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 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
1 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 412 412 486
Rank change year-on-year 0 +74 +124
Contract jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley 179 130 109
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.39% 0.25%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.79% 2.75% 1.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 124 73 66
10th Percentile £400 £303 £253
25th Percentile £478 £359 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £541
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -3.00% -5.87%
75th Percentile £688 £625 £622
90th Percentile £775 £740 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £563 £450 £515
% change year-on-year +25.00% -12.62% +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 6,417 4,723 6,251
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.30% 14.24% 14.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,158 2,759 4,163
10th Percentile £313 £256 £313
25th Percentile £406 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £620 £645
90th Percentile £700 £720 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 309 185 235
10th Percentile £14.32 £15.00 £14.01
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.86
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% -12.12% +46.07%
75th Percentile £61.25 £63.75 £60.63
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £79.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.60 £29.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -28.98% -12.12% +57.14%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +19 163 £550 +10.00% 45
London +30 110 £550 - 26
Work from Home +29 57 £525 +5.00% 14
UK excluding London -48 54 £563 +25.00% 30
South West +4 13 £512 -
South East -3 13 £521 +60.31% 22
East of England -9 10 £650 +18.18% 4
North of England -59 8 £589 +60.14% 2
Yorkshire -53 7 £589 +60.14% 1
Midlands -37 6 £525 -12.50% 1
West Midlands -28 5 £525 +133.33%
Scotland -10 2 £612 +1.92% 1
Wales - 2 £625 -
Northern Ireland - 2 £550 -
East Midlands -21 1 £525 -12.50%
North West -28 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 (7.26%) Confluence
2 2 (1.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.12%) WebSphere
3 1 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.56%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (7.26%) MS Visio
2 12 (6.70%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.56%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (7.26%) NetSuite
2 12 (6.70%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (2.79%) Oracle General Ledger
4 4 (2.23%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (2.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (2.23%) Oracle Receivables
4 4 (2.23%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (2.23%) SAP GRC
5 2 (1.12%) Oracle FAH
5 2 (1.12%) SAP CO
5 2 (1.12%) SAP EWM
5 2 (1.12%) SAP FI
5 2 (1.12%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (1.12%) SAP GTS
5 2 (1.12%) SAP IBP
5 2 (1.12%) SAP MM
5 2 (1.12%) SAP PP
5 2 (1.12%) SAP SCM
5 2 (1.12%) SAP SRM
6 1 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 41 (22.91%) Azure
2 19 (10.61%) OCI
2 19 (10.61%) Power Platform
3 18 (10.06%) SaaS
4 15 (8.38%) AWS
5 11 (6.15%) Entra ID
5 11 (6.15%) Lucidchart
6 5 (2.79%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (2.79%) SuccessFactors
7 4 (2.23%) GitHub
7 4 (2.23%) IaaS
8 2 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 2 (1.12%) GCP
