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

 6 months to
24 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 400 393 504
Rank change year-on-year -7 +111 +60
Contract jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley 189 126 93
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 0.40% 0.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.90% 2.77% 1.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 72 50
10th Percentile £418 £313 £251
25th Percentile £500 £405 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £594 £550 £520
Median % change year-on-year +8.05% +5.77% -9.57%
75th Percentile £669 £646 £600
90th Percentile £765 £750 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% +6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 2
10th Percentile £29.23 £49.14 £34.88
25th Percentile £38.56 £56.78 £40.31
Median hourly rate £50.75 £69.52 £51.25
Median % change year-on-year -27.00% +35.65% +84.68%
75th Percentile £55.50 £82.26 £62.81
90th Percentile £56.40 £89.90 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £44.04 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.31% -37.09% +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 6,527 4,550 6,322
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.18% 14.39% 14.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,200 2,673 4,201
10th Percentile £319 £257 £306
25th Percentile £410 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
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 327 177 301
10th Percentile £15.29 £15.00 £12.43
25th Percentile £17.83 £21.00 £15.39
Median hourly rate £25.77 £29.00 £28.75
Median % change year-on-year -11.14% +0.87% +15.00%
75th Percentile £63.45 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.75 £28.50 £28.30
% change year-on-year -27.19% +0.71% +19.07%

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 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 24 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 24 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 +8 173 £563 +4.65% 33
London +39 118 £600 +9.09% 17
Work from Home +11 62 £600 +2.13% 16
UK excluding London -57 56 £525 -4.55% 24
South East -18 14 £500 +8.11% 12
South West -5 13 £512 -7.00%
East of England -6 10 £650 +13.04% 6
North of England -64 8 £589 +60.14% 4
Midlands -47 7 £525 -12.50% 3
Yorkshire -58 7 £589 +60.14% 1
West Midlands -46 6 £525 +133.33% 3
Scotland -18 3 £612 +1.92%
Northern Ireland - 2 £550 -
East Midlands -29 1 £525 -12.50%
North West -32 1 - - 3
Wales - 1 £625 -

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 (6.88%) Confluence
2 2 (1.06%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.06%) WebSphere
3 1 (0.53%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.53%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (6.88%) MS Visio
2 12 (6.35%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (1.06%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.53%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (5.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (3.70%) NetSuite
3 5 (2.65%) Oracle General Ledger
3 5 (2.65%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 5 (2.65%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (2.12%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (2.12%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (1.59%) SAP GRC
6 2 (1.06%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (1.06%) Remedy ITSM
6 2 (1.06%) SAP EWM
6 2 (1.06%) SAP GTS
6 2 (1.06%) SAP IBP
6 2 (1.06%) SAP MM
6 2 (1.06%) SAP PP
6 2 (1.06%) SAP SCM
6 2 (1.06%) SAP SRM
7 1 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.53%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.53%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 55 (29.10%) Azure
