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 29 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 105 168
Rank change year-on-year -22 +63 -28
Contract jobs citing Kafka 940 734 625
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.00% 2.52% 1.44%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.97% 11.10% 7.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 575 480 456
10th Percentile £363 £400 £383
25th Percentile £415 £463 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £565 £534
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% +5.81% -17.85%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £747
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £475 £485
% change year-on-year -2.11% -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 9,427 6,610 8,877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 20.02% 22.66% 20.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,248 4,533 6,165
10th Percentile £358 £363 £338
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £780 £766
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 112 226
10th Percentile £35.00 £27.14 £21.01
25th Percentile £52.50 £48.25 £40.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year - +40.75% -28.95%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £82.87 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £46.84
% change year-on-year - +38.77% -26.81%

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 29 April 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 29 April 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 29 April 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 -23 815 £530 -10.36% 138
London -25 515 £600 -7.69% 96
Work from Home -7 318 £603 -3.60% 67
UK excluding London -36 289 £465 -2.11% 76
North of England -47 123 £455 -13.33% 17
Yorkshire -27 61 £455 -32.59%
South East -30 54 £441 -13.27% 30
North West -43 52 £453 -7.18% 13
Midlands -29 50 £500 +39.66% 4
Scotland -10 32 £463 -1.60% 7
South West -11 30 £550 +7.32% 12
West Midlands -36 28 £523 -12.92% 3
East Midlands -26 22 £425 +19.38% 1
North East -10 16 £450 -3.23% 4
East of England -32 13 £525 +65.00% 5
Wales -12 1 £250 -

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
1 129 (13.72%) Apache Spark
2 66 (7.02%) Apache
3 48 (5.11%) Apache Airflow
4 24 (2.55%) Confluence
5 6 (0.64%) Camunda
5 6 (0.64%) Ethereum
5 6 (0.64%) Hyperledger
6 5 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.53%) MQSeries
6 5 (0.53%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.53%) 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%) Chatbot
1 3 (0.32%) CPLEX
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%) Shopify
3 2 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 564 (60.00%) AWS
2 277 (29.47%) Azure
3 166 (17.66%) GCP
4 150 (15.96%) GitHub
5 121 (12.87%) Serverless
6 111 (11.81%) Amazon S3
7 108 (11.49%) GitHub Actions
8 90 (9.57%) AWS Lambda
9 78 (8.30%) Amazon EKS
10 66 (7.02%) OpenShift
11 64 (6.81%) AWS CloudFormation
12 62 (6.60%) Power Platform
13 61 (6.49%) Azure DevOps
14 50 (5.32%) Amazon ECS
15 48 (5.11%) Snowflake
16 43 (4.57%) Amazon Kinesis
17 42 (4.47%) Amazon SQS
18 41 (4.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 38 (4.04%) Azure Data Factory
20 36 (3.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.13%) Firewall
2 17 (1.81%) HTTP
3 13 (1.38%) SSL
4 9 (0.96%) DNS
5 6 (0.64%) SMS
6 5 (0.53%) FTP
6 5 (0.53%) SSH
6 5 (0.53%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.32%) VPN
