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 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 116 173
Rank change year-on-year -9 +57 -55
Contract jobs citing Kafka 831 690 607
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.29% 2.19% 1.41%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 10.26% 9.95% 6.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 547 419 477
10th Percentile £363 £383 £425
25th Percentile £413 £488 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year -9.40% -2.50% -7.69%
75th Percentile £650 £731 £725
90th Percentile £738 £825 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £458 £475 £533
% change year-on-year -3.68% -10.88% -11.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 4
10th Percentile £37.63 £36.82 £47.39
25th Percentile £40.00 £53.95 £58.71
Median hourly rate £54.00 £85.00 £71.50
Median % change year-on-year -36.47% +18.88% -2.05%
75th Percentile £76.75 £90.63 £81.00
90th Percentile £94.50 £92.50 £86.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £85.00 £71.50
% change year-on-year -52.94% +18.88% -2.05%

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 8,101 6,934 9,239
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.35% 22.00% 21.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,364 4,405 6,555
10th Percentile £356 £353 £358
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.12% -2.27% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 82 168
10th Percentile £33.00 £21.33 £28.28
25th Percentile £45.00 £33.69 £46.18
Median hourly rate £59.36 £62.50 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.02% +16.82% -17.69%
75th Percentile £67.75 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £53.50
% change year-on-year - +16.82% -17.69%

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 12 January 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 12 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Kafka in the UK

Kafka
Top 15 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 12 January 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 -4 722 £550 -9.54% 305
London -2 477 £578 -7.60% 107
Work from Home +20 292 £575 -0.69% 254
UK excluding London -15 226 £458 -3.68% 242
North of England -22 94 £488 -11.36% 43
South East +2 52 £433 -16.02% 105
North West -27 45 £435 -14.29% 24
Yorkshire -15 43 £575 -19.30% 13
Midlands -15 43 £475 +33.43% 17
Scotland +7 34 £463 +22.03% 7
West Midlands -21 22 £550 +21.55% 6
East Midlands -4 21 £402 +12.92% 11
South West -8 19 £550 -15.38% 25
North East -3 10 £506 -18.91% 6
East of England -33 1 £450 +42.86% 33

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 72 (8.66%) Apache Spark
2 43 (5.17%) Apache
3 41 (4.93%) Confluence
4 35 (4.21%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.60%) CMS
5 5 (0.60%) Mule
6 4 (0.48%) MQSeries
7 3 (0.36%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.36%) Camunda
7 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.36%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.24%) JBoss
8 2 (0.24%) Luigi
8 2 (0.24%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.24%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.12%) CICS
9 1 (0.12%) IIS
9 1 (0.12%) nginx
9 1 (0.12%) SAS
9 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (0.48%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.24%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (0.48%) Oracle 11i
2 3 (0.36%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.24%) Actimize
3 2 (0.24%) Fidessa
3 2 (0.24%) Shopify
4 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg AIM
4 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.12%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 456 (54.87%) AWS
2 218 (26.23%) Azure
3 150 (18.05%) GitHub
4 116 (13.96%) GCP
5 112 (13.48%) Serverless
6 109 (13.12%) GitHub Actions
7 80 (9.63%) Amazon S3
7 80 (9.63%) AWS Lambda
8 60 (7.22%) Amazon EKS
