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 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 121 113 182
Rank change year-on-year -8 +69 -63
Contract jobs citing Kafka 864 723 610
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.34% 2.17% 1.41%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 10.43% 9.92% 6.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 579 434 477
10th Percentile £362 £382 £425
25th Percentile £416 £478 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% -2.50% -4.00%
75th Percentile £659 £725 £738
90th Percentile £738 £813 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £475 £525
% change year-on-year -4.21% -9.52% -10.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 3 6
10th Percentile £38.58 £36.82 £52.42
25th Percentile £40.00 £53.95 £67.81
Median hourly rate £59.25 £85.00 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.29% +9.68% +5.80%
75th Percentile £72.25 £90.63 £78.75
90th Percentile £88.30 £92.50 £84.38
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 8,280 7,290 9,374
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.44% 21.88% 21.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,489 4,634 6,667
10th Percentile £356 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.48% -1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £773 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 87 170
10th Percentile £31.25 £21.25 £31.93
25th Percentile £45.00 £30.50 £46.18
Median hourly rate £60.50 £62.50 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.20% +16.82% -17.69%
75th Percentile £67.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.00 £62.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +0.80% +19.05% -19.23%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 29 December 2025. 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 -5 746 £550 -10.02% 1,245
London -1 497 £600 -4.00% 302
Work from Home +26 309 £575 - 683
UK excluding London -14 240 £455 -4.21% 1,039
North of England -27 92 £488 -11.36% 244
South East +16 57 £433 -16.02% 272
North West -18 45 £435 -11.22% 130
Scotland +16 44 £456 +20.38% 52
Midlands -14 43 £500 +25.00% 185
Yorkshire -26 41 £575 -19.30% 101
West Midlands -13 25 £550 -21.43% 89
South West +5 20 £550 -15.38% 116
East Midlands -8 18 £415 +16.57% 82
North East -2 10 £506 -18.91% 13
East of England -33 1 £450 +42.86% 143

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 78 (9.03%) Apache Spark
2 48 (5.56%) Apache
3 42 (4.86%) Confluence
4 38 (4.40%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (1.16%) Mule
6 8 (0.93%) Anypoint
7 6 (0.69%) CMS
8 5 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.46%) MQSeries
10 3 (0.35%) Camunda
10 3 (0.35%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.23%) JBoss
11 2 (0.23%) Luigi
11 2 (0.23%) SharePoint
11 2 (0.23%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.12%) CICS
12 1 (0.12%) IIS
12 1 (0.12%) nginx
12 1 (0.12%) SAS
12 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (0.46%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.23%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (0.46%) Oracle 11i
2 3 (0.35%) Fidessa
2 3 (0.35%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.23%) Actimize
3 2 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg AIM
4 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
4 1 (0.12%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.12%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 454 (52.55%) AWS
2 232 (26.85%) Azure
3 144 (16.67%) GitHub
4 119 (13.77%) GCP
5 104 (12.04%) Serverless
6 101 (11.69%) GitHub Actions
7 74 (8.56%) Amazon S3
7 74 (8.56%) AWS Lambda
8 57 (6.60%) AWS CloudFormation
9 55 (6.37%) Amazon EKS
10 51 (5.90%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (4.98%) OpenShift
12 41 (4.75%) Amazon SQS
13 39 (4.51%) Amazon ECS
