.87%) Legal
5 42 (9.21%) Public Sector
6 39 (8.55%) Banking
7 20 (4.39%) Telecoms
8 16 (3.51%) Aerospace
9 15 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
9 15 (3.29%) Influencing Skills
10 11 (2.41%) Organisational Skills
10 11 (2.41%) Pharmaceutical
11 9 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (1.54%) Law
13 5 (1.10%) General Ledger
13 5 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (1.10%) Manufacturing
13 5 (1.10%) Marketing
14 4 (0.88%) Police
14 4 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 76 (16.67%) Architect
2 68 (14.91%) Consultant
3 56 (12.28%) Analyst
4 51 (11.18%) Lead
5 34 (7.46%) Security Consultant
5 34 (7.46%) Senior
6 23 (5.04%) Project Manager
7 22 (4.82%) Security Architect
8 18 (3.95%) IT Manager
9 17 (3.73%) Security Analyst
9 17 (3.73%) Security Manager
10 16 (3.51%) Business Analyst
11 15 (3.29%) Risk Manager
11 15 (3.29%) Senior Consultant
12 13 (2.85%) Developer
13 12 (2.63%) SAP Consultant
13 12 (2.63%) ServiceNow Architect
14 10 (2.19%) Cybersecurity Consultant
14 10 (2.19%) Cybersecurity Manager
14 10 (2.19%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (5.70%) SAP Fiori
2 21 (4.61%) REST
3 13 (2.85%) SOAP
4 5 (1.10%) OpenTelemetry
5 4 (0.88%) .NET
5 4 (0.88%) Loki
5 4 (0.88%) Middleware
5 4 (0.88%) Web Services
5 4 (0.88%) XML
6 3 (0.66%) ADO
6 3 (0.66%) JSON
6 3 (0.66%) SailPoint
7 2 (0.44%) CSS
7 2 (0.44%) HTML
7 2 (0.44%) LDAP
7 2 (0.44%) Oracle Fusion
8 1 (0.22%) Jest
8 1 (0.22%) OpenID
8 1 (0.22%) Playwright
8 1 (0.22%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 39 (8.55%) Onboarding
2 27 (5.92%) Security Posture
3 23 (5.04%) Management Information System
4 21 (4.61%) Product Ownership
5 20 (4.39%) Operational Technology
6 19 (4.17%) CMDB
7 13 (2.85%) Cloud Native
8 10 (2.19%) AI Agents
9 9 (1.97%) Cyber Threat
10 8 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.75%) Virtual Team
11 7 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
12 6 (1.32%) Data Centre
12 6 (1.32%) Data Structures
12 6 (1.32%) Taxonomies
13 5 (1.10%) Distributed Systems
13 5 (1.10%) Public Cloud
13 5 (1.10%) Security Operations Centre
14 4 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 11 (2.41%) Linux
2 10 (2.19%) Windows
3 5 (1.10%) AIX
3 5 (1.10%) HPUX
3 5 (1.10%) Oracle Linux
3 5 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (1.10%) Solaris
3 5 (1.10%) SUSE
3 5 (1.10%) Unix
4 1 (0.22%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (38.38%) Risk Management
2 150 (32.89%) Cybersecurity
3 125 (27.41%) Stakeholder Management
4 106 (23.25%) Information Security
5 87 (19.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 68 (14.91%) Continuous Improvement
7 66 (14.47%) Analytics
8 64 (14.04%) Problem-Solving
9 63 (13.82%) Agile
10 57 (12.50%) Roadmaps
11 53 (11.62%) Vulnerability Management
12 52 (11.40%) Security Operations
13 49 (10.75%) Enterprise Architecture
14 46 (10.09%) Decision-Making
15 45 (9.87%) Incident Response
16 44 (9.65%) Data Protection
17 39 (8.55%) AI
17 39 (8.55%) ETL
17 39 (8.55%) Identity Access Management
18 35 (7.68%) Risk Assessment
Programming Languages
1 13 (2.85%) JavaScript
2 8 (1.75%) SQL
3 7 (1.54%) Python
4 6 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 5 (1.10%) Bash
5 5 (1.10%) PowerShell
6 4 (0.88%) Bicep
6 4 (0.88%) Go
7 1 (0.22%) Java
7 1 (0.22%) Korn
7 1 (0.22%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.22%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 143 (31.36%) Security Cleared
2 115 (25.22%) SC Cleared
3 71 (15.57%) CISSP
4 48 (10.53%) CISM
5 27 (5.92%) CRISC
6 25 (5.48%) Degree
7 24 (5.26%) CISA
8 19 (4.17%) DV Cleared
9 15 (3.29%) PMI Certification
10 14 (3.07%) PMP
11 12 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
12 11 (2.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 11 (2.41%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
13 10 (2.19%) Azure Certification
13 10 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
13 10 (2.19%) CCSP
14 9 (1.97%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
15 8 (1.75%) CompTIA Security+
16 5 (1.10%) Master's Degree
16 5 (1.10%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (27.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 106 (23.25%) NIST
3 41 (8.99%) GDPR
4 27 (5.92%) Cyber Essentials
5 24 (5.26%) PCI DSS
6 20 (4.39%) QA
7 17 (3.73%) NCSC
8 15 (3.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 15 (3.29%) Data Quality
8 15 (3.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (3.29%) SOC 2
9 14 (3.07%) COBIT
10 9 (1.97%) ITGC
10 9 (1.97%) SLA
11 8 (1.75%) NIST 800
12 7 (1.54%) ISO 31000
13 6 (1.32%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 5 (1.10%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (1.10%) HIPAA
14 5 (1.10%) PMO
System Software
1 14 (3.07%) Active Directory
2 5 (1.10%) IAG
3 1 (0.22%) Docker
3 1 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (0.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.22%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (2.41%) Terraform
2 7 (1.54%) Kubernetes
2 7 (1.54%) Single Sign-On
3 5 (1.10%) Grafana
4 4 (0.88%) Istio
4 4 (0.88%) Prometheus
4 4 (0.88%) RSA Archer
5 3 (0.66%) Rancher
6 1 (0.22%) Ansible
6 1 (0.22%) Data Guard
6 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.22%) Nessus
6 1 (0.22%) NetBackup
6 1 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
6 1 (0.22%) QRadar
6 1 (0.22%) SCCM
Vendors
1 58 (12.72%) ServiceNow
2 46 (10.09%) SAP
3 45 (9.87%) Microsoft
4 44 (9.65%) Oracle
5 6 (1.32%) Atlassian
5 6 (1.32%) Red Hat
6 5 (1.10%) CyberArk
6 5 (1.10%) Databricks
6 5 (1.10%) Google
6 5 (1.10%) HP
6 5 (1.10%) Palo Alto
7 4 (0.88%) IBM
7 4 (0.88%) OpenAI
8 3 (0.66%) Ericsson
8 3 (0.66%) Nokia
8 3 (0.66%) OneTrust
9 2 (0.44%) Okta
9 2 (0.44%) Salesforce
9 2 (0.44%) Snow
9 2 (0.44%) Zscaler