Kafka Contract Job Trends

Apache Kafka
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Kafka skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 99 141
Rank change year-on-year -47 +42 +11
Contract jobs citing Kafka 1,007 836 697
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.91% 2.57% 1.69%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.85% 11.35% 7.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 536 493
10th Percentile £380 £389 £400
25th Percentile £425 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -11.54%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £708
90th Percentile £800 £825 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +6.50% -4.18% -18.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 4 9
10th Percentile £56.65 £43.38 £22.55
25th Percentile £64.50 £49.56 £27.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £59.25 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.14% +111.61% -64.10%
75th Percentile £90.00 £67.49 £38.75
90th Percentile £95.00 £74.22 £45.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.25 £78.70 £28.00
% change year-on-year -9.47% +181.07% -64.10%

All Software Libraries and Frameworks
UK

Kafka falls under the Software Libraries and Frameworks category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills 10,224 7,364 8,876
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.39% 22.60% 21.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,669 4,969 6,075
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £543
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -5.99% -1.36%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £663
90th Percentile £738 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 154 260
10th Percentile £29.72 £30.08 £22.73
25th Percentile £49.20 £38.16 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - -12.00%
75th Percentile £75.00 £67.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.71 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.25 £62.50 £58.30
% change year-on-year +6.00% +7.20% -0.87%

Kafka
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Kafka relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Kafka job vacancy trend in the UK

Kafka
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Kafka.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Kafka

Kafka
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Kafka over the 6 months to 21 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Kafka in the UK

Kafka
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Kafka.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Kafka

Kafka
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Kafka over the 6 months to 21 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Kafka in the UK

Kafka
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Kafka within the UK over the 6 months to 21 July 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 -40 858 £550 - 307
London -31 506 £588 -6.00% 207
UK excluding London -36 376 £500 +6.50% 141
Work from Home -58 281 £551 -4.26% 108
North of England -14 173 £465 - 37
Yorkshire -8 80 £498 -0.50% 15
North West -31 75 £430 -7.92% 14
South East -47 64 £513 +17.82% 47
Scotland -28 50 £450 -4.26% 17
Midlands -43 42 £500 +11.11% 8
South West -22 30 £500 -9.09% 23
North East -21 27 £426 -8.00% 8
West Midlands -49 26 £500 - 5
East of England -8 22 £550 +10.00% 6
East Midlands -11 16 £459 +28.07% 3
Northern Ireland -1 3 - - 4
Wales -14 2 £313 - 1

