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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 501 390 474
Rank change year-on-year -111 +84 +15
Contract jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley 173 168 95
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.32% 0.51% 0.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 1.86% 3.01% 1.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 111 106 66
10th Percentile £413 £405 £349
25th Percentile £425 £515 £399
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £575 £580
Median % change year-on-year -2.17% -0.86% +16.00%
75th Percentile £600 £674 £655
90th Percentile £738 £763 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £525
% change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 6 1
10th Percentile £50.00 £21.50 -
25th Percentile £55.63 £27.06 -
Median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £44.04
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +47.59% +11.21%
75th Percentile £76.50 £91.56 -
90th Percentile £81.20 £92.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.25 £23.00 £44.04
% change year-on-year +170.65% -47.77% +11.21%

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 9,302 5,587 5,209
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.32% 17.06% 13.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,911 3,591 3,182
10th Percentile £325 £285 £285
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.07% -2.74%
75th Percentile £600 £604 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +3.16% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 579 265 300
10th Percentile £13.86 £13.60 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.29 £17.35 £13.96
Median hourly rate £36.00 £30.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% +24.07% -30.91%
75th Percentile £68.75 £61.25 £54.52
90th Percentile £79.20 £84.35 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.07 £27.54 £24.18
% change year-on-year +31.00% +13.88% -30.91%

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 27 August 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 27 August 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 27 August 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 -96 154 £528 -8.26% 178
London -74 77 £581 -3.53% 123
UK excluding London -82 77 £525 -4.55% 75
Work from Home -53 67 £500 -13.04% 79
North of England -48 47 £450 -21.74% 15
North West -32 27 £569 -0.52% 12
Yorkshire -41 20 £450 -21.74% 3
South East -56 12 £563 +4.65% 21
East of England -20 8 £525 -16.00% 6
Midlands -50 6 £650 +23.81% 12
East Midlands -13 3 £550 +24.29% 4
Scotland -15 3 £600 - 6
West Midlands -48 3 £650 +15.25% 8
South West -46 1 £600 +18.81% 7

