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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 404 396 497
Rank change year-on-year -8 +101 +91
Contract jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley 178 124 100
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 0.40% 0.23%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.82% 2.76% 1.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 73 56
10th Percentile £400 £303 £253
25th Percentile £475 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £531
Median % change year-on-year - +3.53% -7.61%
75th Percentile £688 £628 £638
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 6,301 4,486 6,181
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.22% 14.31% 14.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,065 2,627 4,105
10th Percentile £313 £258 £311
25th Percentile £406 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £645
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 301 174 245
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.00 £13.07
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.01 £17.13
Median hourly rate £26.11 £29.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.97% -10.77% +35.42%
75th Percentile £62.50 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £79.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.72 £29.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -28.55% -3.33% +39.53%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -9 162 £550 +10.00% 31
London +7 109 £550 - 17
Work from Home +23 54 £525 -4.55% 14
UK excluding London -43 54 £550 - 19
South East -11 14 £500 +33.33% 11
South West -8 13 £512 -7.00%
East of England -8 10 £650 +13.04% 6
North of England -59 7 £605 +64.69% 2
Yorkshire -43 6 £605 +64.69% 1
Midlands -45 6 £525 -12.50%
West Midlands -33 5 £525 +133.33%
Scotland -16 2 £612 +1.92%
Wales - 2 £625 -
Northern Ireland - 2 £550 -
East Midlands -21 1 £525 -12.50%
North West -26 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 (7.30%) 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 (7.30%) MS Visio
2 12 (6.74%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.56%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (6.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (5.62%) NetSuite
3 5 (2.81%) Oracle General Ledger
3 5 (2.81%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 5 (2.81%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (2.25%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (2.25%) Oracle Receivables
4 4 (2.25%) 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 43 (24.16%) Azure
2 19 (10.67%) OCI
2 19 (10.67%) Power Platform
3 15 (8.43%) AWS
3 15 (8.43%) SaaS
4 12 (6.74%) Entra ID
5 11 (6.18%) Lucidchart
6 6 (3.37%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (2.81%) SuccessFactors
8 4 (2.25%) GitHub
8 4 (2.25%) IaaS
9 2 (1.12%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 2 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
9 2 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 2 (1.12%) GCP
9 2 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
9 2 (1.12%) PaaS
10 1 (0.56%) Alation
10 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Purview
10 1 (0.56%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 12 (6.74%) Firewall
2 9 (5.06%) DNS
3 8 (4.49%) TCP/IP
4 7 (3.93%) HTTP
5 5 (2.81%) Network Security
6 4 (2.25%) DHCP
6 4 (2.25%) SSL
7 3 (1.69%) 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 (10.67%) Power BI
2 9 (5.06%) SQL Server
3 8 (4.49%) Data Lake
4 7 (3.93%) Relational Database
4 7 (3.93%) Spark SQL
5 6 (3.37%) SAP HANA
6 4 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (1.12%) Big Data
7 2 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.56%) Ataccama
8 1 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.56%) Delta Lake
8 1 (0.56%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.56%) Metadata
8 1 (0.56%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.56%) SAP BW
8 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 14 (7.87%) Git
2 13 (7.30%) GitLab
2 13 (7.30%) JIRA
3 5 (2.81%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.25%) Subversion
4 4 (2.25%) TeamCity
5 3 (1.69%) REST Assured
5 3 (1.69%) Selenium
6 2 (1.12%) Postman
6 2 (1.12%) Robot Framework
General
1 109 (61.24%) Finance
2 69 (38.76%) Social Skills
3 44 (24.72%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (14.61%) Banking
5 19 (10.67%) Manufacturing
6 10 (5.62%) Presentation Skills
7 9 (5.06%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.49%) General Ledger
9 7 (3.93%) Investment Banking
9 7 (3.93%) Legal
9 7 (3.93%) Pharmaceutical
10 6 (3.37%) Financial Institution
10 6 (3.37%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (2.81%) Telecoms
12 4 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (2.25%) Marketing
13 3 (1.69%) Public Sector
14 2 (1.12%) Electronics
14 2 (1.12%) Japanese Language
15 1 (0.56%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 22 (12.36%) Analyst
2 19 (10.67%) Lead
3 13 (7.30%) Architect
