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

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 125 115 183
Rank change year-on-year -10 +68 -64
Contract jobs citing Kafka 864 723 606
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.33% 2.17% 1.41%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 10.39% 9.89% 6.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 576 434 473
10th Percentile £363 £382 £425
25th Percentile £416 £478 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £543 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year -7.26% -2.50% -4.38%
75th Percentile £675 £725 £738
90th Percentile £738 £813 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £475 £525
% change year-on-year -4.74% -9.52% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 6
10th Percentile £38.10 £36.82 £52.42
25th Percentile £40.00 £53.95 £67.81
Median hourly rate £56.00 £85.00 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.12% +9.68% +5.80%
75th Percentile £74.50 £90.63 £78.75
90th Percentile £91.40 £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 8,316 7,307 9,309
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.45% 21.89% 21.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,510 4,646 6,614
10th Percentile £356 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.97% -1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £770 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 87 169
10th Percentile £31.25 £21.25 £31.85
25th Percentile £45.00 £30.50 £46.18
Median hourly rate £61.00 £62.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.40% +19.05% -19.23%
75th Percentile £68.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.00 £62.50 £52.20
% change year-on-year +0.80% +19.74% -19.70%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -8 747 £550 -10.02% 345
London -1 498 £600 -4.00% 251
Work from Home +27 313 £575 - 197
UK excluding London -16 236 £453 -4.74% 120
North of England -28 92 £488 -11.36% 51
South East +5 56 £434 -15.78% 33
North West -16 45 £435 -11.22% 39
Midlands -6 43 £475 +18.75% 6
Scotland +19 41 £456 +20.38% 6
Yorkshire -28 41 £575 -19.30% 11
West Midlands -17 23 £550 -21.43% 4
South West +8 20 £550 -15.38% 14
East Midlands 0 20 £406 +14.04% 2
North East -4 10 £506 -18.91% 1
East of England -32 1 £450 +42.86% 8

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 77 (8.91%) Apache Spark
2 47 (5.44%) Apache
3 42 (4.86%) Confluence
4 38 (4.40%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.81%) Mule
6 6 (0.69%) CMS
7 5 (0.58%) Anypoint
8 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
8 4 (0.46%) MQSeries
9 3 (0.35%) Camunda
9 3 (0.35%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.23%) JBoss
10 2 (0.23%) Luigi
10 2 (0.23%) SharePoint
10 2 (0.23%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.12%) CICS
11 1 (0.12%) IIS
11 1 (0.12%) nginx
11 1 (0.12%) SAS
11 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
1 463 (53.59%) AWS
2 227 (26.27%) Azure
3 147 (17.01%) GitHub
4 117 (13.54%) GCP
5 107 (12.38%) Serverless
6 104 (12.04%) GitHub Actions
7 77 (8.91%) Amazon S3
7 77 (8.91%) AWS Lambda
8 59 (6.83%) AWS CloudFormation
9 57 (6.60%) Amazon EKS
10 48 (5.56%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (4.98%) Amazon SQS
11 43 (4.98%) OpenShift
12 41 (4.75%) Amazon ECS
12 41 (4.75%) Amazon Kinesis
13 39 (4.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 36 (4.17%) Azure Data Factory
15 30 (3.47%) Power Platform
16 28 (3.24%) Amazon EC2
17 23 (2.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.50%) DNS
2 11 (1.27%) SSL
3 10 (1.16%) Firewall
4 7 (0.81%) HTTP
4 7 (0.81%) Kerberos
4 7 (0.81%) SSH
5 6 (0.69%) FTP
6 5 (0.58%) TCP/IP
7 4 (0.46%) AMQP
7 4 (0.46%) DSL
7 4 (0.46%) MQTT
8 3 (0.35%) SMS
8 3 (0.35%) VPN
9 1 (0.12%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (19.33%) PostgreSQL
2 164 (18.98%) MongoDB
3 129 (14.93%) NoSQL
4 77 (8.91%) Apache Cassandra
5 55 (6.37%) Relational Database
6 51 (5.90%) Big Data
6 51 (5.90%) Redis
7 45 (5.21%) Amazon RDS
8 41 (4.75%) DynamoDB
8 41 (4.75%) SQL Server
9 40 (4.63%) Elasticsearch
10 38 (4.40%) Data Warehouse
11 37 (4.28%) Data Lake
12 32 (3.70%) Hadoop
13 30 (3.47%) DB2
14 27 (3.13%) Amazon Redshift
15 26 (3.01%) Amazon Athena
15 26 (3.01%) Power BI
16 25 (2.89%) Metadata
17 23 (2.66%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 166 (19.21%) Jenkins
2 133 (15.39%) GitLab
3 117 (13.54%) Git
4 86 (9.95%) 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%) Postman
General
1 241 (27.89%) Finance
2 220 (25.46%) Social Skills
3 134 (15.51%) Banking
4 84 (9.72%) Analytical Skills
5 70 (8.10%) Public Sector
6 59 (6.83%) Investment Banking
7 36 (4.17%) Front Office
8 12 (1.39%) 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%) Back Office
