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 24 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 415 421 478
Rank change year-on-year +6 +57 +137
Contract jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley 175 132 112
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.47% 0.39% 0.26%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.74% 2.75% 1.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 123 75 69
10th Percentile £358 £313 £253
25th Percentile £492 £361 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £550 £533
Median % change year-on-year +2.27% +3.29% -7.39%
75th Percentile £688 £635 £613
90th Percentile £775 £730 £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 6,386 4,808 6,275
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.26% 14.16% 14.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,127 2,828 4,173
10th Percentile £313 £262 £313
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 £488 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 317 184 230
10th Percentile £14.15 £15.00 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.88 £19.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £27.68 £33.75
Median % change year-on-year -9.12% -18.00% +48.78%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.31 £63.81
90th Percentile £73.75 £72.80 £83.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.50 £27.18 £33.75
% change year-on-year -24.56% -19.48% +60.71%

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 24 December 2025.

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 24 December 2025.

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 24 December 2025. 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 +28 159 £550 +10.00% 97
London +30 106 £550 -2.22% 36
Work from Home +40 61 £525 +5.00% 25
UK excluding London -40 54 £563 +25.00% 79
South West +8 13 £512 - 6
North of England -52 11 £582 +58.30% 11
South East -7 10 £563 +73.08% 33
East of England -8 10 £650 +18.18% 14
Yorkshire -36 9 £589 +60.14% 6
Midlands -45 6 £525 -12.50% 10
West Midlands -23 5 £525 +133.33% 3
Scotland -16 2 £612 +1.92% 3
North West -30 2 £514 +26.52% 4
Wales - 2 £625 - 1
Northern Ireland - 2 £550 - 2
East Midlands -20 1 £525 -12.50% 6

