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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 105 175
Rank change year-on-year -28 +70 -38
Contract jobs citing Kafka 933 735 619
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.97% 2.51% 1.42%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.86% 11.01% 6.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 576 486 451
10th Percentile £363 £400 £389
25th Percentile £413 £463 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £565 £535
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% +5.61% -17.69%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £485
% change year-on-year -2.63% -2.06% -9.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 4 6
10th Percentile £40.00 £51.09 £22.24
25th Percentile £64.00 £68.84 £23.81
Median hourly rate £70.00 £85.60 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.22% +171.75% -58.82%
75th Percentile £87.25 £93.75 £38.94
90th Percentile £91.50 - £54.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.72 £78.70 £31.50
% change year-on-year -11.41% +149.84% -59.62%

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 9,460 6,673 8,936
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 20.00% 22.75% 20.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,266 4,573 6,200
10th Percentile £358 £363 £338
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £650 £650
90th Percentile £727 £780 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 114 234
10th Percentile £35.00 £27.22 £21.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £50.00 £40.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year - +40.75% -28.95%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.56 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.40 £82.70 £74.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year - +36.84% -24.00%

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 2 May 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 2 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Kafka in the UK

Kafka
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 Kafka within the UK over the 6 months to 2 May 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 -26 804 £530 -9.40% 209
London -20 508 £600 -7.69% 122
Work from Home -8 317 £600 -4.00% 92
UK excluding London -39 290 £463 -2.63% 120
North of England -41 122 £455 -13.33% 32
Yorkshire -21 60 £458 -32.22% 5
South East -27 54 £441 -13.27% 38
North West -49 52 £453 -9.50% 21
Midlands -37 49 £498 +24.69% 13
Scotland -9 35 £450 -4.26% 9
South West -11 29 £538 +4.88% 18
West Midlands -39 27 £520 -5.45% 6
East Midlands -25 22 £425 +18.72% 7
North East -14 16 £450 -3.23% 6
East of England -28 13 £525 +65.00% 8
Wales -7 1 £250 - 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
1 127 (13.61%) Apache Spark
2 65 (6.97%) Apache
3 46 (4.93%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (2.47%) Confluence
5 6 (0.64%) Camunda
5 6 (0.64%) Ethereum
5 6 (0.64%) Hyperledger
6 5 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.54%) MQSeries
6 5 (0.54%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.54%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
8 2 (0.21%) Apache Pulsar
8 2 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.21%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.32%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.21%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.21%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.11%) Maya
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.11%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (0.43%) Bloomberg AIM
1 4 (0.43%) Fidessa
2 3 (0.32%) Oracle 11i
2 3 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.21%) Actimize
3 2 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 2 (0.21%) Shopify
3 2 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 558 (59.81%) AWS
2 276 (29.58%) Azure
3 163 (17.47%) GCP
4 150 (16.08%) GitHub
5 119 (12.75%) Serverless
6 109 (11.68%) GitHub Actions
7 108 (11.58%) Amazon S3
8 88 (9.43%) AWS Lambda
