Focusing on improving the accuracy of vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) state of charge (SOC) estimation, this paper will combine the extended Kalman filter (EKF) estimator with the Sage-Husa adaptive method, referred to as the SAEKF estimator. Firstly, a second-order Equivalent Circuit Model (ECM) is established to provide the correct parameterization and degrees of freedom. Next, under a hybrid pulse power characterization (HPPC) text, the parameter estimator in MATLAB/Simulink is utilized to identify the ECM parameters by using nonlinear least squares method with Trust-Region-Reflective (TRR) iterative algorithm. Then, during the HPPC test, the estimators implemented on the ARM-Cortex STM32F103 estimate the VRFB SOC under both the 0 & DEG;C and 5 & DEG;C conditions. Finally, the mean absolute error (MAE) of the IEKF estimator are 4.66% at the 0 & DEG;C and 0.895% at the 5 & DEG;C. In the meantime, the MAE of the SAEKF estimator are 4.15% at the 0 & DEG;C and 0.703% at the 5 & DEG;C. The evaluation factors of the 0 & DEG;C and 5 & DEG;C experiments in the SAEKF estimator are smaller than those of the IEKF and EKF estimators, indicating that the SAEKF estimator outperforms the IEKF estimator in VRFB SOC estimation.