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 22 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 102 134
Rank change year-on-year -42 +32 +32
Contract jobs citing Kafka 1,070 834 695
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.96% 2.57% 1.83%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.05% 9.89% 7.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 675 534 458
10th Percentile £375 £380 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £637 £675 £725
90th Percentile £745 £750 £810
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £469 £500
% change year-on-year +6.61% -6.20% -16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 4 8
10th Percentile £43.85 £40.58 £24.60
25th Percentile £56.25 £48.56 £26.60
Median hourly rate £77.00 £59.25 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.96% +111.61% -64.10%
75th Percentile £87.00 £75.31 £39.13
90th Percentile £94.00 £96.13 £54.43
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 - £28.00
% change year-on-year - - -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 11,819 8,433 9,440
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.66% 25.97% 24.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,774 5,630 6,231
10th Percentile £375 £354 £356
25th Percentile £438 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £725 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £504 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +6.00% -5.00% -2.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 297 186 190
10th Percentile £29.07 £31.25 £25.60
25th Percentile £50.00 £41.25 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £54.35 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +19.60% -11.77% +2.67%
75th Percentile £76.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.25 £74.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +17.39% -11.54% +10.11%

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 22 September 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 22 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Kafka in the UK

Kafka
Top 17 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 22 September 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 -42 896 £550 - 876
London -36 536 £575 -4.17% 584
UK excluding London -33 391 £500 +6.61% 409
Work from Home -55 273 £547 -4.87% 384
North of England -16 189 £501 +4.27% 140
Yorkshire +1 97 £501 -16.23% 36
North West -37 74 £550 +17.77% 92
South East -36 60 £460 +5.75% 65
Scotland -35 55 £410 -13.68% 52
Midlands -51 38 £500 +15.47% 32
South West -17 29 £500 -9.09% 44
East of England -9 28 £488 -4.88% 20
West Midlands -45 25 £700 +40.00% 25
North East -23 23 £426 -8.49% 12
East Midlands -17 13 £495 +19.28% 7
Northern Ireland +5 4 - - 50
Wales - 1 £375 - 7

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 (12.15%) Apache Spark
2 76 (7.10%) Apache Airflow
3 68 (6.36%) Apache
4 24 (2.24%) Confluence
5 16 (1.50%) Camunda
6 7 (0.65%) OpenStack
6 7 (0.65%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 6 (0.56%) CMS
8 5 (0.47%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.37%) Apache Pulsar
9 4 (0.37%) MQSeries
9 4 (0.37%) PowerExchange
10 3 (0.28%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.28%) Mule
10 3 (0.28%) nginx
10 3 (0.28%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.19%) Apache Pig
11 2 (0.19%) JBoss
12 1 (0.093%) Luigi
12 1 (0.093%) Traefik
Applications
1 6 (0.56%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.19%) Mingle
3 1 (0.093%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.093%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (0.37%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (0.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 3 (0.28%) Finacle
2 3 (0.28%) FLEXCUBE
2 3 (0.28%) Temenos T24
3 2 (0.19%) Endur
3 2 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.093%) Actimize
4 1 (0.093%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.093%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.093%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.093%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.093%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 609 (56.92%) AWS
2 392 (36.64%) Azure
3 256 (23.93%) GCP
4 176 (16.45%) GitHub
