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

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 488 382 488
Rank change year-on-year -106 +106 -8
Contract jobs citing Sarbanes-Oxley 185 171 85
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.34% 0.52% 0.22%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.00% 3.04% 1.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 104 63
10th Percentile £424 £407 £344
25th Percentile £430 £518 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £575 £585
Median % change year-on-year -2.17% -1.71% +17.00%
75th Percentile £600 £680 £651
90th Percentile £738 £725 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £538
% change year-on-year -4.55% +2.33% +7.50%
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 9,260 5,625 5,231
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.26% 17.07% 13.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,931 3,603 3,243
10th Percentile £325 £282 £290
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 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +3.58% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 567 264 315
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.22
25th Percentile £18.41 £17.47 £14.46
Median hourly rate £38.72 £28.18 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year +37.40% +5.62% -25.37%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.50 £54.68
90th Percentile £80.00 £86.80 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £25.08 £26.22
% change year-on-year +54.42% -4.38% -25.61%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -108 161 £545 -4.22% 156
UK excluding London -87 80 £525 -4.55% 54
London -69 79 £596 -1.20% 113
Work from Home -49 71 £506 -12.09% 55
North of England -43 47 £450 -20.91% 7
North West -37 27 £569 -0.52% 3
Yorkshire -33 20 £450 -18.18% 3
South East -66 13 £563 +4.65% 23
East of England -18 8 £525 -14.29% 4
Midlands -42 8 £600 +14.29% 10
West Midlands -42 5 £650 +15.25% 7
East Midlands -14 3 £550 +24.29% 3
Scotland -18 3 £600 - 2
South West -54 1 £600 +18.81% 3

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 (3.78%) Apache Spark
2 5 (2.70%) Apache
2 5 (2.70%) IIS
3 1 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.54%) Confluence
3 1 (0.54%) IBM HTTP Server
3 1 (0.54%) WebSphere
3 1 (0.54%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 14 (7.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 23 (12.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (3.24%) NetSuite
3 4 (2.16%) HFM
3 4 (2.16%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 4 (2.16%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (2.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (1.08%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (1.08%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (1.08%) SAP CO
4 2 (1.08%) SAP FI
4 2 (1.08%) SAP FI/CO
5 1 (0.54%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.54%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.54%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.54%) SAP CS
5 1 (0.54%) SAP ECC
5 1 (0.54%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.54%) SAP GTS
5 1 (0.54%) SAP LE
5 1 (0.54%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 62 (33.51%) Azure
2 56 (30.27%) AWS
3 19 (10.27%) Entra ID
4 16 (8.65%) SaaS
5 13 (7.03%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (6.49%) GCP
7 7 (3.78%) Power Platform
8 6 (3.24%) Azure Sentinel
9 5 (2.70%) Microsoft 365
9 5 (2.70%) Snowflake
10 4 (2.16%) GitHub
11 3 (1.62%) Azure Machine Learning
11 3 (1.62%) IaaS
11 3 (1.62%) SuccessFactors
12 2 (1.08%) Amazon S3
12 2 (1.08%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 2 (1.08%) Cloud Computing
12 2 (1.08%) Matillion
13 1 (0.54%) Amazon EC2
13 1 (0.54%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 14 (7.57%) Network Security
2 9 (4.86%) Firewall
3 7 (3.78%) HTTP
4 5 (2.70%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.54%) DNS
5 1 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (0.54%) Kerberos
5 1 (0.54%) SAN
5 1 (0.54%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.32%) Relational Database
2 7 (3.78%) Power BI
2 7 (3.78%) SQL Server
3 6 (3.24%) NoSQL
4 4 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.62%) Apache Cassandra
5 3 (1.62%) Data Lake
5 3 (1.62%) RDBMS
5 3 (1.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (1.08%) GIS
7 1 (0.54%) Big Data
7 1 (0.54%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.54%) Delta Lake
7 1 (0.54%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.54%) Metadata
7 1 (0.54%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.54%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (4.86%) GitLab
2 7 (3.78%) JIRA
3 6 (3.24%) Git
3 6 (3.24%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.08%) ER Studio
5 1 (0.54%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.54%) Gradle
5 1 (0.54%) Introscope
5 1 (0.54%) Maven
5 1 (0.54%) Postman
5 1 (0.54%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.54%) Selenium
5 1 (0.54%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.54%) TestRail
General
1 97 (52.43%) Finance
2 74 (40.00%) Social Skills
3 41 (22.16%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (10.27%) Legal