Kafka
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
1 133 (13.21%) Apache Spark
2 74 (7.35%) Apache
3 63 (6.26%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (1.69%) Confluence
5 6 (0.60%) Camunda
5 6 (0.60%) Ethereum
5 6 (0.60%) Hyperledger
5 6 (0.60%) WebSphere
6 5 (0.50%) Apache Pulsar
6 5 (0.50%) CMS
7 4 (0.40%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.30%) Mule
9 2 (0.20%) Apache Pig
9 2 (0.20%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.20%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.20%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 8 (0.79%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.20%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.099%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.099%) Maya
3 1 (0.099%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.099%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.20%) Bloomberg AIM
2 2 (0.20%) Endur
2 2 (0.20%) Fidessa
2 2 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.099%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.099%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.099%) R3 Corda
3 1 (0.099%) SAP IS-U
3 1 (0.099%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 593 (58.89%) AWS
2 313 (31.08%) Azure
3 200 (19.86%) GCP
4 146 (14.50%) GitHub
5 103 (10.23%) GitHub Actions
5 103 (10.23%) Serverless
6 82 (8.14%) Amazon S3
7 80 (7.94%) AWS Lambda
8 72 (7.15%) OpenShift
9 63 (6.26%) Azure DevOps
10 60 (5.96%) Amazon EKS
10 60 (5.96%) Snowflake
11 48 (4.77%) Amazon SQS
12 47 (4.67%) dbt
13 45 (4.47%) Power Platform
14 44 (4.37%) Amazon ECS
15 39 (3.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 33 (3.28%) AWS CloudFormation
17 30 (2.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 28 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.89%) HTTP
2 10 (0.99%) Firewall
2 10 (0.99%) Network Security
3 7 (0.70%) MQTT
4 6 (0.60%) DNS
4 6 (0.60%) SSL
5 5 (0.50%) NAS
5 5 (0.50%) SAN
6 4 (0.40%) Internet
7 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.20%) NaaS
8 2 (0.20%) OpenVPN
8 2 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.20%) WAN
9 1 (0.099%) 4G
9 1 (0.099%) 5G
9 1 (0.099%) FIX Connectivity
9 1 (0.099%) MIMO
9 1 (0.099%) SSH
9 1 (0.099%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 179 (17.78%) PostgreSQL
2 170 (16.88%) MongoDB
3 129 (12.81%) NoSQL
4 107 (10.63%) Relational Database
5 68 (6.75%) Big Data
6 62 (6.16%) Data Warehouse
7 58 (5.76%) SQL Server
8 55 (5.46%) Data Lake
9 41 (4.07%) Power BI
10 40 (3.97%) MySQL
10 40 (3.97%) Redis
11 39 (3.87%) Elasticsearch
12 38 (3.77%) Hadoop
13 37 (3.67%) Apache Cassandra
13 37 (3.67%) Flink
14 34 (3.38%) Metadata
15 32 (3.18%) BigQuery
16 29 (2.88%) DynamoDB
17 25 (2.48%) RDBMS
18 23 (2.28%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 179 (17.78%) Jenkins
2 143 (14.20%) Git
3 130 (12.91%) GitLab
4 72 (7.15%) JUnit
5 58 (5.76%) Mockito
6 45 (4.47%) JIRA
7 44 (4.37%) Gradle
8 35 (3.48%) Selenium
9 27 (2.68%) Cucumber
10 24 (2.38%) Maven
10 24 (2.38%) REST Assured
11 20 (1.99%) Gatling
12 18 (1.79%) SonarQube
13 17 (1.69%) Liquibase
14 16 (1.59%) Postman
15 15 (1.49%) Serenity BDD
16 10 (0.99%) Cypress.io
17 7 (0.70%) JMeter
18 6 (0.60%) Claude Code
18 6 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 269 (26.71%) Finance
2 186 (18.47%) Social Skills
3 137 (13.60%) Banking
4 98 (9.73%) Public Sector
5 93 (9.24%) Analytical Skills
6 48 (4.77%) Front Office
7 35 (3.48%) Investment Banking
8 26 (2.58%) Retail
9 24 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
10 18 (1.79%) Financial Institution
11 15 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 15 (1.49%) Law
12 13 (1.29%) Telecoms
13 10 (0.99%) Billing
14 9 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
14 9 (0.89%) Publishing
15 8 (0.79%) Military
15 8 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
16 7 (0.70%) Automotive
16 7 (0.70%) Games
Job Titles
1 331 (32.87%) Developer
2 196 (19.46%) Senior
3 171 (16.98%) Java Developer
4 143 (14.20%) Data Engineer
5 136 (13.51%) Architect
6 112 (11.12%) Lead
7 96 (9.53%) Software Engineer
8 81 (8.04%) Senior Developer
9 76 (7.55%) Java Engineer
10 57 (5.66%) Solutions Architect
11 50 (4.97%) Senior Java Developer
12 46 (4.57%) DevOps Engineer
13 43 (4.27%) AWS Architect
14 39 (3.87%) Full-Stack Developer
15 36 (3.57%) Developer/Software Engineer
16 35 (3.48%) Lead Developer
17 34 (3.38%) Data Architect
18 33 (3.28%) Java Software Engineer
18 33 (3.28%) Kafka Engineer
18 33 (3.28%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (24.73%) Spring
2 237 (23.54%) Spring Boot
3 164 (16.29%) REST
4 143 (14.20%) React
5 136 (13.51%) RESTful
6 113 (11.22%) RabbitMQ
7 87 (8.64%) Node.js
8 70 (6.95%) GraphQL
9 67 (6.65%) JSON
10 56 (5.56%) Redux
11 53 (5.26%) OpenTelemetry
12 42 (4.17%) OAuth
12 42 (4.17%) Swagger
13 41 (4.07%) OpenAPI
14 39 (3.87%) AngularJS
15 37 (3.67%) gRPC
15 37 (3.67%) Middleware