5 121 (11.31%) GitHub Actions
6 102 (9.53%) Serverless
7 85 (7.94%) AWS Lambda
8 76 (7.10%) Amazon EKS
9 75 (7.01%) Amazon S3
10 73 (6.82%) Snowflake
11 71 (6.64%) Azure DevOps
12 68 (6.36%) OpenShift
13 51 (4.77%) dbt
14 49 (4.58%) Amazon SQS
15 43 (4.02%) Amazon ECS
16 39 (3.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 37 (3.46%) Power Platform
18 35 (3.27%) Azure Data Factory
19 31 (2.90%) Google Kubernetes Engine
20 27 (2.52%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 30 (2.80%) HTTP
2 20 (1.87%) DNS
3 12 (1.12%) Network Security
4 9 (0.84%) TCP/IP
5 7 (0.65%) Firewall
5 7 (0.65%) MQTT
5 7 (0.65%) SSH
6 6 (0.56%) SAN
6 6 (0.56%) SSL
7 5 (0.47%) 4G
7 5 (0.47%) 5G
8 4 (0.37%) NAS
9 3 (0.28%) Internet
10 2 (0.19%) Kerberos
11 1 (0.093%) Broadband
11 1 (0.093%) FIX Connectivity
11 1 (0.093%) MIMO
11 1 (0.093%) RTP
11 1 (0.093%) VPN
11 1 (0.093%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 186 (17.38%) PostgreSQL
2 168 (15.70%) MongoDB
3 130 (12.15%) NoSQL
4 93 (8.69%) Relational Database
5 74 (6.92%) Data Warehouse
6 66 (6.17%) SQL Server
7 57 (5.33%) Redis
8 54 (5.05%) Big Data
9 50 (4.67%) MySQL
10 48 (4.49%) Data Lake
11 43 (4.02%) Elasticsearch
12 38 (3.55%) BigQuery
13 36 (3.36%) Power BI
14 34 (3.18%) Flink
15 32 (2.99%) Metadata
16 27 (2.52%) Delta Lake
17 25 (2.34%) Hadoop
18 23 (2.15%) Amazon Redshift
18 23 (2.15%) DynamoDB
19 22 (2.06%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 214 (20.00%) Jenkins
2 188 (17.57%) Git
3 162 (15.14%) GitLab
4 71 (6.64%) JUnit
5 67 (6.26%) Gradle
6 61 (5.70%) Mockito
7 55 (5.14%) Selenium
8 47 (4.39%) Maven
9 45 (4.21%) JIRA
10 35 (3.27%) Cucumber
11 33 (3.08%) SonarQube
12 24 (2.24%) REST Assured
13 23 (2.15%) Postman
14 20 (1.87%) JMeter
15 18 (1.68%) Bitbucket
16 17 (1.59%) Gatling
17 15 (1.40%) LoadRunner
18 14 (1.31%) Liquibase
18 14 (1.31%) SoapUI
19 13 (1.21%) Cypress.io
General
1 269 (25.14%) Finance
2 210 (19.63%) Social Skills
3 167 (15.61%) Banking
4 111 (10.37%) Analytical Skills
5 100 (9.35%) Public Sector
6 40 (3.74%) Retail
7 25 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 25 (2.34%) Investment Banking
8 19 (1.78%) Front Office
9 18 (1.68%) Telecoms
10 16 (1.50%) Financial Institution
11 12 (1.12%) Law
12 11 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
13 10 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
13 10 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.84%) Military
15 8 (0.75%) Billing
15 8 (0.75%) Publishing
15 8 (0.75%) Retail Banking
16 7 (0.65%) Games
Job Titles
1 328 (30.65%) Developer
2 229 (21.40%) Senior
3 187 (17.48%) Java Developer
4 166 (15.51%) Architect
5 126 (11.78%) Data Engineer
6 98 (9.16%) Lead
7 70 (6.54%) Senior Developer
8 69 (6.45%) Java Engineer
9 66 (6.17%) Solutions Architect
10 62 (5.79%) DevOps Engineer
10 62 (5.79%) Software Engineer
11 43 (4.02%) Full-Stack Developer
11 43 (4.02%) Senior Java Developer
12 42 (3.93%) Senior Data Engineer
13 39 (3.64%) Kafka Engineer
14 38 (3.55%) AWS Engineer
15 37 (3.46%) Python Engineer
16 36 (3.36%) Test Engineer
17 35 (3.27%) Python Developer
18 33 (3.08%) AWS Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 287 (26.82%) Spring
1 287 (26.82%) Spring Boot
2 244 (22.80%) REST
3 225 (21.03%) Terraform
4 153 (14.30%) RESTful
5 131 (12.24%) React
6 124 (11.59%) RabbitMQ
7 73 (6.82%) JSON
8 61 (5.70%) OAuth
9 58 (5.42%) Node.js
10 53 (4.95%) HTML
11 50 (4.67%) GraphQL
11 50 (4.67%) PySpark
12 48 (4.49%) OpenTelemetry
13 46 (4.30%) .NET
14 45 (4.21%) Middleware
15 44 (4.11%) Elastic Stack
15 44 (4.11%) SOAP
16 43 (4.02%) Swagger
17 42 (3.93%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 243 (22.71%) Cloud Native
2 224 (20.93%) Distributed Systems
3 73 (6.82%) Product Ownership
4 44 (4.11%) Enterprise Software
5 43 (4.02%) Data Structures
6 37 (3.46%) Onboarding
7 36 (3.36%) AI Agents
8 34 (3.18%) Self-Motivation
9 27 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
9 27 (2.52%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 26 (2.43%) Algorithms
10 26 (2.43%) Replication
11 25 (2.34%) Greenfield Project
12 20 (1.87%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 19 (1.78%) Distributed Architecture
14 18 (1.68%) Public Cloud
15 17 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