2 25 (13.23%) Entra ID
3 20 (10.58%) Power Platform
4 19 (10.05%) OCI
5 15 (7.94%) AWS
6 12 (6.35%) SaaS
7 11 (5.82%) Lucidchart
8 6 (3.17%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (2.65%) SuccessFactors
10 4 (2.12%) GitHub
10 4 (2.12%) IaaS
11 3 (1.59%) Azure Data Factory
11 3 (1.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 3 (1.59%) Microsoft 365
12 2 (1.06%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 2 (1.06%) GCP
12 2 (1.06%) Microsoft Purview
12 2 (1.06%) PaaS
13 1 (0.53%) Boomi
13 1 (0.53%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 21 (11.11%) DNS
2 16 (8.47%) DHCP
3 15 (7.94%) Kerberos
4 12 (6.35%) Firewall
5 8 (4.23%) TCP/IP
6 7 (3.70%) HTTP
7 5 (2.65%) Network Security
8 4 (2.12%) SSL
9 1 (0.53%) LAN
9 1 (0.53%) SD-WAN
9 1 (0.53%) WAN
9 1 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (10.58%) Power BI
2 9 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 8 (4.23%) Data Lake
4 7 (3.70%) Relational Database
4 7 (3.70%) Spark SQL
5 6 (3.17%) SAP HANA
6 5 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (1.06%) Big Data
8 2 (1.06%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.53%) Ataccama
9 1 (0.53%) Delta Lake
9 1 (0.53%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.53%) Metadata
9 1 (0.53%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.53%) SAP BW
9 1 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
9 1 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 14 (7.41%) Git
2 13 (6.88%) GitLab
2 13 (6.88%) JIRA
3 5 (2.65%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.12%) Subversion
4 4 (2.12%) TeamCity
5 3 (1.59%) REST Assured
5 3 (1.59%) Selenium
6 2 (1.06%) Postman
6 2 (1.06%) Robot Framework
General
1 111 (58.73%) Finance
2 72 (38.10%) Social Skills
3 45 (23.81%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (14.29%) Banking
5 19 (10.05%) Manufacturing
6 10 (5.29%) Presentation Skills
7 9 (4.76%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.23%) General Ledger
8 8 (4.23%) Legal
9 7 (3.70%) Investment Banking
9 7 (3.70%) Pharmaceutical
10 6 (3.17%) Financial Institution
10 6 (3.17%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (2.65%) Telecoms
12 4 (2.12%) Marketing
12 4 (2.12%) Public Sector
13 2 (1.06%) Electronics
13 2 (1.06%) Japanese Language
14 1 (0.53%) Retail
Job Titles
1 25 (13.23%) Analyst
2 19 (10.05%) Lead
3 12 (6.35%) Architect
3 12 (6.35%) Consultant
4 11 (5.82%) Senior
4 11 (5.82%) Technical Writer
5 10 (5.29%) Developer
5 10 (5.29%) Project Manager
6 7 (3.70%) Business Analyst
6 7 (3.70%) Programme Manager
6 7 (3.70%) Security Analyst
7 6 (3.17%) Information Officer
7 6 (3.17%) Information Security Officer
7 6 (3.17%) Security Officer
8 5 (2.65%) ForgeRock Developer
8 5 (2.65%) IT Manager
8 5 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
8 5 (2.65%) Technical Leader
9 4 (2.12%) Administrator
9 4 (2.12%) Governance Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (12.70%) OAuth
1 24 (12.70%) SAML
2 21 (11.11%) LDAP
3 7 (3.70%) OpenID
3 7 (3.70%) PySpark
3 7 (3.70%) REST
3 7 (3.70%) Spark Streaming
4 6 (3.17%) OAuth2
4 6 (3.17%) Oracle Fusion
4 6 (3.17%) SailPoint
5 5 (2.65%) Middleware
5 5 (2.65%) RESTful
6 3 (1.59%) XML
7 2 (1.06%) CSS
7 2 (1.06%) HTML
7 2 (1.06%) ISPF
7 2 (1.06%) pytest
7 2 (1.06%) SAP Fiori
7 2 (1.06%) XML Messaging
8 1 (0.53%) React
Miscellaneous
1 20 (10.58%) Replication
2 9 (4.76%) Analytical Mindset
2 9 (4.76%) Onboarding
3 7 (3.70%) Distributed Computing
4 6 (3.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 6 (3.17%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.65%) Clustering
5 5 (2.65%) Life Science
6 4 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (2.12%) PMI
7 3 (1.59%) BYOD
7 3 (1.59%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.06%) Derivative