5 16 (8.65%) Banking
6 13 (7.03%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (4.86%) Pharmaceutical
8 8 (4.32%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (2.70%) Billing
9 5 (2.70%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (2.16%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.62%) Telecoms
12 2 (1.08%) Public Sector
12 2 (1.08%) Retail
13 1 (0.54%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.54%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.54%) Legal Technology
Job Titles
1 32 (17.30%) Lead
2 31 (16.76%) Architect
3 24 (12.97%) Analyst
4 17 (9.19%) Author
4 17 (9.19%) Technical Author
5 15 (8.11%) Consultant
6 11 (5.95%) SOX Analyst
7 9 (4.86%) Business Analyst
7 9 (4.86%) Project Manager
8 8 (4.32%) IT Analyst
8 8 (4.32%) Senior
9 7 (3.78%) Finance Business Analyst
9 7 (3.78%) Financial Analyst
9 7 (3.78%) Java Engineer
10 6 (3.24%) Data Engineer
11 5 (2.70%) Compliance Analyst
11 5 (2.70%) Java Software Engineer
11 5 (2.70%) Security Architect
11 5 (2.70%) SIEM Engineer
11 5 (2.70%) Splunk Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (9.73%) REST
2 13 (7.03%) LDAP
3 10 (5.41%) SailPoint
4 8 (4.32%) JDBC
4 8 (4.32%) SOAP
5 7 (3.78%) Spring
5 7 (3.78%) Spring Boot
6 6 (3.24%) OAuth
6 6 (3.24%) OpenID
6 6 (3.24%) SAML
7 5 (2.70%) AWS CDK
7 5 (2.70%) Jakarta EE
7 5 (2.70%) JSON
7 5 (2.70%) Oracle Fusion
8 4 (2.16%) Node.js
9 3 (1.62%) Middleware
9 3 (1.62%) pytest
10 2 (1.08%) SAP Fiori
10 2 (1.08%) Snowpark
11 1 (0.54%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 12 (6.49%) Cloud Native
1 12 (6.49%) Management Information System
2 10 (5.41%) Product Ownership
3 9 (4.86%) Onboarding
4 7 (3.78%) BYOD
4 7 (3.78%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (3.24%) Replication
6 5 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (2.70%) Reinsurance
7 4 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (2.16%) Virtual Team
8 3 (1.62%) Augmented Reality
8 3 (1.62%) Greenfield Project
8 3 (1.62%) Life Science
8 3 (1.62%) Operational Technology
9 2 (1.08%) AI Agents
9 2 (1.08%) Data Centre
9 2 (1.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 2 (1.08%) PKI
9 2 (1.08%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 16 (8.65%) Windows
2 9 (4.86%) Linux
3 4 (2.16%) Unix
4 1 (0.54%) AIX
4 1 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (29.19%) Stakeholder Management
2 46 (24.86%) Agile
3 35 (18.92%) ERP
4 30 (16.22%) Continuous Improvement
4 30 (16.22%) DevOps
5 29 (15.68%) Problem-Solving
6 28 (15.14%) Change Management
7 27 (14.59%) RBAC
8 26 (14.05%) Cybersecurity
9 25 (13.51%) Migration
10 23 (12.43%) Identity Access Management
11 22 (11.89%) Procure-to-Pay
11 22 (11.89%) Roadmaps
12 21 (11.35%) CI/CD
13 20 (10.81%) AI
14 18 (9.73%) Information Security
14 18 (9.73%) Order to Cash
14 18 (9.73%) User Acceptance Testing
15 17 (9.19%) Record to Report
15 17 (9.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 29 (15.68%) SQL
2 27 (14.59%) Python
3 21 (11.35%) Java
4 16 (8.65%) PowerShell
5 5 (2.70%) Kusto Query Language
5 5 (2.70%) Search Processing Language
6 4 (2.16%) Bash
6 4 (2.16%) TypeScript
7 2 (1.08%) BeanShell
7 2 (1.08%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.54%) Jython
8 1 (0.54%) R
8 1 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 30 (16.22%) Degree
2 27 (14.59%) CISSP
3 17 (9.19%) CISM
4 15 (8.11%) ACCA
5 12 (6.49%) PMI Certification
6 11 (5.95%) PMP
7 10 (5.41%) CIMA
8 6 (3.24%) CISA
8 6 (3.24%) Security Cleared
9 5 (2.70%) GCFA
9 5 (2.70%) GCIH
10 4 (2.16%) CRISC
11 3 (1.62%) Azure Certification
12 2 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (1.08%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (1.08%) SAFe Agilist
13 1 (0.54%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 1 (0.54%) Master's Degree
13 1 (0.54%) Oracle Certification
13 1 (0.54%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (35.68%) GDPR
2 38 (20.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (11.89%) NIST
4 20 (10.81%) PCI DSS
5 19 (10.27%) ITGC
6 16 (8.65%) HIPAA
7 15 (8.11%) GRC
8 13 (7.03%) GAAP
8 13 (7.03%) IFRS
9 10 (5.41%) Data Quality
10 5 (2.70%) COBIT
10 5 (2.70%) GxP
10 5 (2.70%) QA
10 5 (2.70%) Solvency II
11 3 (1.62%) NIST 800
12 2 (1.08%) PMO
12 2 (1.08%) SLA
13 1 (0.54%) PSD2
13 1 (0.54%) SOC 1
System Software
1 21 (11.35%) Active Directory
2 5 (2.70%) Docker
3 1 (0.54%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 10 (5.41%) Kubernetes
1 10 (5.41%) Single Sign-On
2 5 (2.70%) Ansible
2 5 (2.70%) CASB
2 5 (2.70%) Progress Chef
3 2 (1.08%) Terraform
4 1 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 1 (0.54%) CA Wily
4 1 (0.54%) Grafana
4 1 (0.54%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.54%) Puppet
4 1 (0.54%) systemd
Vendors
1 57 (30.81%) SAP
2 33 (17.84%) Microsoft
3 22 (11.89%) ServiceNow
4 17 (9.19%) Oracle
5 14 (7.57%) CyberArk
6 13 (7.03%) Workday
7 9 (4.86%) Splunk
8 7 (3.78%) Ariba
9 5 (2.70%) Cribl.io
9 5 (2.70%) Salesforce
10 4 (2.16%) Databricks
10 4 (2.16%) Google
10 4 (2.16%) Hyperion
10 4 (2.16%) Okta
10 4 (2.16%) Tagetik
11 3 (1.62%) Alteryx
11 3 (1.62%) BeyondTrust
11 3 (1.62%) Bloomberg
11 3 (1.62%) Palo Alto
11 3 (1.62%) Zscaler