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 27 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 110 155
Rank change year-on-year -25 +45 -16
Contract jobs citing Kafka 937 703 672
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 2.46% 1.57%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.80% 10.82% 7.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 565 462 500
10th Percentile £371 £400 £400
25th Percentile £425 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £650 £712 £675
90th Percentile £800 £825 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £470 £495
% change year-on-year -1.06% -5.05% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 3 7
10th Percentile £50.05 £47.14 £22.34
25th Percentile £64.00 £58.98 £24.88
Median hourly rate £70.00 £78.70 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.05% +181.07% -64.10%
75th Percentile £90.00 £86.23 £37.63
90th Percentile £92.00 £90.74 £51.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £78.70 £28.00
% change year-on-year -11.05% +181.07% -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 9,564 6,498 8,929
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.62% 22.74% 20.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,281 4,458 6,210
10th Percentile £363 £360 £345
25th Percentile £420 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 278 105 249
10th Percentile £30.87 £27.44 £21.63
25th Percentile £51.25 £37.80 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +31.58% -26.92%
75th Percentile £72.75 £68.75 £66.25
90th Percentile £81.00 £81.22 £74.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.43
% change year-on-year - +34.21% -25.49%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 -30 811 £550 -4.35% 177
London -18 510 £600 -7.69% 113
UK excluding London -47 305 £465 -1.06% 86
Work from Home -19 286 £600 - 75
North of England -33 136 £450 -10.00% 27
Yorkshire -14 71 £463 -15.91% 6
North West -41 54 £434 -13.20% 18
South East -36 52 £488 +8.33% 24
Scotland -7 44 £450 -4.76% 4
Midlands -55 43 £491 +33.86% 5
South West -10 29 £525 -7.69% 13
West Midlands -49 25 £507 -7.82% 3
North East -12 20 £450 -2.70% 3
East Midlands -27 18 £407 +14.40% 2
East of England -22 15 £550 +71.14% 3
Wales -16 1 £250 - 2

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
1 135 (14.41%) Apache Spark
2 69 (7.36%) Apache
3 50 (5.34%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (1.92%) Confluence
5 7 (0.75%) Camunda
6 6 (0.64%) Ethereum
6 6 (0.64%) Hyperledger
7 5 (0.53%) WebSphere
8 4 (0.43%) Apache Pulsar
8 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.32%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
10 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.21%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
10 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
11 1 (0.11%) Apache Synapse
Applications
1 4 (0.43%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.21%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.11%) Maya
Business Applications
1 3 (0.32%) Bloomberg AIM
1 3 (0.32%) Fidessa
1 3 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 2 (0.21%) Shopify
2 2 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.11%) Endur
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
3 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
3 1 (0.11%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 551 (58.80%) AWS
2 266 (28.39%) Azure
3 161 (17.18%) GCP
4 144 (15.37%) GitHub
5 126 (13.45%) Serverless
6 101 (10.78%) GitHub Actions
7 100 (10.67%) Amazon S3
8 94 (10.03%) AWS Lambda
9 69 (7.36%) Amazon EKS
10 65 (6.94%) OpenShift
11 64 (6.83%) Power Platform
12 60 (6.40%) Azure DevOps
13 53 (5.66%) AWS CloudFormation
14 48 (5.12%) Snowflake
15 46 (4.91%) Amazon ECS
16 44 (4.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 42 (4.48%) Amazon SQS
18 39 (4.16%) dbt
19 38 (4.06%) Amazon Kinesis
20 34 (3.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.92%) Firewall