9 59 (7.10%) AWS CloudFormation
10 43 (5.17%) Amazon SQS
11 42 (5.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 42 (5.05%) Amazon Kinesis
11 42 (5.05%) Azure DevOps
12 41 (4.93%) Amazon ECS
12 41 (4.93%) OpenShift
13 33 (3.97%) Azure Data Factory
14 32 (3.85%) Power Platform
15 28 (3.37%) Amazon EC2
16 22 (2.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.56%) DNS
2 12 (1.44%) Firewall
3 11 (1.32%) SSL
4 7 (0.84%) Kerberos
4 7 (0.84%) SSH
5 6 (0.72%) FTP
5 6 (0.72%) HTTP
6 5 (0.60%) SMS
6 5 (0.60%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.36%) VPN
8 2 (0.24%) AMQP
8 2 (0.24%) DSL
8 2 (0.24%) MQTT
9 1 (0.12%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (19.13%) PostgreSQL
2 153 (18.41%) MongoDB
3 127 (15.28%) NoSQL
4 77 (9.27%) Apache Cassandra
5 49 (5.90%) Redis
5 49 (5.90%) Relational Database
6 47 (5.66%) Big Data
7 45 (5.42%) Amazon RDS
8 41 (4.93%) DynamoDB
8 41 (4.93%) SQL Server
9 38 (4.57%) Elasticsearch
10 36 (4.33%) Data Lake
11 35 (4.21%) Data Warehouse
12 31 (3.73%) Hadoop
13 26 (3.13%) Amazon Redshift
13 26 (3.13%) DB2
13 26 (3.13%) Power BI
14 25 (3.01%) Amazon Athena
15 24 (2.89%) Amazon Aurora
15 24 (2.89%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 159 (19.13%) Jenkins
2 131 (15.76%) GitLab
3 109 (13.12%) Git
4 78 (9.39%) JUnit
5 57 (6.86%) JIRA
6 43 (5.17%) Mockito
7 24 (2.89%) Cucumber
7 24 (2.89%) JMeter
7 24 (2.89%) Sonatype Nexus
8 22 (2.65%) Gradle
9 18 (2.17%) SonarQube
10 15 (1.81%) Maven
11 13 (1.56%) Gatling
12 10 (1.20%) Artifactory
12 10 (1.20%) SoapUI
13 9 (1.08%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.84%) Jaeger
14 7 (0.84%) TeamCity
15 6 (0.72%) Liquibase
15 6 (0.72%) Terragrunt
General
1 227 (27.32%) Finance
2 205 (24.67%) Social Skills
3 128 (15.40%) Banking
4 78 (9.39%) Analytical Skills
5 68 (8.18%) Public Sector
6 52 (6.26%) Investment Banking
7 27 (3.25%) Front Office
8 13 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (1.44%) Financial Institution
10 8 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (0.96%) Marketing
11 6 (0.72%) Retail
12 5 (0.60%) Aerospace
12 5 (0.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.60%) Law
13 3 (0.36%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.36%) Military
13 3 (0.36%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.24%) Corporate Banking
14 2 (0.24%) Games
Job Titles
1 315 (37.91%) Developer
2 249 (29.96%) Senior
3 186 (22.38%) Java Developer
4 124 (14.92%) Senior Developer
5 97 (11.67%) Data Engineer
6 74 (8.90%) Software Engineer
7 73 (8.78%) Lead
8 72 (8.66%) Senior Java Developer
9 62 (7.46%) DevOps Engineer
10 60 (7.22%) Architect
11 41 (4.93%) AWS Engineer
11 41 (4.93%) Kafka Developer
12 39 (4.69%) Kafka Engineer
13 37 (4.45%) Full-Stack Developer
14 36 (4.33%) AWS Developer
15 34 (4.09%) Platform Engineer
16 32 (3.85%) Python Engineer
17 30 (3.61%) Java Engineer
18 28 (3.37%) Senior Data Engineer
19 24 (2.89%) AWS Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 185 (22.26%) Spring
2 150 (18.05%) Spring Boot
3 98 (11.79%) gRPC
4 96 (11.55%) REST
5 78 (9.39%) React
6 73 (8.78%) RabbitMQ
7 71 (8.54%) RESTful
8 60 (7.22%) Node.js
9 37 (4.45%) AngularJS
10 35 (4.21%) Hibernate
10 35 (4.21%) JMS
10 35 (4.21%) Middleware
11 34 (4.09%) .NET
12 33 (3.97%) Keycloak
13 32 (3.85%) ActiveMQ
13 32 (3.85%) JSON
13 32 (3.85%) OAuth
14 31 (3.73%) PySpark
15 30 (3.61%) OAuth2
16 26 (3.13%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 115 (13.84%) Distributed Systems
2 92 (11.07%) Cloud Native
3 37 (4.45%) Management Information System
4 34 (4.09%) Equities
5 30 (3.61%) Data Structures
6 25 (3.01%) Product Ownership
7 23 (2.77%) Derivative
7 23 (2.77%) Replication
8 18 (2.17%) Market Risk
9 16 (1.93%) Fixed Income
10 15 (1.81%) Legacy Applications
11 14 (1.68%) Distributed Computing
12 12 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
13 10 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
