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

6 months to
7 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 105 148
Rank change year-on-year -35 +43 -10
Contract jobs citing Kafka 933 724 691
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.88% 2.48% 1.59%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.61% 10.81% 7.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 556 472 505
10th Percentile £378 £400 £400
25th Percentile £425 £458 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.41% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £675
90th Percentile £800 £825 £783
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £475 £490
% change year-on-year -1.05% -3.06% -14.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 3 8
10th Percentile £61.10 £47.14 £22.44
25th Percentile £65.00 £58.98 £25.94
Median hourly rate £70.00 £78.70 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.05% +181.07% -64.10%
75th Percentile £90.00 £86.23 £36.31
90th Percentile £92.00 £90.74 £48.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £78.70 £28.00
% change year-on-year -11.05% +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 9,711 6,697 9,169
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.62% 22.92% 21.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,378 4,575 6,335
10th Percentile £363 £358 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -3.26% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 285 121 260
10th Percentile £31.62 £29.25 £21.97
25th Percentile £52.50 £41.60 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £48.43
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +29.05% -25.49%
75th Percentile £73.46 £68.75 £66.81
90th Percentile £81.15 £81.35 £74.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year - +18.18% -15.38%

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 7 June 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 7 June 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 7 June 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 -20 803 £550 - 245
London -19 505 £600 -7.69% 165
UK excluding London -44 305 £470 -1.05% 119
Work from Home -37 281 £575 -0.43% 113
North of England -34 137 £455 -9.00% 35
Yorkshire -18 71 £463 -15.91% 9
North West -46 55 £450 -10.00% 21
South East -36 52 £488 +10.17% 29
Scotland -17 45 £450 -4.76% 11
Midlands -41 40 £488 +8.33% 7
South West -11 26 £500 -9.09% 13
West Midlands -52 22 £500 - 4
North East -10 20 £426 -8.00% 5
East Midlands -22 18 £407 +14.40% 3
East of England -14 17 £550 +33.92% 7
Wales -16 1 £250 - 6

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
1 130 (13.93%) Apache Spark
2 67 (7.18%) Apache
3 51 (5.47%) Apache Airflow
4 16 (1.71%) Confluence
5 7 (0.75%) Camunda
6 6 (0.64%) Ethereum
6 6 (0.64%) Hyperledger
7 5 (0.54%) WebSphere
8 4 (0.43%) Apache Pulsar
8 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.11%) JBoss
Applications
1 5 (0.54%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.21%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.11%) Maya
Business Applications
1 4 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.32%) Bloomberg AIM
2 3 (0.32%) Fidessa
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%) Endur
4 1 (0.11%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 553 (59.27%) AWS
2 270 (28.94%) Azure
3 164 (17.58%) GCP
4 145 (15.54%) GitHub
5 122 (13.08%) Serverless
6 106 (11.36%) GitHub Actions
7 94 (10.08%) Amazon S3
8 90 (9.65%) AWS Lambda
9 66 (7.07%) Amazon EKS
9 66 (7.07%) OpenShift
10 61 (6.54%) Azure DevOps
10 61 (6.54%) Power Platform
11 49 (5.25%) Snowflake
12 47 (5.04%) AWS CloudFormation
13 45 (4.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 45 (4.82%) Amazon ECS
14 41 (4.39%) dbt
15 38 (4.07%) Amazon SQS
16 35 (3.75%) Amazon Kinesis
17 31 (3.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.93%) Firewall
2 13 (1.39%) HTTP
3 10 (1.07%) DNS
4 8 (0.86%) Network Security