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 (8.00%) Confluence
2 1 (0.57%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (7.43%) MS Visio
2 12 (6.86%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.57%) Trello
Business Applications
1 15 (8.57%) NetSuite
2 12 (6.86%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (2.29%) SAP GRC
4 3 (1.71%) Oracle General Ledger
4 3 (1.71%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (1.71%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (1.14%) SAP CO
5 2 (1.14%) SAP EWM
5 2 (1.14%) SAP FI
5 2 (1.14%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (1.14%) SAP GTS
5 2 (1.14%) SAP IBP
5 2 (1.14%) SAP MM
5 2 (1.14%) SAP PP
5 2 (1.14%) SAP SCM
5 2 (1.14%) SAP SRM
6 1 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.57%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.57%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 36 (20.57%) Azure
2 18 (10.29%) SaaS
3 16 (9.14%) AWS
3 16 (9.14%) OCI
4 14 (8.00%) Power Platform
5 12 (6.86%) Entra ID
6 11 (6.29%) Lucidchart
7 5 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (2.86%) SuccessFactors
8 4 (2.29%) GitHub
9 2 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
9 2 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 2 (1.14%) GCP
9 2 (1.14%) IaaS
9 2 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.57%) Alation
10 1 (0.57%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 1 (0.57%) Azure Service Bus
10 1 (0.57%) Boomi
10 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 12 (6.86%) Firewall
2 8 (4.57%) TCP/IP
3 7 (4.00%) DNS
3 7 (4.00%) HTTP
4 5 (2.86%) Network Security
5 4 (2.29%) SSL
6 3 (1.71%) DHCP
7 2 (1.14%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (8.00%) Power BI
2 7 (4.00%) SQL Server
3 6 (3.43%) SAP HANA
4 4 (2.29%) Data Lake
4 4 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.71%) Relational Database
5 3 (1.71%) Spark SQL
6 2 (1.14%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.57%) Ataccama
7 1 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.57%) Big Data
7 1 (0.57%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.57%) Delta Lake
7 1 (0.57%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.57%) Metadata
7 1 (0.57%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 15 (8.57%) JIRA
2 9 (5.14%) Git
3 8 (4.57%) GitLab
4 4 (2.29%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.29%) Subversion
4 4 (2.29%) TeamCity
5 3 (1.71%) REST Assured
6 2 (1.14%) Selenium
7 1 (0.57%) Postman
7 1 (0.57%) Robot Framework
General
1 101 (57.71%) Finance
2 62 (35.43%) Social Skills
3 46 (26.29%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (12.00%) Banking
5 19 (10.86%) Manufacturing
6 9 (5.14%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (4.57%) Presentation Skills
8 7 (4.00%) Investment Banking
8 7 (4.00%) Pharmaceutical
9 6 (3.43%) Financial Institution
10 5 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (2.86%) Telecoms
11 4 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (2.29%) Legal
11 4 (2.29%) Marketing
12 3 (1.71%) General Ledger
12 3 (1.71%) Public Sector
13 2 (1.14%) Electronics
14 1 (0.57%) Corporate Banking
14 1 (0.57%) Retail
Job Titles
1 25 (14.29%) Analyst
2 15 (8.57%) Consultant
3 14 (8.00%) Architect
3 14 (8.00%) Lead
4 11 (6.29%) Senior
4 11 (6.29%) Technical Writer
5 10 (5.71%) Project Manager
6 8 (4.57%) Developer
7 7 (4.00%) Business Analyst
7 7 (4.00%) Security Analyst
7 7 (4.00%) Solutions Architect
8 6 (3.43%) Accountant
8 6 (3.43%) Incident Manager
8 6 (3.43%) Programme Manager
9 5 (2.86%) ForgeRock Developer
10 4 (2.29%) Linux Administrator
10 4 (2.29%) Procurement Manager
10 4 (2.29%) SAP Consultant
10 4 (2.29%) SAP Manager
10 4 (2.29%) SOX Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.86%) OAuth
1 12 (6.86%) SAML
2 9 (5.14%) LDAP
3 7 (4.00%) OpenID
3 7 (4.00%) REST
3 7 (4.00%) SailPoint
4 6 (3.43%) OAuth2
5 5 (2.86%) RESTful
6 3 (1.71%) Middleware
6 3 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (1.71%) PySpark
6 3 (1.71%) Spark Streaming
7 2 (1.14%) ISPF
7 2 (1.14%) SAP Fiori
8 1 (0.57%) .NET
8 1 (0.57%) CSS
8 1 (0.57%) HTML
8 1 (0.57%) JSON
8 1 (0.57%) pytest
8 1 (0.57%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.14%) Onboarding
2 7 (4.00%) Analytical Mindset
2 7 (4.00%) Replication
3 5 (2.86%) Clustering
3 5 (2.86%) Life Science
3 5 (2.86%) Management Information System
3 5 (2.86%) PMI
4 3 (1.71%) BYOD
4 3 (1.71%) Cloud Native
4 3 (1.71%) Distributed Computing
4 3 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (1.71%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 2 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.14%) Fixed Income
5 2 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 2 (1.14%) Hedge funds
5 2 (1.14%) Mainframe
5 2 (1.14%) Product Ownership
5 2 (1.14%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 8 (4.57%) Linux
1 8 (4.57%) Windows
2 4 (2.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 4 (2.29%) Solaris
3 2 (1.14%) zOS
4 1 (0.57%) Unix
4 1 (0.57%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (22.86%) Stakeholder Management
2 31 (17.71%) ERP
3 30 (17.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 28 (16.00%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (15.43%) Agile
6 24 (13.71%) Risk Management
7 22 (12.57%) Continuous Improvement
7 22 (12.57%) Project Management
8 21 (12.00%) Cybersecurity
8 21 (12.00%) Identity Access Management
9 20 (11.43%) DevOps
10 17 (9.71%) Business Intelligence
10 17 (9.71%) CI/CD
11 16 (9.14%) IT Audit
11 16 (9.14%) Revenue Recognition
12 14 (8.00%) Decision-Making
12 14 (8.00%) ITIL
12 14 (8.00%) Privileged Access Management
12 14 (8.00%) RBAC
12 14 (8.00%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 26 (14.86%) Python
2 22 (12.57%) SQL
3 18 (10.29%) PowerShell
4 13 (7.43%) Java
5 5 (2.86%) Bash
6 4 (2.29%) C#
6 4 (2.29%) Perl
7 2 (1.14%) BeanShell
7 2 (1.14%) CLIST
7 2 (1.14%) JavaScript
7 2 (1.14%) JCL
7 2 (1.14%) REXX
8 1 (0.57%) R
8 1 (0.57%) VB
Qualifications
1 32 (18.29%) Degree
2 20 (11.43%) ACCA
3 18 (10.29%) CISSP
4 15 (8.57%) CIMA
5 14 (8.00%) CISM
6 9 (5.14%) PMI Certification
7 8 (4.57%) CISA
8 7 (4.00%) FFIEC
9 6 (3.43%) SC Cleared
9 6 (3.43%) Security Cleared
10 5 (2.86%) Azure Certification
11 4 (2.29%) CRISC
11 4 (2.29%) PMP
12 2 (1.14%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (1.14%) Master's Degree
13 1 (0.57%) AWS Certification
13 1 (0.57%) CBAP
13 1 (0.57%) DBS Check
13 1 (0.57%) MBA
13 1 (0.57%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (40.00%) GDPR
2 36 (20.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (17.71%) NIST
4 24 (13.71%) PCI DSS
5 19 (10.86%) GRC
6 17 (9.71%) IFRS
6 17 (9.71%) ITGC
7 12 (6.86%) HIPAA
8 9 (5.14%) COBIT
8 9 (5.14%) SOX 404
9 8 (4.57%) QA
10 7 (4.00%) GxP
11 5 (2.86%) PSD2
11 5 (2.86%) SLA
12 2 (1.14%) Accessibility
12 2 (1.14%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (1.14%) COSO
12 2 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (1.14%) PMO
12 2 (1.14%) SOC 2
System Software
1 12 (6.86%) Active Directory
2 7 (4.00%) Docker
3 6 (3.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.29%) NDS
4 4 (2.29%) NetIQ eDirectory
4 4 (2.29%) NFS
4 4 (2.29%) Veritas File System
4 4 (2.29%) Veritas Volume Manager
4 4 (2.29%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.14%) RACF
6 1 (0.57%) IAG
6 1 (0.57%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 10 (5.71%) Single Sign-On
2 7 (4.00%) Kubernetes
3 6 (3.43%) Ansible
4 5 (2.86%) Terraform
5 4 (2.29%) QRadar
5 4 (2.29%) Red Hat Satellite
5 4 (2.29%) RSA Archer
6 2 (1.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.14%) zSecure
7 1 (0.57%) Avamar
7 1 (0.57%) EMC NetWorker
7 1 (0.57%) Oracle Identity Manager
7 1 (0.57%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.57%) VxRail
Vendors
1 30 (17.14%) SAP
2 29 (16.57%) Oracle
3 18 (10.29%) ServiceNow
4 17 (9.71%) Microsoft
5 12 (6.86%) CyberArk
6 7 (4.00%) VMware
7 6 (3.43%) Workday
8 5 (2.86%) ForgeRock
8 5 (2.86%) Okta
8 5 (2.86%) Ping Identity
8 5 (2.86%) Splunk
9 4 (2.29%) BeyondTrust
9 4 (2.29%) NetIQ
9 4 (2.29%) Qualys
9 4 (2.29%) Red Hat
9 4 (2.29%) SaltStack
10 3 (1.71%) IBM
10 3 (1.71%) OpenText
10 3 (1.71%) Salesforce
10 3 (1.71%) Thycotic