Sarbanes-Oxley Contract Job Trends

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX, Sarbox)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Sarbanes-Oxley skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
12 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 400 400 497
Rank change year-on-year 0 +97 +88
Contract jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley 176 124 102
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 0.39% 0.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.83% 2.75% 1.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 120 73 58
10th Percentile £400 £303 £253
25th Percentile £472 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £556 £550 £531
Median % change year-on-year +1.14% +3.53% -7.61%
75th Percentile £688 £628 £634
90th Percentile £775 £740 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £515
% change year-on-year - +6.80% +14.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 1
10th Percentile £29.23 £49.14 -
25th Percentile £38.56 £56.78 £31.25
Median hourly rate £50.75 £69.52 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -27.00% +113.91% +17.12%
75th Percentile £55.50 £82.26 £33.75
90th Percentile £56.40 £89.90 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £44.04 -
% change year-on-year -10.31% - -

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

Sarbanes-Oxley 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 6,225 4,505 6,199
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.17% 14.30% 14.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,017 2,637 4,114
10th Percentile £313 £258 £313
25th Percentile £408 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £644
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 300 174 245
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.00 £13.07
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.01 £17.14
Median hourly rate £26.11 £29.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.97% -10.77% +36.74%
75th Percentile £63.40 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £79.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.75 £29.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -28.45% -3.33% +41.18%

Sarbanes-Oxley
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Sarbanes-Oxley job vacancy trend in the UK

Sarbanes-Oxley
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Sarbanes-Oxley.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Sarbanes-Oxley

Sarbanes-Oxley
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Sarbanes-Oxley in the UK

Sarbanes-Oxley
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Sarbanes-Oxley.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Sarbanes-Oxley

Sarbanes-Oxley
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Sarbanes-Oxley in the UK

Sarbanes-Oxley
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley within the UK over the 6 months to 12 January 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 -3 160 £550 +10.00% 30
London +28 107 £550 - 16
UK excluding London -40 54 £550 - 18
Work from Home +17 53 £525 -4.55% 15
South East -9 14 £500 +33.33% 10
South West -6 13 £512 -7.00%
East of England -10 10 £650 +13.04% 5
North of England -51 7 £605 +64.69% 2
Yorkshire -38 6 £605 +64.69% 1
Midlands -45 6 £525 -12.50% 1
West Midlands -32 5 £525 +133.33% 1
Scotland -15 2 £612 +1.92%
Wales - 2 £625 -
Northern Ireland - 2 £550 -
East Midlands -23 1 £525 -12.50%
North West -32 1 - - 1