14 2 (0.23%) Games
Job Titles
1 340 (39.35%) Developer
2 253 (29.28%) Senior
3 203 (23.50%) Java Developer
4 128 (14.81%) Senior Developer
5 97 (11.23%) Data Engineer
6 81 (9.38%) Software Engineer
7 80 (9.26%) Lead
8 76 (8.80%) Senior Java Developer
9 63 (7.29%) DevOps Engineer
10 60 (6.94%) Architect
11 43 (4.98%) Kafka Developer
12 41 (4.75%) AWS Engineer
13 40 (4.63%) Kafka Engineer
14 38 (4.40%) Full-Stack Developer
15 36 (4.17%) AWS Developer
15 36 (4.17%) Python Engineer
16 35 (4.05%) Platform Engineer
17 34 (3.94%) Java Engineer
18 28 (3.24%) Senior Data Engineer
19 24 (2.78%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 197 (22.80%) Spring
2 152 (17.59%) Spring Boot
3 99 (11.46%) gRPC
4 98 (11.34%) REST
5 88 (10.19%) React
6 77 (8.91%) RabbitMQ
7 73 (8.45%) RESTful
8 67 (7.75%) Node.js
9 40 (4.63%) AngularJS
9 40 (4.63%) JMS
10 37 (4.28%) ActiveMQ
10 37 (4.28%) Hibernate
11 36 (4.17%) .NET
12 35 (4.05%) Keycloak
13 34 (3.94%) Middleware
14 32 (3.70%) JSON
14 32 (3.70%) PySpark
15 31 (3.59%) OAuth
16 29 (3.36%) OAuth2
17 28 (3.24%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 121 (14.00%) Distributed Systems
2 92 (10.65%) Cloud Native
3 39 (4.51%) Equities
4 35 (4.05%) Management Information System
5 34 (3.94%) Data Structures
6 26 (3.01%) Product Ownership
7 23 (2.66%) Derivative
7 23 (2.66%) Fixed Income
7 23 (2.66%) Replication
8 19 (2.20%) Market Risk
9 14 (1.62%) Distributed Computing
9 14 (1.62%) Legacy Applications
10 12 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
11 11 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
12 10 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
13 9 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
13 9 (1.04%) Public Cloud
14 8 (0.93%) Algorithms
14 8 (0.93%) Data Fabric
14 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
10 1 (0.12%) Debian
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
10 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 357 (41.32%) CI/CD
2 353 (40.86%) Microservices
3 322 (37.27%) Agile
4 258 (29.86%) DevOps
5 244 (28.24%) Software Engineering
6 185 (21.41%) Problem-Solving
7 174 (20.14%) Containerisation
8 156 (18.06%) Event-Driven
9 149 (17.25%) Infrastructure as Code
10 141 (16.32%) Observability
11 126 (14.58%) Test Automation
12 118 (13.66%) Data Pipeline
13 116 (13.43%) Open Source
14 108 (12.50%) Analytics
15 106 (12.27%) TDD
16 94 (10.88%) Data Engineering
17 89 (10.30%) ETL
18 88 (10.19%) Mentoring
19 85 (9.84%) Event-Driven Architecture
20 84 (9.72%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 420 (48.61%) Java
2 307 (35.53%) Python
3 248 (28.70%) SQL
4 128 (14.81%) Go
5 72 (8.33%) C#
6 70 (8.10%) JavaScript
7 57 (6.60%) Shell Script
8 49 (5.67%) Bash
8 49 (5.67%) C++
9 35 (4.05%) TypeScript
10 32 (3.70%) Scala
11 13 (1.50%) PL/SQL
12 12 (1.39%) Rust
13 11 (1.27%) Perl
14 9 (1.04%) Groovy
14 9 (1.04%) PowerShell
15 8 (0.93%) Korn
16 7 (0.81%) T-SQL
17 5 (0.58%) RPG
17 5 (0.58%) RPG IV
Qualifications
1 177 (20.49%) Security Cleared
2 158 (18.29%) SC Cleared
3 47 (5.44%) Degree
4 29 (3.36%) BPSS Clearance
4 29 (3.36%) Computer Science Degree
5 27 (3.13%) Azure Certification
6 22 (2.55%) DV Cleared
7 17 (1.97%) AWS Certification
8 14 (1.62%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.93%) OCP
9 8 (0.93%) Oracle Certification
10 4 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.23%) CBAP
11 2 (0.23%) CSPO
11 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.23%) Numerate Degree
11 2 (0.23%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.12%) MySQL Certification
12 1 (0.12%) SAFe Agilist
12 1 (0.12%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (7.41%) Data Quality
2 39 (4.51%) QA
3 29 (3.36%) GDPR
4 12 (1.39%) NCSC
5 7 (0.81%) ISO 20022
6 6 (0.69%) SLA
7 5 (0.58%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.58%) PCI DSS
7 5 (0.58%) SEPA
7 5 (0.58%) WCAG
8 4 (0.46%) MiFID
8 4 (0.46%) NIST
9 3 (0.35%) Def Stans
9 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.35%) HL7
10 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.23%) EMIR
11 1 (0.12%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.12%) ISO 15022
System Software
1 314 (36.34%) 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
2 202 (23.38%) Terraform
3 101 (11.69%) Grafana
4 85 (9.84%) Prometheus
5 72 (8.33%) 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 55 (6.37%) Splunk
3 53 (6.13%) Databricks
4 35 (4.05%) Microsoft
5 32 (3.70%) Confluent
6 31 (3.59%) Google
7 26 (3.01%) IBM
7 26 (3.01%) Sybase
8 24 (2.78%) VMware
9 23 (2.66%) Dynatrace
10 17 (1.97%) Cloudera
11 12 (1.39%) Foundry
11 12 (1.39%) Palantir
11 12 (1.39%) Red Hat
12 10 (1.16%) CA Agile Central
12 10 (1.16%) SAP
12 10 (1.16%) TIBCO
13 9 (1.04%) ServiceNow
14 8 (0.93%) Informatica
15 7 (0.81%) MuleSoft