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 28 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
28 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 419 384 514
Rank change year-on-year -35 +130 +51
Contract jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley 193 136 75
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.46% 0.44% 0.17%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.66% 2.98% 1.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 127 80 45
10th Percentile £450 £313 £281
25th Percentile £500 £406 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £550 £533
Median % change year-on-year +2.27% +3.29% +6.50%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £600
90th Percentile £750 £781 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £520
% change year-on-year -4.55% +5.77% +15.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 2
10th Percentile £28.60 - £34.88
25th Percentile £37.00 - £40.31
Median hourly rate £54.00 £95.00 £51.25
Median % change year-on-year -43.16% +85.37% +84.68%
75th Percentile £56.00 - £62.81
90th Percentile £56.60 - £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 - £70.00
% change year-on-year - - +366.67%

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 7,260 4,557 6,428
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.43% 14.89% 14.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,677 2,785 4,176
10th Percentile £330 £258 £300
25th Percentile £413 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +5.26% -1.04% +1.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 386 170 360
10th Percentile £15.46 £15.50 £12.25
25th Percentile £18.28 £21.31 £14.50
Median hourly rate £27.94 £30.11 £25.06
Median % change year-on-year -7.19% +20.14% -22.90%
75th Percentile £64.00 £65.00 £48.81
90th Percentile £75.50 £78.41 £72.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.50 £30.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +1.67% +20.00% -17.08%

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 28 February 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 28 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Sarbanes-Oxley in the UK

Sarbanes-Oxley
Top 15 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 28 February 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 -28 173 £563 +2.27% 36
London +4 112 £600 +9.09% 18
Work from Home +9 62 £600 +9.09% 13
UK excluding London -82 59 £525 -4.55% 28
South East -28 15 £509 +9.95% 11
South West -15 13 £512 -7.00%
Midlands -52 12 £525 -12.50% 8
West Midlands -43 10 £525 +16.67% 6
East of England -16 9 £600 +6.67% 4
North of England -70 5 £544 +31.94% 5
Scotland -4 4 £612 +4.09%
Yorkshire -66 4 £544 +31.94% 1
East Midlands -24 2 £525 -12.50% 2
Northern Ireland - 2 £550 -
North West -38 1 - - 4

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 14 (7.25%) Confluence
2 3 (1.55%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 2 (1.04%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.04%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 13 (6.74%) MS Visio
2 11 (5.70%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (4.66%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 13 (6.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (2.59%) Oracle General Ledger
2 5 (2.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 5 (2.59%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 4 (2.07%) NetSuite
3 4 (2.07%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (2.07%) Oracle Receivables
4 3 (1.55%) SAP GRC
5 2 (1.04%) Oracle FAH
5 2 (1.04%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (1.04%) SAP GTS
6 1 (0.52%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 1 (0.52%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.52%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.52%) SAP IBP