2 13 (1.39%) HTTP
3 10 (1.07%) SSL
4 9 (0.96%) DNS
5 7 (0.75%) Network Security
6 6 (0.64%) SMS
7 5 (0.53%) NAS
7 5 (0.53%) SAN
7 5 (0.53%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.32%) MQTT
9 2 (0.21%) FTP
9 2 (0.21%) NaaS
9 2 (0.21%) OpenVPN
9 2 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.21%) SSH
9 2 (0.21%) VPN
9 2 (0.21%) WAN
10 1 (0.11%) 4G
10 1 (0.11%) Kerberos
10 1 (0.11%) MIMO
Database & Business Intelligence
1 193 (20.60%) PostgreSQL
2 153 (16.33%) MongoDB
3 127 (13.55%) NoSQL
4 87 (9.28%) Relational Database
5 62 (6.62%) Big Data
6 56 (5.98%) Data Lake
6 56 (5.98%) Data Warehouse
7 53 (5.66%) SQL Server
8 52 (5.55%) Power BI
9 50 (5.34%) Apache Cassandra
9 50 (5.34%) Redis
10 46 (4.91%) Elasticsearch
11 38 (4.06%) DynamoDB
11 38 (4.06%) Flink
12 37 (3.95%) Amazon Athena
13 36 (3.84%) Hadoop
13 36 (3.84%) MySQL
14 31 (3.31%) Amazon Redshift
15 30 (3.20%) BigQuery
16 29 (3.09%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 142 (15.15%) Jenkins
2 131 (13.98%) GitLab
3 129 (13.77%) Git
4 62 (6.62%) JUnit
5 56 (5.98%) JIRA
6 43 (4.59%) Mockito
7 29 (3.09%) Selenium
8 27 (2.88%) Gradle
9 24 (2.56%) REST Assured
10 21 (2.24%) Cucumber
11 20 (2.13%) Gatling
12 15 (1.60%) Liquibase
12 15 (1.60%) Postman
12 15 (1.60%) Serenity BDD
13 14 (1.49%) Maven
14 11 (1.17%) SonarQube
15 10 (1.07%) Jaeger
16 7 (0.75%) JMeter
16 7 (0.75%) Snyk
17 6 (0.64%) Artifactory
General
1 251 (26.79%) Finance
2 168 (17.93%) Social Skills
3 123 (13.13%) Banking
4 82 (8.75%) Public Sector
5 76 (8.11%) Analytical Skills
6 46 (4.91%) Front Office
7 35 (3.74%) Investment Banking
8 27 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (2.67%) Financial Institution
10 13 (1.39%) Retail
11 12 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
11 12 (1.28%) Law
11 12 (1.28%) Marketing
12 10 (1.07%) Telecoms
13 9 (0.96%) Publishing
14 7 (0.75%) Automotive
14 7 (0.75%) Corporate Banking
14 7 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 7 (0.75%) Military
15 5 (0.53%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 307 (32.76%) Developer
2 203 (21.66%) Senior
3 159 (16.97%) Data Engineer
4 153 (16.33%) Java Developer
5 119 (12.70%) Lead
6 109 (11.63%) Architect
7 92 (9.82%) Senior Developer
8 90 (9.61%) Software Engineer
9 65 (6.94%) Java Engineer
10 51 (5.44%) AWS Architect
10 51 (5.44%) Senior Java Developer
11 47 (5.02%) DevOps Engineer
12 42 (4.48%) Full-Stack Developer
13 39 (4.16%) Solutions Architect
14 34 (3.63%) Principal Engineer
14 34 (3.63%) Senior Data Engineer
15 33 (3.52%) Developer/Software Engineer
16 31 (3.31%) Data Architect
16 31 (3.31%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 31 (3.31%) Kafka Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 224 (23.91%) Spring
2 208 (22.20%) Spring Boot
3 131 (13.98%) REST
4 120 (12.81%) RESTful
5 114 (12.17%) React
6 100 (10.67%) Node.js
7 85 (9.07%) RabbitMQ
8 58 (6.19%) GraphQL
8 58 (6.19%) OpenTelemetry
9 56 (5.98%) gRPC
10 51 (5.44%) JSON
11 44 (4.70%) Middleware
12 42 (4.48%) Apache Avro
12 42 (4.48%) PySpark
13 40 (4.27%) Redux
14 37 (3.95%) AngularJS
14 37 (3.95%) OAuth
15 34 (3.63%) Swagger
16 33 (3.52%) OpenAPI
17 32 (3.42%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 165 (17.61%) Distributed Systems
2 156 (16.65%) Cloud Native
3 42 (4.48%) Management Information System
4 40 (4.27%) Fixed Income
5 33 (3.52%) Product Ownership
6 26 (2.77%) Data Structures
7 20 (2.13%) Onboarding
8 17 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
9 16 (1.71%) Equities
9 16 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
10 15 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
11 14 (1.49%) Algorithms
11 14 (1.49%) Derivative
12 13 (1.39%) Clustering
13 12 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
14 11 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 11 (1.17%) Hedge funds
14 11 (1.17%) SWIFT Messaging Network
15 10 (1.07%) CMDB
16 9 (0.96%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 94 (10.03%) Linux