8 2 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (1.12%) PaaS
9 1 (0.56%) Alation
9 1 (0.56%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 1 (0.56%) Azure Service Bus
9 1 (0.56%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 12 (6.70%) Firewall
2 8 (4.47%) DNS
2 8 (4.47%) TCP/IP
3 7 (3.91%) HTTP
4 5 (2.79%) Network Security
5 4 (2.23%) SSL
6 3 (1.68%) DHCP
7 2 (1.12%) Kerberos
8 1 (0.56%) LAN
8 1 (0.56%) SD-WAN
8 1 (0.56%) WAN
8 1 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (10.61%) Power BI
2 9 (5.03%) SQL Server
3 7 (3.91%) Data Lake
4 6 (3.35%) Relational Database
4 6 (3.35%) SAP HANA
4 6 (3.35%) Spark SQL
5 4 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (2.23%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.56%) Ataccama
7 1 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.56%) Big Data
7 1 (0.56%) Delta Lake
7 1 (0.56%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.56%) Metadata
7 1 (0.56%) SAP BW
7 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 14 (7.82%) JIRA
2 12 (6.70%) Git
3 11 (6.15%) GitLab
4 4 (2.23%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.23%) Subversion
4 4 (2.23%) TeamCity
5 3 (1.68%) REST Assured
6 2 (1.12%) Selenium
7 1 (0.56%) Postman
7 1 (0.56%) Robot Framework
General
1 107 (59.78%) Finance
2 67 (37.43%) Social Skills
3 44 (24.58%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (12.85%) Banking
5 19 (10.61%) Manufacturing
6 10 (5.59%) Presentation Skills
7 9 (5.03%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (3.91%) General Ledger
8 7 (3.91%) Investment Banking
8 7 (3.91%) Pharmaceutical
9 6 (3.35%) Financial Institution
9 6 (3.35%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (3.35%) Legal
10 5 (2.79%) Telecoms
11 4 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (2.23%) Marketing
12 3 (1.68%) Public Sector
13 2 (1.12%) Electronics
13 2 (1.12%) Japanese Language
14 1 (0.56%) Retail
Job Titles
1 23 (12.85%) Analyst
2 18 (10.06%) Lead
3 14 (7.82%) Architect
3 14 (7.82%) Consultant
4 11 (6.15%) Senior
4 11 (6.15%) Technical Writer
5 10 (5.59%) Developer
5 10 (5.59%) Project Manager
6 7 (3.91%) Programme Manager
6 7 (3.91%) Security Analyst
6 7 (3.91%) Solutions Architect
7 6 (3.35%) Business Analyst
8 5 (2.79%) ForgeRock Developer
9 4 (2.23%) Accountant
9 4 (2.23%) Administrator
9 4 (2.23%) Head of Testing
9 4 (2.23%) Information Officer
9 4 (2.23%) Internal Audit Manager
9 4 (2.23%) Procurement Manager
9 4 (2.23%) Security Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.15%) OAuth
1 11 (6.15%) SAML
2 8 (4.47%) LDAP
3 7 (3.91%) OpenID
3 7 (3.91%) REST
4 6 (3.35%) OAuth2
4 6 (3.35%) Oracle Fusion
4 6 (3.35%) PySpark
4 6 (3.35%) SailPoint
4 6 (3.35%) Spark Streaming
5 5 (2.79%) Middleware
5 5 (2.79%) RESTful
6 3 (1.68%) XML
7 2 (1.12%) ISPF
7 2 (1.12%) SAP Fiori
7 2 (1.12%) XML Messaging
8 1 (0.56%) AngularJS
8 1 (0.56%) Great Expectations
8 1 (0.56%) pytest
8 1 (0.56%) React
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.03%) Onboarding
2 7 (3.91%) Analytical Mindset
2 7 (3.91%) Replication
3 6 (3.35%) Distributed Computing
3 6 (3.35%) Management Information System
4 5 (2.79%) Clustering
4 5 (2.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 5 (2.79%) Life Science
5 4 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (2.23%) PMI
6 3 (1.68%) BYOD
6 3 (1.68%) Cloud Native
6 3 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (1.68%) Team-Oriented Environment
7 2 (1.12%) Derivative
7 2 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.12%) Hedge funds