6 1 (0.52%) SAP LE
6 1 (0.52%) SAP MM
6 1 (0.52%) SAP PP
6 1 (0.52%) SAP SD
6 1 (0.52%) SAP SRM
Cloud Services
1 61 (31.61%) Azure
2 26 (13.47%) Entra ID
3 20 (10.36%) OCI
4 18 (9.33%) AWS
4 18 (9.33%) Power Platform
5 11 (5.70%) Lucidchart
6 7 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (3.63%) SaaS
7 5 (2.59%) SuccessFactors
8 4 (2.07%) IaaS
8 4 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
9 3 (1.55%) Azure Data Factory
9 3 (1.55%) Azure Machine Learning
9 3 (1.55%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 3 (1.55%) Snowflake
10 2 (1.04%) GCP
10 2 (1.04%) GitHub
10 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Purview
10 2 (1.04%) PaaS
10 2 (1.04%) Veeva
Communications & Networking
1 19 (9.84%) DNS
2 16 (8.29%) DHCP
3 15 (7.77%) Kerberos
4 12 (6.22%) Firewall
5 10 (5.18%) HTTP
6 8 (4.15%) Network Security
7 6 (3.11%) TCP/IP
8 4 (2.07%) SSL
9 1 (0.52%) Intrusion Detection
9 1 (0.52%) LAN
9 1 (0.52%) SD-WAN
9 1 (0.52%) WAN
9 1 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (9.33%) Power BI
2 8 (4.15%) Data Lake
3 7 (3.63%) Relational Database
3 7 (3.63%) Spark SQL
3 7 (3.63%) SQL Server
4 5 (2.59%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.55%) Big Data
5 3 (1.55%) NoSQL
5 3 (1.55%) SAP HANA
6 2 (1.04%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.52%) SAP BW
7 1 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.52%) Spotfire
7 1 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 14 (7.25%) GitLab
2 13 (6.74%) Git
2 13 (6.74%) JIRA
3 6 (3.11%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.07%) Selenium
5 3 (1.55%) Postman
5 3 (1.55%) REST Assured
5 3 (1.55%) Robot Framework
6 2 (1.04%) Subversion
6 2 (1.04%) TeamCity
General
1 114 (59.07%) Finance
2 82 (42.49%) Social Skills
3 43 (22.28%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (15.03%) Banking
5 16 (8.29%) Manufacturing
6 11 (5.70%) Documentation Skills
6 11 (5.70%) Legal
7 10 (5.18%) Presentation Skills
8 8 (4.15%) General Ledger
8 8 (4.15%) Influencing Skills
8 8 (4.15%) Investment Banking
9 5 (2.59%) Financial Institution
9 5 (2.59%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (2.07%) Public Sector
10 4 (2.07%) Telecoms
11 3 (1.55%) Billing
11 3 (1.55%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (1.04%) Marketing
12 2 (1.04%) Retail
Job Titles
1 30 (15.54%) Analyst
2 21 (10.88%) Lead
3 18 (9.33%) Consultant
4 14 (7.25%) Architect
4 14 (7.25%) Senior
5 11 (5.70%) Technical Writer
6 10 (5.18%) Business Analyst
6 10 (5.18%) Developer
7 9 (4.66%) Programme Manager
7 9 (4.66%) Security Analyst
8 8 (4.15%) Project Manager
9 6 (3.11%) Information Officer
9 6 (3.11%) Information Security Officer
9 6 (3.11%) IT Manager
9 6 (3.11%) Security Officer
10 5 (2.59%) ForgeRock Developer
10 5 (2.59%) QA Engineer
10 5 (2.59%) Technical Leader
11 4 (2.07%) Change Manager
11 4 (2.07%) Risk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (11.92%) OAuth
1 23 (11.92%) SAML
2 20 (10.36%) LDAP
3 7 (3.63%) Oracle Fusion
3 7 (3.63%) PySpark
3 7 (3.63%) SailPoint
3 7 (3.63%) Spark Streaming
4 6 (3.11%) Middleware
4 6 (3.11%) OpenID
5 5 (2.59%) OAuth2
5 5 (2.59%) REST
5 5 (2.59%) RESTful
6 4 (2.07%) SAP Fiori
7 3 (1.55%) CSS
7 3 (1.55%) HTML
7 3 (1.55%) pytest
7 3 (1.55%) XML
8 2 (1.04%) EDI
8 2 (1.04%) ISPF
8 2 (1.04%) XML Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 18 (9.33%) Replication
2 9 (4.66%) Management Information System
3 8 (4.15%) Analytical Mindset
3 8 (4.15%) Onboarding
4 7 (3.63%) Distributed Computing
5 6 (3.11%) BYOD
6 4 (2.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 4 (2.07%) PMI
7 3 (1.55%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.55%) Clustering
7 3 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.55%) Life Science