15 17 (1.59%) Private Cloud
16 16 (1.50%) Management Information System
17 15 (1.40%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 140 (13.08%) Linux
2 73 (6.82%) Unix
3 23 (2.15%) Windows
4 11 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.56%) Mac OS X
5 6 (0.56%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.28%) CentOS
6 3 (0.28%) VMS
7 2 (0.19%) Android
7 2 (0.19%) Debian
7 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.093%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.093%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.093%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.093%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.093%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (55.33%) CI/CD
2 451 (42.15%) Event-Driven
3 440 (41.12%) Microservices
4 387 (36.17%) DevOps
5 382 (35.70%) Agile
6 316 (29.53%) Event-Driven Architecture
7 282 (26.36%) Observability
8 242 (22.62%) Test Automation
9 236 (22.06%) Infrastructure as Code
10 230 (21.50%) Containerisation
11 195 (18.22%) Software Engineering
12 181 (16.92%) AI
13 171 (15.98%) Data Pipeline
14 153 (14.30%) Problem-Solving
15 145 (13.55%) Data Modelling
16 138 (12.90%) Technical Leadership
17 131 (12.24%) ETL
18 130 (12.15%) Continuous Improvement
19 126 (11.78%) Analytics
20 122 (11.40%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 475 (44.39%) Java
2 364 (34.02%) Python
3 342 (31.96%) SQL
4 104 (9.72%) JavaScript
5 99 (9.25%) TypeScript
6 82 (7.66%) Bash
7 62 (5.79%) C#
8 51 (4.77%) Go
9 43 (4.02%) Scala
10 30 (2.80%) PowerShell
11 29 (2.71%) PL/SQL
12 26 (2.43%) Shell Script
13 25 (2.34%) Kotlin
14 11 (1.03%) Groovy
15 9 (0.84%) Perl
16 8 (0.75%) C++
16 8 (0.75%) Rust
17 7 (0.65%) Bicep
17 7 (0.65%) PHP
17 7 (0.65%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 262 (24.49%) Security Cleared
2 215 (20.09%) SC Cleared
3 65 (6.07%) Degree
4 42 (3.93%) Computer Science Degree
5 41 (3.83%) BPSS Clearance
6 24 (2.24%) DV Cleared
7 13 (1.21%) Azure Certification
8 12 (1.12%) Master's Degree
9 11 (1.03%) AWS Certification
10 10 (0.93%) ISTQB
11 7 (0.65%) DBS Check
12 6 (0.56%) ISEB
13 5 (0.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 5 (0.47%) TOGAF Certification
14 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 4 (0.37%) SnowPro
15 3 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 3 (0.28%) PhD
16 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
17 1 (0.093%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (7.94%) Data Quality
2 84 (7.85%) QA
3 44 (4.11%) Accessibility
4 34 (3.18%) ISO 20022
5 20 (1.87%) GDPR
6 15 (1.40%) SEPA
7 6 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
8 5 (0.47%) ISO 15022
8 5 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.47%) PSD2
8 5 (0.47%) SLA
8 5 (0.47%) WCAG
9 4 (0.37%) NIST
10 2 (0.19%) Basel III
10 2 (0.19%) EMIR
10 2 (0.19%) GRC
10 2 (0.19%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.19%) IFRS
10 2 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.19%) Solvency II
System Software
1 379 (35.42%) Docker
2 17 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (0.75%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 3 (0.28%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.19%) Apache Flume
5 2 (0.19%) HDFS
6 1 (0.093%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 489 (45.70%) Kubernetes
2 141 (13.18%) Grafana
3 122 (11.40%) Prometheus
4 69 (6.45%) Ansible
5 30 (2.80%) Argo
6 26 (2.43%) Control-M
7 14 (1.31%) Istio
7 14 (1.31%) Kibana
7 14 (1.31%) Kustomize
8 11 (1.03%) Puppet
9 9 (0.84%) Podman
10 8 (0.75%) logstash
11 7 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (0.56%) Rancher
13 5 (0.47%) Check_MK
13 5 (0.47%) HP Fortify
14 4 (0.37%) Bosun
14 4 (0.37%) Consul
15 3 (0.28%) Cilium
15 3 (0.28%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 120 (11.21%) Oracle
2 102 (9.53%) Databricks
3 62 (5.79%) Splunk
4 59 (5.51%) IBM
5 54 (5.05%) Microsoft
6 52 (4.86%) Google
7 38 (3.55%) Dynatrace
8 32 (2.99%) Confluent
9 28 (2.62%) Informatica
10 21 (1.96%) MuleSoft
10 21 (1.96%) VMware
11 19 (1.78%) OpenAI
12 17 (1.59%) SAP
13 15 (1.40%) Salesforce
14 14 (1.31%) Solace
15 13 (1.21%) New Relic
15 13 (1.21%) TIBCO
16 9 (0.84%) Sybase
16 9 (0.84%) Veracode
16 9 (0.84%) WSO2