8 2 (0.21%) Kerberos
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%) MIMO
9 1 (0.11%) MQTT
9 1 (0.11%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 193 (20.53%) PostgreSQL
2 132 (14.04%) MongoDB
3 120 (12.77%) NoSQL
4 73 (7.77%) Relational Database
5 62 (6.60%) Apache Cassandra
6 60 (6.38%) Big Data
7 59 (6.28%) Data Warehouse
8 58 (6.17%) Data Lake
9 51 (5.43%) SQL Server
10 50 (5.32%) Elasticsearch
10 50 (5.32%) Power BI
11 48 (5.11%) Redis
12 42 (4.47%) Flink
13 41 (4.36%) DynamoDB
14 36 (3.83%) Amazon Athena
14 36 (3.83%) Hadoop
15 34 (3.62%) Amazon Redshift
15 34 (3.62%) Metadata
16 33 (3.51%) Amazon RDS
17 32 (3.40%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 143 (15.21%) Jenkins
2 127 (13.51%) GitLab
3 117 (12.45%) Git
4 64 (6.81%) JUnit
5 57 (6.06%) JIRA
6 39 (4.15%) Mockito
7 23 (2.45%) Cucumber
8 21 (2.23%) Gradle
9 13 (1.38%) Gatling
9 13 (1.38%) Selenium
10 12 (1.28%) JMeter
10 12 (1.28%) Maven
10 12 (1.28%) REST Assured
11 11 (1.17%) Postman
12 10 (1.06%) Jaeger
12 10 (1.06%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.85%) Artifactory
14 8 (0.85%) CircleCI
15 6 (0.64%) SoapUI
General
1 268 (28.51%) Finance
2 181 (19.26%) Social Skills
3 115 (12.23%) Banking
4 74 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
5 73 (7.77%) Public Sector
6 51 (5.43%) Front Office
7 30 (3.19%) Investment Banking
8 28 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
9 19 (2.02%) Financial Institution
10 12 (1.28%) Telecoms
11 10 (1.06%) Marketing
12 9 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (0.85%) Law
13 8 (0.85%) Retail
14 7 (0.74%) Publishing
15 6 (0.64%) Automotive
16 5 (0.53%) Corporate Banking
16 5 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 4 (0.43%) Billing
17 4 (0.43%) Military
Job Titles
1 330 (35.11%) Developer
2 218 (23.19%) Senior
3 158 (16.81%) Java Developer
4 156 (16.60%) Data Engineer
5 116 (12.34%) Lead
6 109 (11.60%) Architect
7 100 (10.64%) Senior Developer
8 89 (9.47%) Software Engineer
9 56 (5.96%) Java Engineer
10 53 (5.64%) AWS Architect
11 51 (5.43%) Senior Java Developer
12 48 (5.11%) Full-Stack Developer
13 46 (4.89%) DevOps Engineer
14 41 (4.36%) Solutions Architect
15 40 (4.26%) AWS Engineer
16 35 (3.72%) Senior Data Engineer
17 34 (3.62%) Kafka Developer
18 33 (3.51%) Developer/Software Engineer
18 33 (3.51%) Kafka Engineer
19 32 (3.40%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (22.45%) Spring
2 190 (20.21%) Spring Boot
3 119 (12.66%) REST
4 112 (11.91%) Node.js
5 106 (11.28%) RESTful
6 105 (11.17%) React
7 74 (7.87%) gRPC
7 74 (7.87%) RabbitMQ
8 54 (5.74%) OpenTelemetry
9 48 (5.11%) JSON
10 47 (5.00%) GraphQL
11 42 (4.47%) Middleware
11 42 (4.47%) PySpark
12 41 (4.36%) AngularJS
13 40 (4.26%) Apache Avro
14 37 (3.94%) OAuth
15 36 (3.83%) Redux
16 32 (3.40%) OAuth2
17 29 (3.09%) Swagger
17 29 (3.09%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 156 (16.60%) Distributed Systems
2 136 (14.47%) Cloud Native
3 49 (5.21%) Fixed Income
3 49 (5.21%) Management Information System
4 35 (3.72%) Product Ownership
5 23 (2.45%) Data Structures
6 20 (2.13%) Equities
6 20 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
6 20 (2.13%) Onboarding
7 17 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
8 16 (1.70%) Derivative
9 15 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
10 14 (1.49%) Algorithms
11 12 (1.28%) Clustering
11 12 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (1.17%) Replication