Sarbanes-Oxley
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 13 (7.39%) Confluence
2 2 (1.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.14%) WebSphere
3 1 (0.57%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.57%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (7.39%) MS Visio
2 12 (6.82%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.57%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (6.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (5.68%) NetSuite
3 5 (2.84%) Oracle General Ledger
3 5 (2.84%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 5 (2.84%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (2.27%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (2.27%) Oracle Receivables
4 4 (2.27%) SAP GRC
5 2 (1.14%) Oracle FAH
5 2 (1.14%) SAP CO
5 2 (1.14%) SAP EWM
5 2 (1.14%) SAP FI
5 2 (1.14%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (1.14%) SAP GTS
5 2 (1.14%) SAP IBP
5 2 (1.14%) SAP MM
5 2 (1.14%) SAP PP
5 2 (1.14%) SAP SCM
5 2 (1.14%) SAP SRM
6 1 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 42 (23.86%) Azure
2 19 (10.80%) OCI
2 19 (10.80%) Power Platform
3 15 (8.52%) AWS
3 15 (8.52%) SaaS
4 12 (6.82%) Entra ID
5 11 (6.25%) Lucidchart
6 5 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (2.84%) SuccessFactors
7 4 (2.27%) GitHub
7 4 (2.27%) IaaS
8 2 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 2 (1.14%) GCP
8 2 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (1.14%) PaaS
9 1 (0.57%) Azure Machine Learning
9 1 (0.57%) Boomi
9 1 (0.57%) Power Automate
9 1 (0.57%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 12 (6.82%) Firewall
2 9 (5.11%) DNS
3 8 (4.55%) TCP/IP
4 7 (3.98%) HTTP
5 5 (2.84%) Network Security
6 4 (2.27%) DHCP
6 4 (2.27%) SSL
7 3 (1.70%) Kerberos
8 1 (0.57%) LAN
8 1 (0.57%) SD-WAN
8 1 (0.57%) WAN
8 1 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (10.80%) Power BI
2 9 (5.11%) SQL Server
3 8 (4.55%) Data Lake
4 7 (3.98%) Relational Database
4 7 (3.98%) Spark SQL
5 6 (3.41%) SAP HANA
6 4 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (1.14%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.57%) Ataccama
8 1 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.57%) Big Data
8 1 (0.57%) Delta Lake
8 1 (0.57%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.57%) Metadata
8 1 (0.57%) SAP BW
8 1 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 13 (7.39%) Git
1 13 (7.39%) JIRA
2 12 (6.82%) GitLab
3 4 (2.27%) Jenkins
3 4 (2.27%) Subversion
3 4 (2.27%) TeamCity
4 3 (1.70%) REST Assured
5 2 (1.14%) Selenium
6 1 (0.57%) Postman
6 1 (0.57%) Robot Framework
General
1 107 (60.80%) Finance
2 68 (38.64%) Social Skills
3 43 (24.43%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (13.64%) Banking
5 19 (10.80%) Manufacturing
6 10 (5.68%) Presentation Skills
7 9 (5.11%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.55%) General Ledger
9 7 (3.98%) Investment Banking
9 7 (3.98%) Legal
9 7 (3.98%) Pharmaceutical
10 6 (3.41%) Financial Institution
10 6 (3.41%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (2.84%) Telecoms
12 4 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (2.27%) Marketing
13 3 (1.70%) Public Sector
14 2 (1.14%) Electronics
14 2 (1.14%) Japanese Language
15 1 (0.57%) Retail
Job Titles
1 22 (12.50%) Analyst
2 19 (10.80%) Lead
3 13 (7.39%) Architect
3 13 (7.39%) Consultant
4 11 (6.25%) Senior
4 11 (6.25%) Technical Writer
5 10 (5.68%) Developer
5 10 (5.68%) Project Manager
6 7 (3.98%) Programme Manager
6 7 (3.98%) Security Analyst
7 6 (3.41%) Business Analyst
7 6 (3.41%) Information Officer
7 6 (3.41%) Information Security Officer
7 6 (3.41%) Security Officer
7 6 (3.41%) Solutions Architect
8 5 (2.84%) ForgeRock Developer
8 5 (2.84%) Technical Leader
9 4 (2.27%) IT Manager
9 4 (2.27%) Linux Administrator
9 4 (2.27%) Procurement Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.82%) OAuth
1 12 (6.82%) SAML
2 9 (5.11%) LDAP
3 7 (3.98%) OpenID
3 7 (3.98%) PySpark
3 7 (3.98%) REST
3 7 (3.98%) Spark Streaming
4 6 (3.41%) OAuth2
4 6 (3.41%) Oracle Fusion
4 6 (3.41%) SailPoint
5 5 (2.84%) Middleware
5 5 (2.84%) RESTful
6 3 (1.70%) XML
7 2 (1.14%) ISPF
7 2 (1.14%) SAP Fiori
7 2 (1.14%) XML Messaging
8 1 (0.57%) AngularJS
8 1 (0.57%) Great Expectations
8 1 (0.57%) pytest
8 1 (0.57%) React