4 8 (0.86%) SSL
5 6 (0.64%) MQTT
5 6 (0.64%) SMS
6 5 (0.54%) NAS
6 5 (0.54%) SAN
6 5 (0.54%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.21%) Internet
7 2 (0.21%) NaaS
7 2 (0.21%) OpenVPN
7 2 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
7 2 (0.21%) WAN
8 1 (0.11%) 4G
8 1 (0.11%) 5G
8 1 (0.11%) FTP
8 1 (0.11%) Kerberos
8 1 (0.11%) MIMO
Database & Business Intelligence
1 188 (20.15%) PostgreSQL
2 152 (16.29%) MongoDB
3 126 (13.50%) NoSQL
4 85 (9.11%) Relational Database
5 62 (6.65%) Big Data
6 54 (5.79%) Data Warehouse
7 52 (5.57%) Data Lake
7 52 (5.57%) SQL Server
8 49 (5.25%) Power BI
8 49 (5.25%) Redis
9 47 (5.04%) Elasticsearch
10 46 (4.93%) Apache Cassandra
11 37 (3.97%) DynamoDB
12 36 (3.86%) Flink
13 35 (3.75%) Hadoop
13 35 (3.75%) MySQL
14 34 (3.64%) Amazon Athena
15 29 (3.11%) Amazon RDS
15 29 (3.11%) Amazon Redshift
16 28 (3.00%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 143 (15.33%) Jenkins
2 127 (13.61%) Git
3 126 (13.50%) GitLab
4 62 (6.65%) JUnit
5 53 (5.68%) JIRA
6 44 (4.72%) Mockito
7 30 (3.22%) Gradle
8 29 (3.11%) Selenium
9 23 (2.47%) REST Assured
10 20 (2.14%) Cucumber
10 20 (2.14%) Gatling
11 17 (1.82%) Liquibase
12 15 (1.61%) Serenity BDD
13 14 (1.50%) Maven
13 14 (1.50%) Postman
14 12 (1.29%) SonarQube
15 10 (1.07%) Jaeger
16 7 (0.75%) JMeter
16 7 (0.75%) Snyk
17 5 (0.54%) Artifactory
General
1 254 (27.22%) Finance
2 171 (18.33%) Social Skills
3 125 (13.40%) Banking
4 80 (8.57%) Public Sector
5 78 (8.36%) Analytical Skills
6 44 (4.72%) Front Office
7 34 (3.64%) Investment Banking
8 26 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (2.68%) Financial Institution
10 19 (2.04%) Retail
11 14 (1.50%) Law
12 12 (1.29%) Marketing
13 11 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (1.07%) Telecoms
15 9 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 9 (0.96%) Publishing
16 7 (0.75%) Automotive
16 7 (0.75%) Corporate Banking
16 7 (0.75%) Military
17 6 (0.64%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 303 (32.48%) Developer
2 202 (21.65%) Senior
3 157 (16.83%) Data Engineer
4 153 (16.40%) Java Developer
5 117 (12.54%) Lead
6 111 (11.90%) Architect
7 93 (9.97%) Software Engineer
8 91 (9.75%) Senior Developer
9 71 (7.61%) Java Engineer
10 54 (5.79%) AWS Architect
11 51 (5.47%) Senior Java Developer
12 44 (4.72%) DevOps Engineer
13 41 (4.39%) Full-Stack Developer
13 41 (4.39%) Solutions Architect
14 33 (3.54%) Developer/Software Engineer
14 33 (3.54%) Principal Engineer
14 33 (3.54%) Senior Data Engineer
15 31 (3.32%) Full-Stack Engineer
15 31 (3.32%) Lead Developer
16 30 (3.22%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 231 (24.76%) Spring
2 216 (23.15%) Spring Boot
3 135 (14.47%) REST
4 124 (13.29%) RESTful
5 118 (12.65%) React
6 96 (10.29%) Node.js
7 91 (9.75%) RabbitMQ
8 60 (6.43%) OpenTelemetry
9 58 (6.22%) GraphQL
10 52 (5.57%) gRPC
11 48 (5.14%) JSON
12 44 (4.72%) Middleware
13 43 (4.61%) Redux
14 42 (4.50%) Apache Avro
15 40 (4.29%) PySpark
16 39 (4.18%) OAuth
17 38 (4.07%) AngularJS
18 37 (3.97%) Swagger
19 36 (3.86%) OpenAPI
20 34 (3.64%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 176 (18.86%) Distributed Systems
2 165 (17.68%) Cloud Native
3 42 (4.50%) Management Information System
4 38 (4.07%) Fixed Income
5 35 (3.75%) Product Ownership
6 26 (2.79%) Data Structures
7 21 (2.25%) Onboarding
8 18 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
9 17 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (1.61%) Algorithms
10 15 (1.61%) Equities
10 15 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
11 14 (1.50%) Clustering
11 14 (1.50%) Derivative
12 13 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
13 12 (1.29%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 11 (1.18%) Hedge funds
14 11 (1.18%) SWIFT Messaging Network
15 10 (1.07%) CMDB
15 10 (1.07%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 87 (9.32%) Linux
2 52 (5.57%) Unix
3 29 (3.11%) Windows
4 8 (0.86%) Mac OS X