2 55 (5.87%) Unix
3 32 (3.42%) Windows
4 8 (0.85%) Mac OS X
5 6 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.64%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.32%) VMS
6 3 (0.32%) zOS
7 2 (0.21%) Debian
7 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.21%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (0.21%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.11%) AIX
8 1 (0.11%) Android
8 1 (0.11%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.11%) CentOS
8 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 425 (45.36%) CI/CD
2 347 (37.03%) Microservices
3 295 (31.48%) Agile
4 285 (30.42%) DevOps
5 254 (27.11%) Event-Driven
6 219 (23.37%) Observability
7 197 (21.02%) Containerisation
8 189 (20.17%) Software Engineering
9 172 (18.36%) Data Pipeline
10 166 (17.72%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 164 (17.50%) Data Modelling
12 163 (17.40%) Infrastructure as Code
13 152 (16.22%) Analytics
14 148 (15.80%) Data Engineering
14 148 (15.80%) Problem-Solving
15 144 (15.37%) Test Automation
16 139 (14.83%) ETL
17 107 (11.42%) Full-Stack Development
18 103 (10.99%) AI
19 96 (10.25%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 423 (45.14%) Java
2 320 (34.15%) Python
3 292 (31.16%) SQL
4 110 (11.74%) TypeScript
5 101 (10.78%) Go
6 91 (9.71%) JavaScript
7 57 (6.08%) C#
8 45 (4.80%) Bash
9 28 (2.99%) Scala
10 20 (2.13%) PowerShell
11 19 (2.03%) Rust
12 16 (1.71%) C++
12 16 (1.71%) Shell Script
13 13 (1.39%) Bicep
14 10 (1.07%) PL/SQL
14 10 (1.07%) Search Processing Language
15 7 (0.75%) Perl
16 6 (0.64%) PHP
17 5 (0.53%) Kotlin
17 5 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 205 (21.88%) Security Cleared
2 160 (17.08%) SC Cleared
3 50 (5.34%) Degree
4 26 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (1.81%) AWS Certification
6 16 (1.71%) DV Cleared
7 14 (1.49%) Azure Certification
7 14 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (1.39%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.75%) SnowPro
10 4 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.21%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.21%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.11%) CISSP
13 1 (0.11%) OCP
13 1 (0.11%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (11.10%) Data Quality
2 49 (5.23%) QA
3 42 (4.48%) GDPR
4 30 (3.20%) Accessibility
5 19 (2.03%) ISO 20022
6 11 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (0.96%) NIST
8 7 (0.75%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.75%) SEPA
9 6 (0.64%) NCSC
10 4 (0.43%) SLA
10 4 (0.43%) WCAG
11 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
12 2 (0.21%) EMIR
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.21%) MiFID
12 2 (0.21%) PSD2
13 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
13 1 (0.11%) NIST 800
13 1 (0.11%) PMO
System Software
1 321 (34.26%) Docker
2 6 (0.64%) etcd
3 3 (0.32%) Apache ZooKeeper
3 3 (0.32%) HDFS
3 3 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.11%) Apache Flume
4 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 367 (39.17%) Kubernetes
2 195 (20.81%) Terraform
3 129 (13.77%) Prometheus
4 128 (13.66%) Grafana
5 59 (6.30%) Ansible
6 27 (2.88%) Argo
7 12 (1.28%) Istio
8 11 (1.17%) Kibana
9 9 (0.96%) Kiali
10 7 (0.75%) Fluentd
10 7 (0.75%) linkerd
10 7 (0.75%) Puppet
11 6 (0.64%) logstash
11 6 (0.64%) Podman
11 6 (0.64%) Rancher
12 5 (0.53%) Kustomize
13 3 (0.32%) NetBackup
14 2 (0.21%) CA Wily
14 2 (0.21%) Sysdig
14 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 91 (9.71%) Databricks
2 77 (8.22%) Splunk
3 67 (7.15%) Oracle
4 43 (4.59%) Microsoft
5 36 (3.84%) Google
6 28 (2.99%) Confluent
7 22 (2.35%) Informatica
8 18 (1.92%) IBM
9 13 (1.39%) Dynatrace
9 13 (1.39%) Red Hat
9 13 (1.39%) Salesforce
10 11 (1.17%) ServiceNow
11 9 (0.96%) Solace
11 9 (0.96%) Talend
12 8 (0.85%) MuleSoft
12 8 (0.85%) VMware
13 7 (0.75%) AppDynamics
13 7 (0.75%) Sybase
14 6 (0.64%) Pega
15 5 (0.53%) Teradata