13 10 (1.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 10 (1.06%) Market Risk
13 10 (1.06%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 9 (0.96%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 110 (11.70%) Linux
2 56 (5.96%) Unix
3 35 (3.72%) Windows
4 9 (0.96%) Mac OS X
5 5 (0.53%) 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
1 423 (45.00%) CI/CD
2 320 (34.04%) Microservices
3 308 (32.77%) Agile
4 276 (29.36%) DevOps
5 223 (23.72%) Event-Driven
6 203 (21.60%) Software Engineering
7 200 (21.28%) Observability
8 196 (20.85%) Containerisation
9 173 (18.40%) Data Pipeline
10 164 (17.45%) Analytics
11 161 (17.13%) Infrastructure as Code
11 161 (17.13%) Problem-Solving
12 155 (16.49%) Data Modelling
13 154 (16.38%) Data Engineering
14 146 (15.53%) ETL
15 144 (15.32%) Event-Driven Architecture
16 132 (14.04%) Test Automation
17 115 (12.23%) Full-Stack Development
18 102 (10.85%) Data Governance
19 96 (10.21%) AI
Programming Languages
1 435 (46.28%) Java
2 337 (35.85%) Python
3 273 (29.04%) SQL
4 116 (12.34%) Go
5 98 (10.43%) TypeScript
6 95 (10.11%) JavaScript
7 58 (6.17%) C#
8 42 (4.47%) Bash
9 31 (3.30%) Scala
10 19 (2.02%) PowerShell
11 18 (1.91%) Rust
12 17 (1.81%) C++
12 17 (1.81%) Shell Script
13 12 (1.28%) Bicep
14 9 (0.96%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.85%) Search Processing Language
16 7 (0.74%) Perl
17 6 (0.64%) Groovy
18 5 (0.53%) Korn
19 4 (0.43%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 214 (22.77%) Security Cleared
2 173 (18.40%) SC Cleared
3 44 (4.68%) Degree
4 30 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (2.13%) AWS Certification
6 19 (2.02%) Azure Certification
7 16 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 16 (1.70%) DV Cleared
8 13 (1.38%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.74%) 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%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
13 1 (0.11%) MySQL Certification
13 1 (0.11%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (11.81%) Data Quality
2 47 (5.00%) GDPR
2 47 (5.00%) QA
3 22 (2.34%) Accessibility
4 14 (1.49%) ISO 20022
5 9 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 9 (0.96%) NIST
6 8 (0.85%) NCSC
7 7 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 6 (0.64%) SEPA
9 4 (0.43%) HL7
9 4 (0.43%) MiFID
9 4 (0.43%) SLA
9 4 (0.43%) WCAG
10 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.21%) EMIR
11 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
11 2 (0.21%) PSD2
12 1 (0.11%) PMO
System Software
1 321 (34.15%) 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
1 379 (40.32%) Kubernetes
2 200 (21.28%) Terraform
3 120 (12.77%) Grafana
4 115 (12.23%) Prometheus
5 57 (6.06%) Ansible
6 33 (3.51%) Argo
7 10 (1.06%) Istio
7 10 (1.06%) Kibana
8 9 (0.96%) Fluentd
8 9 (0.96%) Kiali
9 8 (0.85%) linkerd
9 8 (0.85%) logstash
10 7 (0.74%) Puppet
10 7 (0.74%) Rancher
11 5 (0.53%) Podman
11 5 (0.53%) Progress Chef
12 2 (0.21%) Amdocs OSS
12 2 (0.21%) CA Wily
12 2 (0.21%) QRadar
12 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 92 (9.79%) Databricks
2 72 (7.66%) Splunk
3 69 (7.34%) Oracle
4 49 (5.21%) Microsoft
5 41 (4.36%) Google
6 36 (3.83%) Confluent
7 25 (2.66%) Informatica
8 23 (2.45%) IBM
9 14 (1.49%) Dynatrace
9 14 (1.49%) Red Hat
9 14 (1.49%) VMware
10 12 (1.28%) Talend
11 11 (1.17%) ServiceNow
12 10 (1.06%) Solace
13 9 (0.96%) AppDynamics
13 9 (0.96%) Salesforce
14 8 (0.85%) Pega
15 7 (0.74%) Bloomberg
15 7 (0.74%) Cloudera
15 7 (0.74%) PagerDuty