9 77 (8.25%) Amazon EKS
10 66 (7.07%) OpenShift
11 64 (6.86%) Power Platform
12 63 (6.75%) Azure DevOps
13 62 (6.65%) AWS CloudFormation
14 50 (5.36%) Amazon ECS
15 47 (5.04%) Snowflake
16 43 (4.61%) Amazon SQS
17 41 (4.39%) Amazon Kinesis
18 40 (4.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 37 (3.97%) Azure Data Factory
20 36 (3.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.14%) Firewall
2 17 (1.82%) HTTP
3 13 (1.39%) SSL
4 9 (0.96%) DNS
5 6 (0.64%) SMS
6 5 (0.54%) FTP
6 5 (0.54%) SSH
6 5 (0.54%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.32%) VPN
8 2 (0.21%) Kerberos
8 2 (0.21%) MQTT
8 2 (0.21%) NaaS
8 2 (0.21%) OpenVPN
8 2 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.21%) WAN
9 1 (0.11%) 4G
9 1 (0.11%) 5G
9 1 (0.11%) Internet
9 1 (0.11%) Network Security
9 1 (0.11%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 192 (20.58%) PostgreSQL
2 132 (14.15%) MongoDB
3 122 (13.08%) NoSQL
4 74 (7.93%) Relational Database
5 61 (6.54%) Big Data
6 58 (6.22%) Apache Cassandra
7 56 (6.00%) Data Warehouse
8 55 (5.89%) Data Lake
9 52 (5.57%) SQL Server
10 51 (5.47%) Power BI
11 48 (5.14%) Elasticsearch
11 48 (5.14%) Redis
12 42 (4.50%) Flink
13 41 (4.39%) DynamoDB
14 36 (3.86%) Amazon Athena
14 36 (3.86%) Hadoop
15 33 (3.54%) Metadata
16 32 (3.43%) Amazon RDS
16 32 (3.43%) Amazon Redshift
16 32 (3.43%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 142 (15.22%) Jenkins
2 128 (13.72%) GitLab
3 119 (12.75%) Git
4 64 (6.86%) JUnit
5 56 (6.00%) JIRA
6 39 (4.18%) Mockito
7 23 (2.47%) Cucumber
8 21 (2.25%) Gradle
9 13 (1.39%) Gatling
9 13 (1.39%) Selenium
10 12 (1.29%) JMeter
10 12 (1.29%) REST Assured
11 11 (1.18%) Maven
12 10 (1.07%) Jaeger
12 10 (1.07%) Liquibase
12 10 (1.07%) Postman
13 9 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.86%) Artifactory
14 8 (0.86%) CircleCI
15 6 (0.64%) SoapUI
General
1 266 (28.51%) Finance
2 179 (19.19%) Social Skills
3 115 (12.33%) Banking
4 75 (8.04%) Analytical Skills
4 75 (8.04%) Public Sector
5 49 (5.25%) Front Office
6 31 (3.32%) Investment Banking
7 28 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (2.25%) Financial Institution
9 12 (1.29%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.07%) Marketing
11 9 (0.96%) Law
11 9 (0.96%) Retail
12 8 (0.86%) Publishing
13 7 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
14 6 (0.64%) Automotive
15 5 (0.54%) Corporate Banking
15 5 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 4 (0.43%) Billing
16 4 (0.43%) Military
Job Titles
1 330 (35.37%) Developer
2 219 (23.47%) Senior
3 157 (16.83%) Java Developer
4 154 (16.51%) Data Engineer
5 114 (12.22%) Lead
6 108 (11.58%) Architect
7 102 (10.93%) Senior Developer
8 89 (9.54%) Software Engineer
9 57 (6.11%) Java Engineer
10 53 (5.68%) AWS Architect
11 51 (5.47%) Senior Java Developer
12 49 (5.25%) Full-Stack Developer
13 45 (4.82%) DevOps Engineer
14 39 (4.18%) Solutions Architect
15 35 (3.75%) AWS Engineer
15 35 (3.75%) Kafka Developer
16 34 (3.64%) Senior Data Engineer
17 33 (3.54%) Developer/Software Engineer
17 33 (3.54%) Full-Stack Engineer
18 31 (3.32%) Kafka Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (22.94%) Spring
2 193 (20.69%) Spring Boot
3 120 (12.86%) REST
4 112 (12.00%) Node.js
5 109 (11.68%) RESTful
6 106 (11.36%) React
7 77 (8.25%) RabbitMQ
8 69 (7.40%) gRPC
9 54 (5.79%) OpenTelemetry
10 49 (5.25%) JSON
11 48 (5.14%) GraphQL
12 43 (4.61%) Middleware
13 42 (4.50%) PySpark
14 40 (4.29%) AngularJS
14 40 (4.29%) Apache Avro
15 38 (4.07%) Redux
16 35 (3.75%) OAuth
17 30 (3.22%) OAuth2
18 29 (3.11%) WireMock
19 28 (3.00%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 156 (16.72%) Distributed Systems
2 140 (15.01%) Cloud Native
3 50 (5.36%) Management Information System
4 48 (5.14%) Fixed Income
5 34 (3.64%) Product Ownership
6 24 (2.57%) Data Structures
7 21 (2.25%) Onboarding
8 20 (2.14%) Equities
9 19 (2.04%) Hybrid Cloud
10 17 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (1.61%) Derivative
11 15 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
12 14 (1.50%) Algorithms
13 12 (1.29%) Clustering