7 2 (1.12%) IoT
7 2 (1.12%) Mainframe
7 2 (1.12%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 10 (5.59%) Linux
1 10 (5.59%) Windows
2 4 (2.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 4 (2.23%) Solaris
3 2 (1.12%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.12%) zOS
4 1 (0.56%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (22.91%) Stakeholder Management
2 34 (18.99%) Agile
3 33 (18.44%) ERP
4 30 (16.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 26 (14.53%) Problem-Solving
6 24 (13.41%) Risk Management
7 23 (12.85%) Business Intelligence
7 23 (12.85%) DevOps
7 23 (12.85%) Project Management
8 21 (11.73%) Continuous Improvement
8 21 (11.73%) Cybersecurity
8 21 (11.73%) Identity Access Management
9 20 (11.17%) CI/CD
10 17 (9.50%) Project Delivery
11 16 (8.94%) Analytics
11 16 (8.94%) IT Audit
11 16 (8.94%) Test Strategy
12 15 (8.38%) ETL
13 14 (7.82%) ITIL
13 14 (7.82%) Revenue Recognition
Programming Languages
1 28 (15.64%) Python
1 28 (15.64%) SQL
2 17 (9.50%) PowerShell
3 16 (8.94%) Java
4 5 (2.79%) Bash
5 4 (2.23%) C#
5 4 (2.23%) Perl
6 2 (1.12%) BeanShell
6 2 (1.12%) CLIST
6 2 (1.12%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.12%) JCL
6 2 (1.12%) PL/SQL
6 2 (1.12%) REXX
7 1 (0.56%) R
7 1 (0.56%) VB
Qualifications
1 34 (18.99%) Degree
2 18 (10.06%) ACCA
2 18 (10.06%) CISSP
3 14 (7.82%) CISM
4 13 (7.26%) CIMA
5 11 (6.15%) PMI Certification
6 8 (4.47%) CISA
6 8 (4.47%) PMP
7 7 (3.91%) FFIEC
8 6 (3.35%) SC Cleared
8 6 (3.35%) Security Cleared
9 5 (2.79%) Azure Certification
10 4 (2.23%) CRISC
10 4 (2.23%) Master's Degree
11 2 (1.12%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
12 1 (0.56%) AWS Certification
12 1 (0.56%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 1 (0.56%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (39.66%) GDPR
2 39 (21.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 35 (19.55%) NIST
4 25 (13.97%) PCI DSS
5 19 (10.61%) GRC
6 18 (10.06%) IFRS
7 15 (8.38%) ITGC
8 11 (6.15%) HIPAA
9 9 (5.03%) COBIT
10 8 (4.47%) QA
10 8 (4.47%) SOX 404
11 7 (3.91%) GxP
12 5 (2.79%) GAAP
12 5 (2.79%) PSD2
12 5 (2.79%) SLA
13 4 (2.23%) Basel III
14 3 (1.68%) IFRS 9
15 2 (1.12%) Actionable Recommendations
15 2 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 2 (1.12%) PMO
System Software
1 11 (6.15%) Active Directory
2 10 (5.59%) Docker
3 6 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.23%) NDS
4 4 (2.23%) NetIQ eDirectory
4 4 (2.23%) NFS
4 4 (2.23%) Veritas File System
4 4 (2.23%) Veritas Volume Manager
4 4 (2.23%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.12%) RACF
6 1 (0.56%) IAG
6 1 (0.56%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 10 (5.59%) Kubernetes
1 10 (5.59%) Single Sign-On
2 6 (3.35%) Ansible
3 5 (2.79%) Terraform
4 4 (2.23%) QRadar
4 4 (2.23%) Red Hat Satellite
4 4 (2.23%) RSA Archer
5 2 (1.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.12%) Control-M
5 2 (1.12%) zSecure
6 1 (0.56%) Avamar
6 1 (0.56%) EMC NetWorker
6 1 (0.56%) Oracle Identity Manager
6 1 (0.56%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.56%) VxRail
Vendors
1 34 (18.99%) SAP
2 33 (18.44%) Oracle
3 19 (10.61%) Microsoft
4 15 (8.38%) ServiceNow
5 12 (6.70%) CyberArk
6 10 (5.59%) Workday
7 8 (4.47%) VMware
8 5 (2.79%) ForgeRock
8 5 (2.79%) Ping Identity
8 5 (2.79%) Splunk
9 4 (2.23%) BeyondTrust
9 4 (2.23%) IBM
9 4 (2.23%) NetIQ
9 4 (2.23%) Okta
9 4 (2.23%) Qualys
9 4 (2.23%) Red Hat
9 4 (2.23%) SaltStack
10 3 (1.68%) Informatica
10 3 (1.68%) OpenText
10 3 (1.68%) Salesforce
48 Sarbanes-Oxley jobs Nationwide