7 3 (1.55%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.04%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.04%) CMDB
8 2 (1.04%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.04%) Fixed Income
8 2 (1.04%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.04%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 25 (12.95%) Windows
2 15 (7.77%) Windows Server
3 9 (4.66%) Linux
4 2 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (1.04%) Solaris
4 2 (1.04%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (30.57%) Stakeholder Management
2 46 (23.83%) Agile
3 35 (18.13%) ERP
4 34 (17.62%) Identity Access Management
5 30 (15.54%) Continuous Improvement
5 30 (15.54%) RBAC
6 28 (14.51%) Risk Management
6 28 (14.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 27 (13.99%) DevOps
8 26 (13.47%) Problem-Solving
9 24 (12.44%) CI/CD
10 22 (11.40%) Cybersecurity
11 20 (10.36%) Business Intelligence
11 20 (10.36%) Change Management
11 20 (10.36%) Disaster Recovery
11 20 (10.36%) Waterfall
12 19 (9.84%) ETL
12 19 (9.84%) Project Management
13 17 (8.81%) High Availability
13 17 (8.81%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 31 (16.06%) SQL
2 29 (15.03%) PowerShell
3 28 (14.51%) Python
4 15 (7.77%) Java
5 3 (1.55%) C#
5 3 (1.55%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.04%) Bash
6 2 (1.04%) CLIST
6 2 (1.04%) JCL
6 2 (1.04%) Perl
6 2 (1.04%) PL/SQL
6 2 (1.04%) REXX
7 1 (0.52%) BeanShell
7 1 (0.52%) R
7 1 (0.52%) VB
Qualifications
1 37 (19.17%) Degree
2 20 (10.36%) Security Cleared
3 19 (9.84%) SC Cleared
4 18 (9.33%) CISSP
5 15 (7.77%) CISM
6 13 (6.74%) PMI Certification
7 10 (5.18%) PMP
8 9 (4.66%) CISA
9 7 (3.63%) ACCA
9 7 (3.63%) FFIEC
10 6 (3.11%) CIMA
11 4 (2.07%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (2.07%) Master's Degree
12 3 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (1.55%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 2 (1.04%) Azure Certification
13 2 (1.04%) CRISC
13 2 (1.04%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 2 (1.04%) TOGAF Certification
14 1 (0.52%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (43.01%) GDPR
2 40 (20.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 36 (18.65%) NIST
4 29 (15.03%) PCI DSS
5 18 (9.33%) GRC
6 13 (6.74%) ITGC
7 12 (6.22%) COBIT
8 10 (5.18%) HIPAA
8 10 (5.18%) QA
9 9 (4.66%) IFRS
10 8 (4.15%) SLA
11 7 (3.63%) GAAP
11 7 (3.63%) SOX 404
12 5 (2.59%) Basel III
12 5 (2.59%) PSD2
13 3 (1.55%) Data Quality
13 3 (1.55%) GxP
13 3 (1.55%) IFRS 9
13 3 (1.55%) PMO
14 2 (1.04%) COSO
System Software
1 24 (12.44%) Active Directory
2 11 (5.70%) Docker
3 4 (2.07%) NDS
3 4 (2.07%) NetIQ eDirectory
3 4 (2.07%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.04%) NFS
4 2 (1.04%) RACF
4 2 (1.04%) Veritas File System
4 2 (1.04%) Veritas Volume Manager
4 2 (1.04%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.52%) IAG
5 1 (0.52%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 23 (11.92%) Single Sign-On
2 15 (7.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 11 (5.70%) Kubernetes
4 5 (2.59%) RSA Archer
5 4 (2.07%) Ansible
5 4 (2.07%) Terraform
6 2 (1.04%) Control-M
6 2 (1.04%) QRadar
6 2 (1.04%) Red Hat Satellite
6 2 (1.04%) zSecure
7 1 (0.52%) Avamar
7 1 (0.52%) EMC NetWorker
7 1 (0.52%) Oracle Identity Manager
7 1 (0.52%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.52%) VxRail
Vendors
1 37 (19.17%) Microsoft
2 35 (18.13%) Oracle
2 35 (18.13%) SAP
3 19 (9.84%) ServiceNow
4 17 (8.81%) Okta
5 10 (5.18%) CyberArk
5 10 (5.18%) Workday
6 6 (3.11%) VMware
7 5 (2.59%) ForgeRock
7 5 (2.59%) Ping Identity
8 4 (2.07%) IBM
8 4 (2.07%) Informatica
8 4 (2.07%) NetIQ
8 4 (2.07%) OpenText
9 3 (1.55%) Ariba
9 3 (1.55%) BeyondTrust
9 3 (1.55%) Databricks
9 3 (1.55%) Splunk
10 2 (1.04%) Atlassian
10 2 (1.04%) Thycotic
37 Sarbanes-Oxley jobs Nationwide