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

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 451 378 521
Rank change year-on-year -73 +143 -15
Contract jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley 178 150 69
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.51% 0.16%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.25% 3.27% 1.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 117 86 45
10th Percentile £450 £341 £481
25th Percentile £500 £510 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £582 £600
Median % change year-on-year +3.18% -3.08% +9.09%
75th Percentile £613 £693 £675
90th Percentile £730 £850 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £563 £550 £560
% change year-on-year +2.27% -1.79% +12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 4 1
10th Percentile £44.60 £79.63 -
25th Percentile £50.00 £84.69 £67.50
Median hourly rate £62.00 £90.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -31.11% +28.57% +76.77%
75th Percentile £76.00 £93.13 £72.50
90th Percentile £79.10 £94.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.50 £82.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -29.09% +17.86% +76.77%

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 7,903 4,594 6,155
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.64% 15.73% 14.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,102 2,940 3,909
10th Percentile £340 £265 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £482
% change year-on-year +5.26% -1.35% +0.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 461 172 383
10th Percentile £14.25 £18.10 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.24 £13.18
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £21.12
Median % change year-on-year - +65.76% -39.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.15 £45.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £82.94 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £51.25 £18.27
% change year-on-year -21.95% +180.51% -45.27%

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 May 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 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Sarbanes-Oxley in the UK