13 10 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
14 9 (1.08%) Onboarding
14 9 (1.08%) Public Cloud
15 8 (0.96%) Data Fabric
15 8 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
16 7 (0.84%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 160 (19.25%) Linux
2 83 (9.99%) Unix
3 26 (3.13%) Windows
4 13 (1.56%) Mac OS X
5 8 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.72%) CentOS
7 5 (0.60%) AIX
8 3 (0.36%) VMS
9 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 348 (41.88%) CI/CD
2 344 (41.40%) Microservices
3 297 (35.74%) Agile
4 249 (29.96%) DevOps
5 231 (27.80%) Software Engineering
6 174 (20.94%) Problem-Solving
7 168 (20.22%) Containerisation
8 152 (18.29%) Event-Driven
9 145 (17.45%) Infrastructure as Code
10 141 (16.97%) Observability
11 120 (14.44%) Test Automation
12 113 (13.60%) Open Source
13 112 (13.48%) Data Pipeline
14 102 (12.27%) Analytics
15 96 (11.55%) TDD
16 88 (10.59%) Data Engineering
17 86 (10.35%) ETL
17 86 (10.35%) Event-Driven Architecture
18 84 (10.11%) Mentoring
19 76 (9.15%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 394 (47.41%) Java
2 287 (34.54%) Python
3 237 (28.52%) SQL
4 121 (14.56%) Go
5 72 (8.66%) C#
6 61 (7.34%) JavaScript
7 51 (6.14%) Shell Script
8 46 (5.54%) Bash
8 46 (5.54%) C++
9 29 (3.49%) Scala
9 29 (3.49%) TypeScript
10 15 (1.81%) Rust
11 14 (1.68%) PL/SQL
12 11 (1.32%) Perl
13 10 (1.20%) PowerShell
14 7 (0.84%) Groovy
14 7 (0.84%) Korn
15 6 (0.72%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.60%) RPG
16 5 (0.60%) RPG IV
Qualifications
1 175 (21.06%) Security Cleared
2 157 (18.89%) SC Cleared
3 41 (4.93%) Degree
4 29 (3.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 27 (3.25%) Azure Certification
6 25 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
7 21 (2.53%) DV Cleared
8 15 (1.81%) AWS Certification
9 13 (1.56%) Master's Degree
10 8 (0.96%) OCP
10 8 (0.96%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.24%) CBAP
12 2 (0.24%) CSPO
12 2 (0.24%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.24%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.12%) MySQL Certification
13 1 (0.12%) PMP
13 1 (0.12%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (7.70%) Data Quality
2 42 (5.05%) QA
3 30 (3.61%) GDPR
4 11 (1.32%) NCSC
5 8 (0.96%) ISO 20022
6 6 (0.72%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (0.72%) PCI DSS
6 6 (0.72%) SEPA
6 6 (0.72%) SLA
6 6 (0.72%) WCAG
7 5 (0.60%) NIST
8 3 (0.36%) Def Stans
8 3 (0.36%) HL7
8 3 (0.36%) MiFID
9 2 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.24%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.24%) ISO 8583
9 2 (0.24%) PSD2
10 1 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 308 (37.06%) Docker
2 8 (0.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (0.72%) HDFS
4 3 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.24%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.24%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 338 (40.67%) Kubernetes
2 199 (23.95%) Terraform
3 97 (11.67%) Grafana
4 80 (9.63%) Prometheus
5 68 (8.18%) Ansible
6 29 (3.49%) Argo
7 16 (1.93%) Progress Chef
8 8 (0.96%) Istio
8 8 (0.96%) Packer
9 7 (0.84%) Kiali
9 7 (0.84%) linkerd
10 6 (0.72%) logstash
11 5 (0.60%) Hadoop YARN
11 5 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
11 5 (0.60%) Puppet
11 5 (0.60%) Rancher
11 5 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.48%) Fluentd
13 3 (0.36%) Kibana
13 3 (0.36%) Oozie
Vendors
1 79 (9.51%) Oracle
2 53 (6.38%) Splunk
3 52 (6.26%) Databricks
4 34 (4.09%) Confluent
5 33 (3.97%) Microsoft
6 30 (3.61%) Google
7 26 (3.13%) IBM
8 24 (2.89%) VMware
9 22 (2.65%) Dynatrace
9 22 (2.65%) Sybase
10 17 (2.05%) Cloudera
11 12 (1.44%) Foundry
11 12 (1.44%) Palantir
12 11 (1.32%) Red Hat
13 9 (1.08%) SAP
13 9 (1.08%) ServiceNow
13 9 (1.08%) TIBCO
14 8 (0.96%) Informatica
15 7 (0.84%) CA Agile Central
16 6 (0.72%) Salesforce