5 6 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.64%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.32%) VMS
7 2 (0.21%) Debian
7 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.21%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (0.21%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 2 (0.21%) zOS
8 1 (0.11%) Android
8 1 (0.11%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.11%) CentOS
8 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 425 (45.55%) CI/CD
2 355 (38.05%) Microservices
3 293 (31.40%) Agile
4 279 (29.90%) DevOps
5 271 (29.05%) Event-Driven
6 222 (23.79%) Observability
7 203 (21.76%) Containerisation
8 189 (20.26%) Software Engineering
9 182 (19.51%) Event-Driven Architecture
10 170 (18.22%) Data Pipeline
11 161 (17.26%) Infrastructure as Code
12 160 (17.15%) Data Modelling
13 148 (15.86%) Analytics
14 147 (15.76%) Test Automation
15 145 (15.54%) Problem-Solving
16 144 (15.43%) Data Engineering
17 136 (14.58%) ETL
18 109 (11.68%) Full-Stack Development
19 104 (11.15%) AI
20 99 (10.61%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 423 (45.34%) Java
2 320 (34.30%) Python
3 293 (31.40%) SQL
4 114 (12.22%) TypeScript
5 94 (10.08%) Go
6 88 (9.43%) JavaScript
7 55 (5.89%) C#
8 45 (4.82%) Bash
9 26 (2.79%) Scala
10 20 (2.14%) Rust
11 19 (2.04%) PowerShell
12 15 (1.61%) C++
13 14 (1.50%) Shell Script
14 13 (1.39%) Bicep
15 11 (1.18%) PL/SQL
16 10 (1.07%) Search Processing Language
17 8 (0.86%) Kotlin
18 7 (0.75%) Groovy
18 7 (0.75%) PHP
19 6 (0.64%) Perl
Qualifications
1 202 (21.65%) Security Cleared
2 160 (17.15%) SC Cleared
3 53 (5.68%) Degree
4 24 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
5 18 (1.93%) DV Cleared
6 17 (1.82%) AWS Certification
7 16 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (1.39%) Master's Degree
9 9 (0.96%) Azure Certification
10 7 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 7 (0.75%) SnowPro
11 3 (0.32%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.21%) Postgraduate
12 2 (0.21%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.11%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
13 1 (0.11%) CISSP
13 1 (0.11%) PhD
13 1 (0.11%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (10.93%) Data Quality
2 51 (5.47%) QA
3 39 (4.18%) GDPR
4 32 (3.43%) Accessibility
5 19 (2.04%) ISO 20022
6 10 (1.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 10 (1.07%) NIST
7 8 (0.86%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.75%) SEPA
9 5 (0.54%) NCSC
10 4 (0.43%) SLA
10 4 (0.43%) WCAG
11 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
11 3 (0.32%) PSD2
12 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.21%) EMIR
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.21%) MiFID
13 1 (0.11%) Basel III
13 1 (0.11%) HL7
System Software
1 322 (34.51%) Docker
2 6 (0.64%) etcd
3 3 (0.32%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 2 (0.21%) HDFS
4 2 (0.21%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.11%) Apache Flume
5 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 372 (39.87%) Kubernetes
2 194 (20.79%) Terraform
3 130 (13.93%) Grafana
4 129 (13.83%) Prometheus
5 59 (6.32%) Ansible
6 23 (2.47%) Argo
7 12 (1.29%) Istio
8 11 (1.18%) Kibana
9 9 (0.96%) Kiali
10 8 (0.86%) Puppet
11 7 (0.75%) Fluentd
11 7 (0.75%) Podman
12 6 (0.64%) Kustomize
12 6 (0.64%) linkerd
12 6 (0.64%) logstash
13 5 (0.54%) Rancher
14 3 (0.32%) NetBackup
15 2 (0.21%) CA Wily
15 2 (0.21%) Control-M
15 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 86 (9.22%) Databricks
2 74 (7.93%) Splunk
3 65 (6.97%) Oracle
4 41 (4.39%) Microsoft
5 36 (3.86%) Google
6 29 (3.11%) Confluent
7 23 (2.47%) Informatica
8 16 (1.71%) IBM
9 14 (1.50%) Dynatrace
10 13 (1.39%) Salesforce
11 12 (1.29%) Red Hat
12 11 (1.18%) ServiceNow
13 10 (1.07%) Solace
14 9 (0.96%) MuleSoft
14 9 (0.96%) Talend
15 7 (0.75%) AppDynamics
15 7 (0.75%) Sybase
16 6 (0.64%) Pega
16 6 (0.64%) Tenable
16 6 (0.64%) VMware