14 11 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
15 10 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 10 (1.07%) Hedge funds
15 10 (1.07%) Market Risk
15 10 (1.07%) Replication
15 10 (1.07%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 112 (12.00%) Linux
2 57 (6.11%) Unix
3 36 (3.86%) Windows
4 9 (0.96%) Mac OS X
5 5 (0.54%) AIX
6 4 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.43%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.32%) VMS
7 3 (0.32%) zOS
8 2 (0.21%) Debian
8 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.21%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.11%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 419 (44.91%) CI/CD
2 324 (34.73%) Microservices
3 309 (33.12%) Agile
4 279 (29.90%) DevOps
5 231 (24.76%) Event-Driven
6 202 (21.65%) Observability
7 199 (21.33%) Software Engineering
8 198 (21.22%) Containerisation
9 172 (18.44%) Data Pipeline
10 163 (17.47%) Analytics
11 158 (16.93%) Data Modelling
11 158 (16.93%) Infrastructure as Code
12 156 (16.72%) Problem-Solving
13 152 (16.29%) Data Engineering
14 149 (15.97%) Event-Driven Architecture
15 142 (15.22%) ETL
16 135 (14.47%) Test Automation
17 117 (12.54%) Full-Stack Development
18 100 (10.72%) Data Governance
19 98 (10.50%) AI
Programming Languages
1 432 (46.30%) Java
2 334 (35.80%) Python
3 279 (29.90%) SQL
4 110 (11.79%) Go
5 102 (10.93%) TypeScript
6 98 (10.50%) JavaScript
7 62 (6.65%) C#
8 43 (4.61%) Bash
9 32 (3.43%) Scala
10 20 (2.14%) PowerShell
11 18 (1.93%) C++
11 18 (1.93%) Rust
11 18 (1.93%) Shell Script
12 13 (1.39%) Bicep
13 9 (0.96%) PL/SQL
14 8 (0.86%) Search Processing Language
15 7 (0.75%) Perl
16 6 (0.64%) Groovy
17 5 (0.54%) Korn
17 5 (0.54%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 213 (22.83%) Security Cleared
2 172 (18.44%) SC Cleared
3 45 (4.82%) Degree
4 29 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
5 18 (1.93%) AWS Certification
5 18 (1.93%) Azure Certification
6 16 (1.71%) DV Cleared
7 15 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
8 12 (1.29%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.75%) SnowPro
10 4 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.32%) OCP
11 3 (0.32%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Certification
13 1 (0.11%) CISSP
13 1 (0.11%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.11%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (11.68%) Data Quality
2 49 (5.25%) QA
3 45 (4.82%) GDPR
4 22 (2.36%) Accessibility
5 14 (1.50%) ISO 20022
6 9 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 9 (0.96%) NIST
7 8 (0.86%) NCSC
8 7 (0.75%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.64%) SEPA
10 4 (0.43%) HL7
10 4 (0.43%) MiFID
10 4 (0.43%) SLA
10 4 (0.43%) WCAG
11 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
12 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.21%) EMIR
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.21%) PSD2
13 1 (0.11%) PMO
System Software
1 318 (34.08%) Docker
2 6 (0.64%) etcd
2 6 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.32%) HDFS
4 1 (0.11%) Apache Flume
4 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 376 (40.30%) Kubernetes
2 196 (21.01%) Terraform
3 120 (12.86%) Grafana
4 114 (12.22%) Prometheus
5 57 (6.11%) Ansible
6 32 (3.43%) Argo
7 10 (1.07%) Istio
7 10 (1.07%) Kibana
8 9 (0.96%) Fluentd
8 9 (0.96%) Kiali
9 8 (0.86%) linkerd
9 8 (0.86%) logstash
10 7 (0.75%) Puppet
10 7 (0.75%) Rancher
11 5 (0.54%) Podman
11 5 (0.54%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.32%) QRadar
13 2 (0.21%) Amdocs OSS
13 2 (0.21%) Sysdig
13 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 91 (9.75%) Databricks
2 72 (7.72%) Splunk
3 69 (7.40%) Oracle
4 51 (5.47%) Microsoft
5 40 (4.29%) Google
6 34 (3.64%) Confluent
7 25 (2.68%) Informatica
8 21 (2.25%) IBM
9 14 (1.50%) Dynatrace
9 14 (1.50%) Red Hat
9 14 (1.50%) VMware
10 12 (1.29%) Talend
11 11 (1.18%) ServiceNow
12 10 (1.07%) Solace
13 9 (0.96%) AppDynamics
13 9 (0.96%) Salesforce
14 8 (0.86%) Pega
15 7 (0.75%) PagerDuty
15 7 (0.75%) SAP
16 6 (0.64%) Bloomberg