Sarbanes-Oxley
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 Sarbanes-Oxley within the UK over the 6 months to 12 May 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 -107 151 £563 -3.27% 31
London -39 96 £600 -7.69% 19
Work from Home -35 61 £600 +6.67% 22
UK excluding London -91 56 £563 +2.27% 18
North of England -57 20 £580 +0.87% 5
North West -25 16 £631 +9.74% 3
South East -52 13 £563 +2.27% 7
Midlands -51 10 £600 +6.38% 3
West Midlands -60 8 £625 +3.65% 2
East of England -25 7 £600 +4.35%
Scotland -1 5 £700 - 1
Yorkshire -56 4 £428 -15.56% 2
East Midlands -33 2 £550 +24.29% 1
Northern Ireland +4 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 5 (2.81%) Apache Spark
2 4 (2.25%) Apache
3 3 (1.69%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 3 (1.69%) WebSphere
4 2 (1.12%) IIS
4 2 (1.12%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.56%) Confluence
5 1 (0.56%) IBM HTTP Server
5 1 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.56%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 17 (9.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 26 (14.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (3.93%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 6 (3.37%) Oracle Payables
4 5 (2.81%) Oracle General Ledger
4 5 (2.81%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (2.25%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (1.69%) OpenText VIM for SAP
7 2 (1.12%) HFM
7 2 (1.12%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (1.12%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (1.12%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (1.12%) SAP GTS
8 1 (0.56%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.56%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.56%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.56%) SAP CS
8 1 (0.56%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.56%) SAP LE
8 1 (0.56%) SAP SCM
8 1 (0.56%) SAP SRM
Cloud Services
1 62 (34.83%) Azure
2 41 (23.03%) AWS
3 30 (16.85%) Entra ID
4 15 (8.43%) Power Platform
5 10 (5.62%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (3.93%) GCP
6 7 (3.93%) OCI
7 5 (2.81%) IaaS
7 5 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (2.81%) SaaS
8 4 (2.25%) Snowflake
8 4 (2.25%) SuccessFactors
9 3 (1.69%) Azure Machine Learning
9 3 (1.69%) PaaS
10 2 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 2 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Purview
10 2 (1.12%) Veeva
11 1 (0.56%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 16 (8.99%) DNS
2 15 (8.43%) DHCP
2 15 (8.43%) Kerberos
3 7 (3.93%) HTTP
3 7 (3.93%) Network Security
4 2 (1.12%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.56%) Firewall
5 1 (0.56%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (0.56%) LAN
5 1 (0.56%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.56%) Structured Cabling
5 1 (0.56%) WAN
5 1 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (8.43%) Power BI
2 11 (6.18%) Relational Database
3 9 (5.06%) SQL Server
4 7 (3.93%) Data Lake
4 7 (3.93%) Spark SQL
5 5 (2.81%) NoSQL
6 4 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (2.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (1.69%) Big Data
8 2 (1.12%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.56%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.56%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.56%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
9 1 (0.56%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 13 (7.30%) Git
2 11 (6.18%) GitLab
3 7 (3.93%) JIRA
4 5 (2.81%) Jenkins
5 3 (1.69%) Postman
5 3 (1.69%) Robot Framework
5 3 (1.69%) Selenium
6 1 (0.56%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.56%) Gradle
6 1 (0.56%) Introscope
6 1 (0.56%) Maven
6 1 (0.56%) REST Assured
General
1 101 (56.74%) Finance
2 77 (43.26%) Social Skills
3 34 (19.10%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (13.48%) Banking
5 20 (11.24%) Legal
6 14 (7.87%) Influencing Skills
7 11 (6.18%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (3.93%) General Ledger
9 6 (3.37%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (2.81%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (2.81%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (2.25%) Billing
12 3 (1.69%) Investment Banking
12 3 (1.69%) Public Sector
12 3 (1.69%) Retail
13 2 (1.12%) Financial Institution
13 2 (1.12%) Japanese Language
13 2 (1.12%) Manufacturing
13 2 (1.12%) Telecoms
14 1 (0.56%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 33 (18.54%) Lead
2 25 (14.04%) Analyst
3 17 (9.55%) Architect
3 17 (9.55%) Consultant
4 9 (5.06%) Business Analyst
5 8 (4.49%) IT Analyst
5 8 (4.49%) SOX Analyst
6 7 (3.93%) Information Officer
6 7 (3.93%) Information Security Officer
6 7 (3.93%) Java Engineer
6 7 (3.93%) Security Officer
6 7 (3.93%) Senior
7 6 (3.37%) Project Manager
8 5 (2.81%) Developer
8 5 (2.81%) Financial Analyst
8 5 (2.81%) Java Software Engineer
8 5 (2.81%) Programme Manager
8 5 (2.81%) Security Analyst
8 5 (2.81%) Security Consultant
8 5 (2.81%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (14.61%) LDAP
2 22 (12.36%) OAuth
2 22 (12.36%) SAML
3 11 (6.18%) REST
4 8 (4.49%) Oracle Fusion
5 7 (3.93%) Middleware
5 7 (3.93%) PySpark
5 7 (3.93%) SOAP
5 7 (3.93%) Spark Streaming
5 7 (3.93%) Spring
5 7 (3.93%) Spring Boot
6 6 (3.37%) JDBC
6 6 (3.37%) OpenID
7 5 (2.81%) AWS CDK
7 5 (2.81%) J2EE
7 5 (2.81%) JSON
7 5 (2.81%) SailPoint
8 4 (2.25%) Node.js
9 3 (1.69%) CSS
9 3 (1.69%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (9.55%) Replication
2 14 (7.87%) Management Information System
3 9 (5.06%) Cloud Native
4 8 (4.49%) Onboarding
5 7 (3.93%) BYOD
5 7 (3.93%) Distributed Computing
5 7 (3.93%) Product Ownership
6 6 (3.37%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (2.81%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 4 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.69%) CMDB
9 3 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
10 2 (1.12%) Augmented Reality
10 2 (1.12%) Data Centre
10 2 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
10 2 (1.12%) Life Science
10 2 (1.12%) Mainframe
10 2 (1.12%) PMI
10 2 (1.12%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 30 (16.85%) Windows
2 15 (8.43%) Windows Server
3 11 (6.18%) Linux
4 4 (2.25%) Unix
5 2 (1.12%) zOS
6 1 (0.56%) AIX
6 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (32.02%) Agile
2 54 (30.34%) Stakeholder Management
3 36 (20.22%) Identity Access Management
4 33 (18.54%) RBAC
5 32 (17.98%) DevOps
6 31 (17.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 29 (16.29%) ERP
7 29 (16.29%) Procure-to-Pay
8 28 (15.73%) Change Management
9 27 (15.17%) Problem-Solving
10 25 (14.04%) CI/CD
11 23 (12.92%) ETL
12 22 (12.36%) Cybersecurity
12 22 (12.36%) Migration
13 21 (11.80%) AI
14 20 (11.24%) Information Security
15 19 (10.67%) Order to Cash
16 18 (10.11%) Waterfall
17 17 (9.55%) Record to Report
17 17 (9.55%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 35 (19.66%) SQL
2 29 (16.29%) Python
3 27 (15.17%) PowerShell
4 24 (13.48%) Java
5 4 (2.25%) Bash
5 4 (2.25%) TypeScript
6 3 (1.69%) JavaScript
7 2 (1.12%) CLIST
7 2 (1.12%) JCL
7 2 (1.12%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.12%) REXX
8 1 (0.56%) Jython
8 1 (0.56%) R
8 1 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 28 (15.73%) Degree
2 20 (11.24%) CISSP
2 20 (11.24%) Security Cleared
3 18 (10.11%) SC Cleared
4 15 (8.43%) CISM
5 13 (7.30%) PMI Certification
6 12 (6.74%) PMP
7 7 (3.93%) CISA
8 5 (2.81%) ACCA
8 5 (2.81%) CIMA
9 4 (2.25%) CRISC
9 4 (2.25%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (1.69%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 3 (1.69%) Master's Degree
11 2 (1.12%) ISTQB
11 2 (1.12%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 1 (0.56%) Azure Certification
12 1 (0.56%) PgMP
12 1 (0.56%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (46.63%) GDPR
2 37 (20.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 26 (14.61%) NIST
4 21 (11.80%) PCI DSS
5 13 (7.30%) HIPAA
5 13 (7.30%) ITGC
6 9 (5.06%) COBIT
7 8 (4.49%) IFRS
8 7 (3.93%) Data Quality
8 7 (3.93%) GRC
9 6 (3.37%) GAAP
9 6 (3.37%) QA
10 5 (2.81%) Basel III
11 3 (1.69%) IFRS 9
11 3 (1.69%) NIST 800
11 3 (1.69%) PMO
11 3 (1.69%) SLA
12 2 (1.12%) GxP
12 2 (1.12%) IFRS 17
13 1 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 29 (16.29%) Active Directory
2 11 (6.18%) Docker
3 2 (1.12%) RACF
4 1 (0.56%) IAG
Systems Management
1 22 (12.36%) Single Sign-On
2 16 (8.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 16 (8.99%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.12%) Control-M
3 2 (1.12%) Terraform
3 2 (1.12%) zSecure
4 1 (0.56%) Ansible
4 1 (0.56%) CA Wily
4 1 (0.56%) Puppet
4 1 (0.56%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 50 (28.09%) SAP
2 38 (21.35%) Microsoft
3 24 (13.48%) ServiceNow
4 18 (10.11%) Okta
5 17 (9.55%) Workday
6 16 (8.99%) Oracle
7 12 (6.74%) CyberArk
8 7 (3.93%) Ariba
9 4 (2.25%) Informatica
10 3 (1.69%) IBM
11 2 (1.12%) Bloomberg
11 2 (1.12%) BMC
11 2 (1.12%) Centrify
11 2 (1.12%) Databricks
11 2 (1.12%) Hyperion
11 2 (1.12%) OpenText
11 2 (1.12%) Refinitiv
11 2 (1.12%) Remedy
11 2 (1.12%) Splunk
11 2 (1.12%) Tagetik