14 37 (4.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 37 (4.28%) Amazon Kinesis
15 36 (4.17%) Azure Data Factory
16 30 (3.47%) Power Platform
17 29 (3.36%) Amazon EC2
18 23 (2.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.27%) SSL
2 10 (1.16%) DNS
2 10 (1.16%) Firewall
3 7 (0.81%) AMQP
3 7 (0.81%) DSL
3 7 (0.81%) HTTP
3 7 (0.81%) Kerberos
3 7 (0.81%) SSH
4 6 (0.69%) FTP
5 5 (0.58%) TCP/IP
6 4 (0.46%) MQTT
7 3 (0.35%) SMS
7 3 (0.35%) VPN
8 1 (0.12%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (19.10%) MongoDB
1 165 (19.10%) PostgreSQL
2 127 (14.70%) NoSQL
3 73 (8.45%) Apache Cassandra
4 56 (6.48%) Relational Database
5 51 (5.90%) Big Data
6 46 (5.32%) Redis
7 43 (4.98%) Amazon RDS
8 41 (4.75%) SQL Server
9 40 (4.63%) Elasticsearch
10 39 (4.51%) Data Warehouse
11 38 (4.40%) Data Lake
12 37 (4.28%) DynamoDB
13 32 (3.70%) Hadoop
14 30 (3.47%) DB2
15 26 (3.01%) Amazon Redshift
15 26 (3.01%) Power BI
16 25 (2.89%) Amazon Athena
16 25 (2.89%) Metadata
17 21 (2.43%) Flink
Development Applications
1 168 (19.44%) Jenkins
2 133 (15.39%) GitLab
3 120 (13.89%) Git
4 87 (10.07%) JUnit
5 61 (7.06%) JIRA
6 46 (5.32%) Mockito
7 25 (2.89%) JMeter
8 24 (2.78%) Cucumber
8 24 (2.78%) Sonatype Nexus
9 23 (2.66%) Gradle
10 21 (2.43%) SonarQube
11 19 (2.20%) Maven
12 13 (1.50%) Gatling
13 12 (1.39%) SoapUI
14 11 (1.27%) Artifactory
15 10 (1.16%) CircleCI
16 9 (1.04%) Subversion
17 8 (0.93%) Atlassian Bamboo
17 8 (0.93%) TeamCity
18 7 (0.81%) Liquibase
General
1 240 (27.78%) Finance
2 222 (25.69%) Social Skills
3 135 (15.63%) Banking
4 86 (9.95%) Analytical Skills
5 72 (8.33%) Public Sector
6 59 (6.83%) Investment Banking
7 36 (4.17%) Front Office
8 13 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.27%) Financial Institution
10 8 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (0.69%) Law
11 6 (0.69%) Marketing
11 6 (0.69%) Retail
12 5 (0.58%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.35%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.35%) Military
13 3 (0.35%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.23%) Games
14 2 (0.23%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 338 (39.12%) Developer
2 253 (29.28%) Senior
3 204 (23.61%) Java Developer
4 126 (14.58%) Senior Developer
5 97 (11.23%) Data Engineer
6 80 (9.26%) Software Engineer
7 79 (9.14%) Lead
8 76 (8.80%) Senior Java Developer
9 64 (7.41%) DevOps Engineer
10 59 (6.83%) Architect
11 43 (4.98%) Kafka Developer
12 41 (4.75%) AWS Engineer
13 40 (4.63%) Kafka Engineer
14 37 (4.28%) Full-Stack Developer
14 37 (4.28%) Python Engineer
15 35 (4.05%) AWS Developer
15 35 (4.05%) Platform Engineer
16 34 (3.94%) Java Engineer
17 28 (3.24%) Senior Data Engineer
18 24 (2.78%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (22.69%) Spring
2 150 (17.36%) Spring Boot
3 98 (11.34%) REST
4 93 (10.76%) gRPC
5 87 (10.07%) React
6 82 (9.49%) RabbitMQ
7 74 (8.56%) RESTful
8 64 (7.41%) Node.js
9 41 (4.75%) ActiveMQ
10 40 (4.63%) AngularJS
10 40 (4.63%) JMS
11 36 (4.17%) .NET
12 35 (4.05%) Keycloak
13 34 (3.94%) Hibernate
13 34 (3.94%) Middleware
14 33 (3.82%) JSON
15 32 (3.70%) PySpark
16 31 (3.59%) OAuth
17 29 (3.36%) OAuth2
18 28 (3.24%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 117 (13.54%) Distributed Systems
2 91 (10.53%) Cloud Native
3 40 (4.63%) Equities
4 35 (4.05%) Management Information System
5 34 (3.94%) Data Structures
6 26 (3.01%) Product Ownership
7 24 (2.78%) Fixed Income
8 23 (2.66%) Derivative
8 23 (2.66%) Replication
9 20 (2.31%) Market Risk
10 14 (1.62%) Distributed Computing
10 14 (1.62%) Legacy Applications
11 12 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
12 11 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
13 10 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
13 10 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
14 9 (1.04%) Public Cloud
15 8 (0.93%) Algorithms