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 7 (4.05%) Apache Spark
2 5 (2.89%) Apache
2 5 (2.89%) IIS
3 1 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.58%) IBM HTTP Server
3 1 (0.58%) WebSphere
3 1 (0.58%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 12 (6.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.16%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 21 (12.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (3.47%) NetSuite
3 4 (2.31%) HFM
3 4 (2.31%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 4 (2.31%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (2.31%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (1.16%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (1.16%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (1.16%) SAP CO
4 2 (1.16%) SAP FI
4 2 (1.16%) SAP FI/CO
5 1 (0.58%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.58%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.58%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.58%) SAP CS
5 1 (0.58%) SAP ECC
5 1 (0.58%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.58%) SAP GTS
5 1 (0.58%) SAP LE
5 1 (0.58%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 58 (33.53%) Azure
2 54 (31.21%) AWS
3 18 (10.40%) Entra ID
4 16 (9.25%) SaaS
5 14 (8.09%) GCP
6 13 (7.51%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (4.05%) Power Platform
8 6 (3.47%) Azure Sentinel
9 4 (2.31%) GitHub
9 4 (2.31%) Microsoft 365
9 4 (2.31%) Snowflake
10 3 (1.73%) IaaS
10 3 (1.73%) SuccessFactors
11 2 (1.16%) Amazon S3
11 2 (1.16%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 2 (1.16%) Azure Machine Learning
11 2 (1.16%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.16%) Matillion
12 1 (0.58%) Amazon EC2
12 1 (0.58%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 11 (6.36%) Network Security
2 8 (4.62%) Firewall
3 5 (2.89%) HTTPS
4 4 (2.31%) HTTP
5 1 (0.58%) Broadband
5 1 (0.58%) DNS
5 1 (0.58%) Kerberos
5 1 (0.58%) SAN
5 1 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.62%) Relational Database
2 7 (4.05%) Power BI
2 7 (4.05%) SQL Server
3 5 (2.89%) NoSQL
4 4 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.73%) Apache Cassandra
5 3 (1.73%) Data Lake
5 3 (1.73%) RDBMS
5 3 (1.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (1.16%) GIS
7 1 (0.58%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.58%) Delta Lake
7 1 (0.58%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.58%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.58%) Metadata
7 1 (0.58%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.58%) Spark SQL
7 1 (0.58%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (4.62%) GitLab
2 6 (3.47%) JIRA
3 5 (2.89%) Git
3 5 (2.89%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.16%) ER Studio
5 1 (0.58%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.58%) Gradle
5 1 (0.58%) Introscope
5 1 (0.58%) Maven
5 1 (0.58%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.58%) TestRail
General
1 89 (51.45%) Finance
2 67 (38.73%) Social Skills
3 37 (21.39%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (9.83%) Legal
5 12 (6.94%) Banking
5 12 (6.94%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (5.20%) Pharmaceutical
7 8 (4.62%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (2.89%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (2.31%) Billing
11 3 (1.73%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.73%) Telecoms
12 2 (1.16%) Retail
13 1 (0.58%) Back Office
13 1 (0.58%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.58%) Legal Technology
13 1 (0.58%) Marketing
13 1 (0.58%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 30 (17.34%) Architect
2 29 (16.76%) Lead
3 20 (11.56%) Analyst
4 17 (9.83%) Author
4 17 (9.83%) Technical Author
5 14 (8.09%) Consultant
6 11 (6.36%) SOX Analyst
7 8 (4.62%) Business Analyst
7 8 (4.62%) IT Analyst
7 8 (4.62%) Project Manager
8 7 (4.05%) Finance Business Analyst
8 7 (4.05%) Financial Analyst
8 7 (4.05%) Java Engineer
9 6 (3.47%) Data Engineer
9 6 (3.47%) SailPoint Architect
9 6 (3.47%) Senior
10 5 (2.89%) Compliance Analyst
10 5 (2.89%) Java Software Engineer
10 5 (2.89%) SIEM Engineer
10 5 (2.89%) Splunk Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (11.56%) REST
2 14 (8.09%) LDAP
3 10 (5.78%) JDBC
3 10 (5.78%) SOAP
4 9 (5.20%) SailPoint
5 7 (4.05%) Spring
5 7 (4.05%) Spring Boot
6 6 (3.47%) OAuth
6 6 (3.47%) OpenID
6 6 (3.47%) SAML
7 5 (2.89%) AWS CDK
7 5 (2.89%) Jakarta EE
7 5 (2.89%) JSON
7 5 (2.89%) Oracle Fusion
8 4 (2.31%) Node.js
9 3 (1.73%) Middleware
10 2 (1.16%) pytest
10 2 (1.16%) SAP Fiori
10 2 (1.16%) Snowpark
10 2 (1.16%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 12 (6.94%) Cloud Native
1 12 (6.94%) Onboarding
2 9 (5.20%) Enterprise Software
2 9 (5.20%) Management Information System
2 9 (5.20%) Product Ownership
3 6 (3.47%) Replication
4 5 (2.89%) Data Protection Act
4 5 (2.89%) Reinsurance
5 4 (2.31%) BYOD
5 4 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (2.31%) Virtual Team
6 3 (1.73%) Augmented Reality
6 3 (1.73%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (1.73%) Life Science
6 3 (1.73%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.16%) Data Centre
7 2 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 2 (1.16%) PKI
7 2 (1.16%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 1 (0.58%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 15 (8.67%) Windows
2 9 (5.20%) Linux
3 4 (2.31%) Unix
4 1 (0.58%) AIX
4 1 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (27.17%) Stakeholder Management
2 37 (21.39%) Agile
3 32 (18.50%) ERP
4 27 (15.61%) DevOps
5 26 (15.03%) Continuous Improvement
5 26 (15.03%) Problem-Solving
5 26 (15.03%) RBAC
6 23 (13.29%) Change Management
6 23 (13.29%) Roadmaps
7 22 (12.72%) Migration
8 20 (11.56%) Cybersecurity
8 20 (11.56%) Identity Access Management
9 19 (10.98%) CI/CD
9 19 (10.98%) Procure-to-Pay
10 17 (9.83%) AI
10 17 (9.83%) User Acceptance Testing
11 16 (9.25%) Analytics
11 16 (9.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 15 (8.67%) Information Security
12 15 (8.67%) Order to Cash
Programming Languages
1 28 (16.18%) SQL
2 25 (14.45%) Python
3 23 (13.29%) Java
4 17 (9.83%) PowerShell
5 5 (2.89%) Kusto Query Language
5 5 (2.89%) Search Processing Language
6 4 (2.31%) Bash
6 4 (2.31%) BeanShell
6 4 (2.31%) TypeScript
7 2 (1.16%) R
8 1 (0.58%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.58%) Jython
8 1 (0.58%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 26 (15.03%) Degree
2 21 (12.14%) CISSP
3 15 (8.67%) ACCA
4 12 (6.94%) CISM
5 10 (5.78%) CIMA
5 10 (5.78%) PMI Certification
6 9 (5.20%) PMP
7 6 (3.47%) CISA
8 5 (2.89%) GCFA
8 5 (2.89%) GCIH
8 5 (2.89%) Security Cleared
9 4 (2.31%) CRISC
10 3 (1.73%) Azure Certification
11 2 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (1.16%) SAFe Agilist
12 1 (0.58%) ISTQB
12 1 (0.58%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.58%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.58%) SAP Certification
12 1 (0.58%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (34.10%) GDPR
2 34 (19.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (12.14%) NIST
4 19 (10.98%) ITGC
5 16 (9.25%) HIPAA
6 15 (8.67%) GRC
7 14 (8.09%) PCI DSS
8 12 (6.94%) GAAP
8 12 (6.94%) IFRS
9 9 (5.20%) Data Quality
10 5 (2.89%) GxP
10 5 (2.89%) Solvency II
11 4 (2.31%) COBIT
11 4 (2.31%) QA
12 3 (1.73%) NIST 800
13 2 (1.16%) SLA
14 1 (0.58%) PMO
14 1 (0.58%) PSD2
14 1 (0.58%) SOC 1
System Software
1 21 (12.14%) Active Directory
2 5 (2.89%) Docker
3 1 (0.58%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 10 (5.78%) Kubernetes
2 8 (4.62%) Single Sign-On
3 5 (2.89%) Ansible
3 5 (2.89%) CASB
3 5 (2.89%) Progress Chef
4 1 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 1 (0.58%) CA Wily
4 1 (0.58%) Grafana
4 1 (0.58%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.58%) Puppet
4 1 (0.58%) systemd
Vendors
1 57 (32.95%) SAP
2 31 (17.92%) Microsoft
3 22 (12.72%) ServiceNow
4 17 (9.83%) Oracle
5 15 (8.67%) CyberArk
6 12 (6.94%) Workday
7 9 (5.20%) Splunk
8 7 (4.05%) Ariba
8 7 (4.05%) Salesforce
9 5 (2.89%) Cribl.io
10 4 (2.31%) Google
10 4 (2.31%) Hyperion
10 4 (2.31%) Okta
10 4 (2.31%) Tagetik
11 3 (1.73%) Alteryx
11 3 (1.73%) Bloomberg
11 3 (1.73%) Databricks
11 3 (1.73%) ForgeRock
11 3 (1.73%) Palo Alto
11 3 (1.73%) Zscaler