3 13 (7.30%) Consultant
4 11 (6.18%) Senior
4 11 (6.18%) Technical Writer
5 10 (5.62%) Developer
5 10 (5.62%) Project Manager
6 7 (3.93%) Programme Manager
6 7 (3.93%) Security Analyst
7 6 (3.37%) Business Analyst
7 6 (3.37%) Information Officer
7 6 (3.37%) Information Security Officer
7 6 (3.37%) Security Officer
7 6 (3.37%) Solutions Architect
8 5 (2.81%) ForgeRock Developer
8 5 (2.81%) IT Manager
8 5 (2.81%) Technical Leader
9 4 (2.25%) Governance Consultant
9 4 (2.25%) Linux Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.74%) OAuth
1 12 (6.74%) SAML
2 9 (5.06%) LDAP
3 7 (3.93%) OpenID
3 7 (3.93%) PySpark
3 7 (3.93%) REST
3 7 (3.93%) Spark Streaming
4 6 (3.37%) OAuth2
4 6 (3.37%) Oracle Fusion
4 6 (3.37%) SailPoint
5 5 (2.81%) Middleware
5 5 (2.81%) RESTful
6 3 (1.69%) XML
7 2 (1.12%) CSS
7 2 (1.12%) HTML
7 2 (1.12%) ISPF
7 2 (1.12%) pytest
7 2 (1.12%) SAP Fiori
7 2 (1.12%) XML Messaging
8 1 (0.56%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.06%) Onboarding
2 8 (4.49%) Analytical Mindset
2 8 (4.49%) Replication
3 7 (3.93%) Distributed Computing
4 6 (3.37%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 6 (3.37%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.81%) Clustering
5 5 (2.81%) Life Science
6 4 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (2.25%) PMI
7 3 (1.69%) BYOD
7 3 (1.69%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.12%) Derivative
8 2 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.12%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.12%) IoT
8 2 (1.12%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.12%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.12%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 13 (7.30%) Windows
2 10 (5.62%) Linux
3 4 (2.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (2.25%) Solaris
4 3 (1.69%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.12%) zOS
6 1 (0.56%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (24.72%) Stakeholder Management
2 39 (21.91%) Agile
3 33 (18.54%) ERP
4 30 (16.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 27 (15.17%) DevOps
5 27 (15.17%) Risk Management
6 25 (14.04%) Problem-Solving
7 24 (13.48%) CI/CD
8 23 (12.92%) Business Intelligence
8 23 (12.92%) Continuous Improvement
8 23 (12.92%) Project Management
9 21 (11.80%) Cybersecurity
9 21 (11.80%) Identity Access Management
10 17 (9.55%) Analytics
10 17 (9.55%) ETL
10 17 (9.55%) Project Delivery
11 16 (8.99%) IT Audit
11 16 (8.99%) ITIL
12 15 (8.43%) RBAC
12 15 (8.43%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 30 (16.85%) Python
1 30 (16.85%) SQL
2 18 (10.11%) PowerShell
3 17 (9.55%) Java
4 5 (2.81%) Bash
5 4 (2.25%) C#
5 4 (2.25%) Perl
6 3 (1.69%) JavaScript
7 2 (1.12%) BeanShell
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%) R
8 1 (0.56%) VB
Qualifications
1 36 (20.22%) Degree
2 17 (9.55%) CISSP
3 14 (7.87%) ACCA
3 14 (7.87%) CISM
4 11 (6.18%) CIMA
4 11 (6.18%) PMI Certification
5 10 (5.62%) CISA
6 8 (4.49%) PMP
7 7 (3.93%) FFIEC
8 6 (3.37%) SC Cleared
8 6 (3.37%) Security Cleared
9 4 (2.25%) Azure Certification
9 4 (2.25%) CRISC
9 4 (2.25%) Master's Degree
10 2 (1.12%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (1.12%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 2 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.56%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.56%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (42.70%) GDPR
2 41 (23.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 37 (20.79%) NIST
4 28 (15.73%) PCI DSS
5 19 (10.67%) GRC
6 15 (8.43%) IFRS
7 13 (7.30%) ITGC
8 11 (6.18%) COBIT
8 11 (6.18%) HIPAA
9 9 (5.06%) QA
10 7 (3.93%) GxP
10 7 (3.93%) SLA
10 7 (3.93%) SOX 404
11 5 (2.81%) Basel III
11 5 (2.81%) GAAP
11 5 (2.81%) PSD2
12 3 (1.69%) IFRS 9
13 2 (1.12%) COSO
13 2 (1.12%) Data Quality
13 2 (1.12%) PMO
System Software
1 12 (6.74%) Active Directory
2 11 (6.18%) Docker
3 6 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.25%) NDS
4 4 (2.25%) NetIQ eDirectory
4 4 (2.25%) NFS
4 4 (2.25%) Veritas File System
4 4 (2.25%) Veritas Volume Manager
4 4 (2.25%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.12%) RACF
6 1 (0.56%) IAG
6 1 (0.56%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (6.18%) Kubernetes
1 11 (6.18%) Single Sign-On
2 6 (3.37%) Ansible
3 5 (2.81%) Terraform
4 4 (2.25%) QRadar
4 4 (2.25%) Red Hat Satellite
4 4 (2.25%) RSA Archer
5 3 (1.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.12%) Control-M
6 2 (1.12%) zSecure
7 1 (0.56%) Avamar
7 1 (0.56%) EMC NetWorker
7 1 (0.56%) Oracle Identity Manager
7 1 (0.56%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.56%) VxRail
Vendors
1 34 (19.10%) Oracle
1 34 (19.10%) SAP
2 22 (12.36%) Microsoft
3 16 (8.99%) ServiceNow
4 12 (6.74%) CyberArk
5 11 (6.18%) Workday
6 8 (4.49%) VMware
7 5 (2.81%) ForgeRock
7 5 (2.81%) Okta
7 5 (2.81%) Ping Identity
7 5 (2.81%) Splunk
8 4 (2.25%) BeyondTrust
8 4 (2.25%) IBM
8 4 (2.25%) NetIQ
8 4 (2.25%) Qualys
8 4 (2.25%) Red Hat
8 4 (2.25%) SaltStack
9 3 (1.69%) Informatica
9 3 (1.69%) OpenText
9 3 (1.69%) Salesforce