15 8 (0.93%) Data Fabric
15 8 (0.93%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 166 (19.21%) Linux
2 87 (10.07%) Unix
3 26 (3.01%) Windows
4 13 (1.50%) Mac OS X
5 9 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (0.81%) CentOS
7 5 (0.58%) AIX
8 3 (0.35%) VMS
9 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.23%) zOS
10 1 (0.12%) Debian
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 358 (41.44%) CI/CD
2 351 (40.63%) Microservices
3 324 (37.50%) Agile
4 259 (29.98%) DevOps
5 242 (28.01%) Software Engineering
6 188 (21.76%) Problem-Solving
7 174 (20.14%) Containerisation
8 157 (18.17%) Event-Driven
9 148 (17.13%) Infrastructure as Code
10 140 (16.20%) Observability
11 127 (14.70%) Test Automation
12 118 (13.66%) Data Pipeline
13 113 (13.08%) Open Source
14 109 (12.62%) TDD
15 108 (12.50%) Analytics
16 94 (10.88%) Data Engineering
17 90 (10.42%) ETL
18 88 (10.19%) Mentoring
19 86 (9.95%) Event-Driven Architecture
19 86 (9.95%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 424 (49.07%) Java
2 311 (36.00%) Python
3 245 (28.36%) SQL
4 127 (14.70%) Go
5 72 (8.33%) C#
6 69 (7.99%) JavaScript
7 57 (6.60%) Shell Script
8 50 (5.79%) Bash
8 50 (5.79%) C++
9 34 (3.94%) TypeScript
10 33 (3.82%) Scala
11 13 (1.50%) PL/SQL
12 12 (1.39%) Perl
12 12 (1.39%) Rust
13 9 (1.04%) Groovy
13 9 (1.04%) PowerShell
14 8 (0.93%) Korn
15 7 (0.81%) DataWeave
15 7 (0.81%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.58%) RPG
Qualifications
1 177 (20.49%) Security Cleared
2 157 (18.17%) SC Cleared
3 48 (5.56%) Degree
4 29 (3.36%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
6 27 (3.13%) Azure Certification
7 22 (2.55%) DV Cleared
8 18 (2.08%) AWS Certification
9 14 (1.62%) Master's Degree
10 8 (0.93%) OCP
10 8 (0.93%) Oracle Certification
11 5 (0.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.23%) CBAP
12 2 (0.23%) CSPO
12 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.23%) Numerate Degree
12 2 (0.23%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.12%) MySQL Certification
13 1 (0.12%) SAFe Agilist
13 1 (0.12%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (7.41%) Data Quality
2 36 (4.17%) QA
3 29 (3.36%) GDPR
4 12 (1.39%) NCSC
5 6 (0.69%) ISO 20022
5 6 (0.69%) SLA
6 5 (0.58%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.58%) SEPA
6 5 (0.58%) WCAG
7 4 (0.46%) MiFID
8 3 (0.35%) Def Stans
8 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
8 3 (0.35%) HL7
9 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.23%) EMIR
9 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.12%) ISO 15022
10 1 (0.12%) ISO 8583
10 1 (0.12%) JSP 440
System Software
1 313 (36.23%) Docker
2 8 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (0.69%) HDFS
4 3 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.23%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.23%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 348 (40.28%) Kubernetes
2 203 (23.50%) Terraform
3 102 (11.81%) Grafana
4 86 (9.95%) Prometheus
5 76 (8.80%) Ansible
6 28 (3.24%) Argo
7 16 (1.85%) Progress Chef
8 10 (1.16%) Packer
9 8 (0.93%) Istio
9 8 (0.93%) logstash
10 7 (0.81%) linkerd
11 6 (0.69%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.58%) Hadoop YARN
12 5 (0.58%) Kiali
12 5 (0.58%) Kibana
12 5 (0.58%) Puppet
12 5 (0.58%) Rancher
12 5 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.46%) Fluentd
14 3 (0.35%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 82 (9.49%) Oracle
2 56 (6.48%) Splunk
3 52 (6.02%) Databricks
4 36 (4.17%) Microsoft
5 31 (3.59%) Confluent
5 31 (3.59%) Google
6 26 (3.01%) IBM
6 26 (3.01%) Sybase
7 24 (2.78%) VMware
8 23 (2.66%) Dynatrace
9 17 (1.97%) Cloudera
10 12 (1.39%) Foundry
10 12 (1.39%) Palantir
10 12 (1.39%) Red Hat
11 10 (1.16%) CA Agile Central
11 10 (1.16%) MuleSoft
11 10 (1.16%) SAP
11 10 (1.16%) TIBCO
12 9 (1.04%) ServiceNow
13 8 (0.93%) Informatica