16 34 (3.38%) OAuth2
16 34 (3.38%) PySpark
17 33 (3.28%) Apache Avro
Miscellaneous
1 197 (19.56%) Distributed Systems
2 178 (17.68%) Cloud Native
3 41 (4.07%) Data Structures
4 40 (3.97%) Product Ownership
5 39 (3.87%) Fixed Income
6 30 (2.98%) Algorithms
7 29 (2.88%) Enterprise Software
8 27 (2.68%) Management Information System
9 23 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
9 23 (2.28%) Onboarding
10 22 (2.18%) Self-Motivation
11 18 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
11 18 (1.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 17 (1.69%) Hybrid Cloud
13 16 (1.59%) Public Cloud
14 15 (1.49%) AI Agents
15 14 (1.39%) Clustering
15 14 (1.39%) Equities
16 13 (1.29%) Distributed Architecture
16 13 (1.29%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 105 (10.43%) Linux
2 57 (5.66%) Unix
3 27 (2.68%) Windows
4 10 (0.99%) Mac OS X
5 8 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.50%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.30%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.20%) Android
8 2 (0.20%) Debian
8 2 (0.20%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.20%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 2 (0.20%) VMS
8 2 (0.20%) zOS
9 1 (0.099%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.099%) CentOS
9 1 (0.099%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 475 (47.17%) CI/CD
2 382 (37.93%) Microservices
3 350 (34.76%) Agile
4 329 (32.67%) Event-Driven
5 317 (31.48%) DevOps
6 232 (23.04%) Observability
7 226 (22.44%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 220 (21.85%) Containerisation
9 192 (19.07%) Software Engineering
10 191 (18.97%) Data Pipeline
11 168 (16.68%) Test Automation
12 167 (16.58%) Infrastructure as Code
13 157 (15.59%) Problem-Solving
14 156 (15.49%) Data Modelling
15 154 (15.29%) Analytics
16 152 (15.09%) AI
17 146 (14.50%) ETL
18 142 (14.10%) Data Engineering
19 124 (12.31%) TDD
20 109 (10.82%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 466 (46.28%) Java
2 352 (34.96%) Python
3 307 (30.49%) SQL
4 130 (12.91%) TypeScript
5 94 (9.33%) JavaScript
6 81 (8.04%) Go
7 55 (5.46%) Bash
8 53 (5.26%) C#
9 34 (3.38%) Scala
10 26 (2.58%) PowerShell
11 19 (1.89%) PL/SQL
12 17 (1.69%) Kotlin
13 16 (1.59%) Shell Script
14 12 (1.19%) Rust
15 11 (1.09%) Bicep
15 11 (1.09%) C++
16 10 (0.99%) Groovy
16 10 (0.99%) Search Processing Language
17 7 (0.70%) PHP
18 6 (0.60%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 221 (21.95%) Security Cleared
2 169 (16.78%) SC Cleared
3 50 (4.97%) Degree
4 32 (3.18%) BPSS Clearance
5 21 (2.09%) DV Cleared
6 19 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
7 16 (1.59%) Master's Degree
8 15 (1.49%) AWS Certification
9 7 (0.70%) Azure Certification
9 7 (0.70%) SnowPro
10 5 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (0.30%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.30%) PhD
11 3 (0.30%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.20%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.20%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.099%) PMI Certification
13 1 (0.099%) PMP
13 1 (0.099%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (10.23%) Data Quality
2 54 (5.36%) QA
3 46 (4.57%) Accessibility
4 35 (3.48%) GDPR
5 18 (1.79%) ISO 20022
6 9 (0.89%) SEPA
7 7 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.40%) NIST
8 4 (0.40%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.40%) WCAG
9 3 (0.30%) ISO 15022
9 3 (0.30%) SLA
10 2 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.20%) EMIR
10 2 (0.20%) IFRS
10 2 (0.20%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.20%) MiFID
10 2 (0.20%) NCSC
10 2 (0.20%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.099%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 335 (33.27%) Docker
2 6 (0.60%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 6 (0.60%) etcd
3 3 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.20%) Apache Flume
4 2 (0.20%) HDFS
5 1 (0.099%) OpenSSH
5 1 (0.099%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 414 (41.11%) Kubernetes
2 197 (19.56%) Terraform
3 125 (12.41%) Prometheus
4 123 (12.21%) Grafana
5 60 (5.96%) Ansible
6 21 (2.09%) Argo
7 13 (1.29%) Control-M
8 12 (1.19%) Kibana
9 10 (0.99%) Istio
9 10 (0.99%) Podman
10 9 (0.89%) Puppet
11 7 (0.70%) Fluentd
11 7 (0.70%) Kustomize
12 6 (0.60%) logstash
13 5 (0.50%) Rancher
14 3 (0.30%) Check_MK
14 3 (0.30%) NetBackup
15 2 (0.20%) Amdocs OSS
15 2 (0.20%) CA Wily
15 2 (0.20%) CloudHub
Vendors
1 81 (8.04%) Oracle
2 78 (7.75%) Databricks
3 60 (5.96%) Splunk
4 48 (4.77%) Microsoft
5 46 (4.57%) Google
6 26 (2.58%) Confluent
6 26 (2.58%) Informatica
7 20 (1.99%) IBM
8 18 (1.79%) Dynatrace
9 15 (1.49%) MuleSoft
9 15 (1.49%) Salesforce
9 15 (1.49%) Solace
10 10 (0.99%) OpenAI
10 10 (0.99%) SAP
11 9 (0.89%) Red Hat
11 9 (0.89%) Talend
12 8 (0.79%) ServiceNow
12 8 (0.79%) Sybase
13 6 (0.60%) Denodo
13 6 (0.60%) Pega