8 2 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.06%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.06%) IoT
8 2 (1.06%) Mainframe
8 2 (1.06%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.06%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 25 (13.23%) Windows
2 15 (7.94%) Windows Server
3 10 (5.29%) Linux
4 4 (2.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (2.12%) Solaris
5 2 (1.06%) zOS
6 1 (0.53%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (24.87%) Stakeholder Management
2 40 (21.16%) Agile
3 33 (17.46%) ERP
4 32 (16.93%) Identity Access Management
5 29 (15.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 28 (14.81%) Risk Management
7 27 (14.29%) DevOps
7 27 (14.29%) RBAC
8 25 (13.23%) Problem-Solving
9 24 (12.70%) Business Intelligence
9 24 (12.70%) CI/CD
9 24 (12.70%) Continuous Improvement
10 23 (12.17%) Project Management
11 21 (11.11%) Cybersecurity
11 21 (11.11%) Disaster Recovery
12 19 (10.05%) High Availability
13 18 (9.52%) Analytics
13 18 (9.52%) Project Delivery
14 17 (8.99%) ETL
15 16 (8.47%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 32 (16.93%) SQL
2 30 (15.87%) PowerShell
2 30 (15.87%) Python
3 17 (8.99%) Java
4 5 (2.65%) Bash
5 4 (2.12%) C#
5 4 (2.12%) Perl
6 3 (1.59%) JavaScript
7 2 (1.06%) BeanShell
7 2 (1.06%) CLIST
7 2 (1.06%) JCL
7 2 (1.06%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.06%) REXX
8 1 (0.53%) R
8 1 (0.53%) VB
Qualifications
1 36 (19.05%) Degree
2 18 (9.52%) SC Cleared
2 18 (9.52%) Security Cleared
3 16 (8.47%) CISSP
4 13 (6.88%) CISM
5 12 (6.35%) ACCA
6 11 (5.82%) PMI Certification
7 9 (4.76%) CIMA
7 9 (4.76%) CISA
8 8 (4.23%) PMP
9 7 (3.70%) FFIEC
10 4 (2.12%) CRISC
10 4 (2.12%) Master's Degree
11 3 (1.59%) Azure Certification
12 2 (1.06%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (1.06%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 2 (1.06%) ITIL Certification
13 1 (0.53%) AWS Certification
13 1 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (46.56%) GDPR
2 41 (21.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 37 (19.58%) NIST
4 28 (14.81%) PCI DSS
5 19 (10.05%) GRC
6 13 (6.88%) ITGC
7 12 (6.35%) HIPAA
8 11 (5.82%) COBIT
8 11 (5.82%) IFRS
9 9 (4.76%) QA
10 7 (3.70%) GxP
10 7 (3.70%) SLA
10 7 (3.70%) SOX 404
11 5 (2.65%) Basel III
11 5 (2.65%) GAAP
11 5 (2.65%) PSD2
12 3 (1.59%) IFRS 9
13 2 (1.06%) Data Quality
13 2 (1.06%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (1.06%) PMO
System Software
1 24 (12.70%) Active Directory
2 11 (5.82%) Docker
3 6 (3.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.12%) NDS
4 4 (2.12%) NetIQ eDirectory
4 4 (2.12%) NFS
4 4 (2.12%) Veritas File System
4 4 (2.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
4 4 (2.12%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.06%) RACF
6 1 (0.53%) IAG
6 1 (0.53%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 23 (12.17%) Single Sign-On
2 15 (7.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 11 (5.82%) Kubernetes
4 6 (3.17%) Ansible
5 5 (2.65%) RSA Archer
5 5 (2.65%) Terraform
6 4 (2.12%) QRadar
6 4 (2.12%) Red Hat Satellite
7 2 (1.06%) Control-M
7 2 (1.06%) zSecure
8 1 (0.53%) Avamar
8 1 (0.53%) EMC NetWorker
8 1 (0.53%) Oracle Identity Manager
8 1 (0.53%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.53%) VxRail
Vendors
1 35 (18.52%) Microsoft
2 34 (17.99%) Oracle
2 34 (17.99%) SAP
3 18 (9.52%) ServiceNow
4 17 (8.99%) Okta
5 12 (6.35%) CyberArk
6 10 (5.29%) Workday
7 8 (4.23%) VMware
8 5 (2.65%) ForgeRock
8 5 (2.65%) Ping Identity
8 5 (2.65%) Splunk
9 4 (2.12%) BeyondTrust
9 4 (2.12%) IBM
9 4 (2.12%) NetIQ
9 4 (2.12%) Qualys
9 4 (2.12%) Red Hat
9 4 (2.12%) SaltStack
10 3 (1.59%) Informatica
10 3 (1.59%) OpenText
10 3 (1.59%) Salesforce
35 Sarbanes-Oxley jobs Nationwide