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.11%) Onboarding
2 8 (4.55%) Replication
3 7 (3.98%) Analytical Mindset
3 7 (3.98%) Distributed Computing
4 6 (3.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 6 (3.41%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.84%) Clustering
5 5 (2.84%) Life Science
6 4 (2.27%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (2.27%) PMI
7 3 (1.70%) BYOD
7 3 (1.70%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.14%) Derivative
8 2 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.14%) Fixed Income
8 2 (1.14%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.14%) IoT
8 2 (1.14%) Mainframe
8 2 (1.14%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 12 (6.82%) Windows
2 10 (5.68%) Linux
3 4 (2.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (2.27%) Solaris
4 3 (1.70%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.14%) zOS
6 1 (0.57%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (24.43%) Stakeholder Management
2 37 (21.02%) Agile
3 33 (18.75%) ERP
4 30 (17.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 26 (14.77%) Risk Management
6 25 (14.20%) DevOps
6 25 (14.20%) Problem-Solving
7 23 (13.07%) Business Intelligence
7 23 (13.07%) Project Management
8 22 (12.50%) CI/CD
8 22 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
9 21 (11.93%) Cybersecurity
9 21 (11.93%) Identity Access Management
10 17 (9.66%) Analytics
10 17 (9.66%) Project Delivery
11 16 (9.09%) ETL
11 16 (9.09%) IT Audit
12 15 (8.52%) Information Security
12 15 (8.52%) ITIL
12 15 (8.52%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 29 (16.48%) Python
1 29 (16.48%) SQL
2 18 (10.23%) PowerShell
3 17 (9.66%) Java
4 5 (2.84%) Bash
5 4 (2.27%) C#
5 4 (2.27%) Perl
6 2 (1.14%) BeanShell
6 2 (1.14%) CLIST
6 2 (1.14%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.14%) JCL
6 2 (1.14%) PL/SQL
6 2 (1.14%) REXX
7 1 (0.57%) R
7 1 (0.57%) VB
Qualifications
1 35 (19.89%) Degree
2 17 (9.66%) CISSP
3 14 (7.95%) ACCA
3 14 (7.95%) CISM
4 11 (6.25%) CIMA
4 11 (6.25%) PMI Certification
5 9 (5.11%) CISA
6 8 (4.55%) PMP
7 7 (3.98%) FFIEC
8 6 (3.41%) SC Cleared
8 6 (3.41%) Security Cleared
9 4 (2.27%) Azure Certification
9 4 (2.27%) CRISC
9 4 (2.27%) Master's Degree
10 2 (1.14%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (1.14%) Computer Science Degree
11 1 (0.57%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.57%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.57%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 1 (0.57%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (42.05%) GDPR
2 40 (22.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 37 (21.02%) NIST
4 27 (15.34%) PCI DSS
5 19 (10.80%) GRC
6 15 (8.52%) IFRS
7 13 (7.39%) ITGC
8 11 (6.25%) HIPAA
9 10 (5.68%) COBIT
10 8 (4.55%) QA
11 7 (3.98%) GxP
11 7 (3.98%) SOX 404
12 6 (3.41%) SLA
13 5 (2.84%) Basel III
13 5 (2.84%) GAAP
13 5 (2.84%) PSD2
14 3 (1.70%) IFRS 9
15 2 (1.14%) Actionable Recommendations
15 2 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 2 (1.14%) PMO
System Software
1 12 (6.82%) Active Directory
2 11 (6.25%) Docker
3 6 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.27%) NDS
4 4 (2.27%) NetIQ eDirectory
4 4 (2.27%) NFS
4 4 (2.27%) Veritas File System
4 4 (2.27%) Veritas Volume Manager
4 4 (2.27%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.14%) RACF
6 1 (0.57%) IAG
6 1 (0.57%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (6.25%) Kubernetes
1 11 (6.25%) Single Sign-On
2 6 (3.41%) Ansible
3 5 (2.84%) Terraform
4 4 (2.27%) QRadar
4 4 (2.27%) Red Hat Satellite
4 4 (2.27%) RSA Archer
5 3 (1.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.14%) Control-M
6 2 (1.14%) zSecure
7 1 (0.57%) Avamar
7 1 (0.57%) EMC NetWorker
7 1 (0.57%) Oracle Identity Manager
7 1 (0.57%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.57%) VxRail
Vendors
1 34 (19.32%) Oracle
1 34 (19.32%) SAP
2 21 (11.93%) Microsoft
3 15 (8.52%) ServiceNow
4 12 (6.82%) CyberArk
5 11 (6.25%) Workday
6 8 (4.55%) VMware
7 5 (2.84%) ForgeRock
7 5 (2.84%) Okta
7 5 (2.84%) Ping Identity
7 5 (2.84%) Splunk
8 4 (2.27%) BeyondTrust
8 4 (2.27%) IBM
8 4 (2.27%) NetIQ
8 4 (2.27%) Qualys
8 4 (2.27%) Red Hat
8 4 (2.27%) SaltStack
9 3 (1.70%) Informatica
9 3 (1.70%) OpenText
9 3 (1.70%) Salesforce
30 Sarbanes-Oxley jobs Nationwide