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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 119 161
Rank change year-on-year -2 +42 -38
Contract jobs citing Kafka 856 712 635
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.22% 2.26% 1.45%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.98% 10.08% 6.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 549 434 502
10th Percentile £363 £376 £413
25th Percentile £416 £469 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £593 £575
Median % change year-on-year -10.55% +3.04% -11.54%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £700
90th Percentile £738 £834 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £475 £524
% change year-on-year -1.53% -9.31% -8.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 4 4
10th Percentile £39.05 £42.53 £47.39
25th Percentile £40.00 £68.22 £58.71
Median hourly rate £68.00 £88.75 £71.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.38% +24.13% -4.67%
75th Percentile £95.00 £93.75 £81.00
90th Percentile £98.00 - £86.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.00 £85.00 £71.50
% change year-on-year -38.82% +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 8,579 7,062 9,207
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.29% 22.43% 21.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,709 4,476 6,516
10th Percentile £356 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £535 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.21% -0.47% -6.52%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £772 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 213 89 188
10th Percentile £35.00 £24.47 £25.93
25th Percentile £50.00 £38.50 £46.18
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - +13.64% -15.38%
75th Percentile £69.25 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.90 £77.45 £76.82
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year - +18.18% -15.38%

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 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 29 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 29 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 -11 748 £550 -10.20% 249
London -7 495 £600 -4.76% 115
Work from Home +22 305 £575 -4.17% 180
UK excluding London -23 227 £468 -1.53% 195
North of England -31 101 £500 -9.09% 36
South East -6 53 £433 -17.62% 86
North West -21 49 £449 -14.57% 25
Yorkshire -25 45 £586 -16.25% 6
Midlands -32 39 £500 +40.45% 7
Scotland -1 30 £481 +26.98% 12
West Midlands -20 23 £550 +21.55% 5
South West -4 21 £550 -15.38% 24
East Midlands -18 16 £402 +12.92% 2
North East -7 13 £463 -25.91% 5
East of England -25 1 £450 +41.07% 21

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 81 (9.46%) Apache Spark
2 47 (5.49%) Apache
3 43 (5.02%) Apache Airflow
4 37 (4.32%) Confluence
5 6 (0.70%) Ethereum
5 6 (0.70%) Hyperledger
6 5 (0.58%) Camunda
7 4 (0.47%) CMS
7 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.35%) MQSeries
8 3 (0.35%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.23%) JBoss
9 2 (0.23%) Luigi
9 2 (0.23%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.12%) Apache Pig
10 1 (0.12%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.12%) nginx
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.12%) SAS
10 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (0.47%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.23%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (0.47%) Oracle 11i
2 3 (0.35%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.23%) Actimize
3 2 (0.23%) Bloomberg AIM
3 2 (0.23%) Fidessa
3 2 (0.23%) Shopify
4 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.12%) R3 Corda
4 1 (0.12%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 489 (57.13%) AWS
2 224 (26.17%) Azure
3 158 (18.46%) GitHub
4 132 (15.42%) GCP
5 123 (14.37%) Serverless
6 111 (12.97%) GitHub Actions
7 99 (11.57%) Amazon S3
8 91 (10.63%) AWS Lambda
9 68 (7.94%) Amazon EKS
9 68 (7.94%) AWS CloudFormation
10 45 (5.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 45 (5.26%) Amazon ECS
11 42 (4.91%) Amazon Kinesis
11 42 (4.91%) Amazon SQS
11 42 (4.91%) Power Platform
12 38 (4.44%) OpenShift
13 37 (4.32%) Azure DevOps
14 36 (4.21%) Azure Data Factory
15 32 (3.74%) Amazon EC2
16 26 (3.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.64%) Firewall
2 13 (1.52%) HTTP
3 12 (1.40%) DNS
3 12 (1.40%) SSL
4 7 (0.82%) Kerberos
4 7 (0.82%) SSH
5 6 (0.70%) FTP
5 6 (0.70%) SMS
6 5 (0.58%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.35%) VPN
8 2 (0.23%) MQTT
9 1 (0.12%) Broadband
9 1 (0.12%) HTTPS
9 1 (0.12%) Internet
9 1 (0.12%) NAS
9 1 (0.12%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (19.86%) PostgreSQL
2 161 (18.81%) MongoDB
3 132 (15.42%) NoSQL
4 77 (9.00%) Apache Cassandra
5 55 (6.43%) Relational Database
6 50 (5.84%) Amazon RDS
7 46 (5.37%) Data Warehouse
7 46 (5.37%) Elasticsearch
8 44 (5.14%) Big Data
8 44 (5.14%) Redis
9 43 (5.02%) DynamoDB
10 42 (4.91%) SQL Server
11 41 (4.79%) Data Lake
12 32 (3.74%) Amazon Athena
12 32 (3.74%) Power BI
13 30 (3.50%) Amazon Redshift
14 29 (3.39%) MySQL
15 28 (3.27%) Hadoop
16 26 (3.04%) DB2
17 24 (2.80%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 158 (18.46%) Jenkins
2 138 (16.12%) GitLab
3 107 (12.50%) Git
4 83 (9.70%) JUnit
5 59 (6.89%) JIRA
6 41 (4.79%) Mockito
7 25 (2.92%) JMeter
8 24 (2.80%) Cucumber
8 24 (2.80%) Sonatype Nexus
9 21 (2.45%) Gradle
10 16 (1.87%) Gatling
11 14 (1.64%) Maven
12 11 (1.29%) Selenium
13 10 (1.17%) Artifactory
13 10 (1.17%) CircleCI
14 9 (1.05%) Jaeger
14 9 (1.05%) SoapUI
14 9 (1.05%) SonarQube
15 8 (0.93%) Postman
16 7 (0.82%) REST Assured
General
1 228 (26.64%) Finance
2 206 (24.07%) Social Skills
3 125 (14.60%) Banking
4 77 (9.00%) Analytical Skills
5 68 (7.94%) Public Sector
6 49 (5.72%) Investment Banking
7 24 (2.80%) Front Office
8 18 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (1.64%) Financial Institution
10 10 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (1.05%) Marketing
12 7 (0.82%) Retail
13 5 (0.58%) Aerospace
13 5 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.58%) Law
14 3 (0.35%) Legal
14 3 (0.35%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.35%) Military
14 3 (0.35%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.23%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 327 (38.20%) Developer
2 256 (29.91%) Senior
3 188 (21.96%) Java Developer
4 131 (15.30%) Senior Developer
5 104 (12.15%) Data Engineer
6 84 (9.81%) Lead
7 80 (9.35%) Senior Java Developer
8 75 (8.76%) Software Engineer
9 67 (7.83%) Architect
10 58 (6.78%) DevOps Engineer
11 44 (5.14%) Kafka Developer
12 43 (5.02%) Full-Stack Developer
13 42 (4.91%) AWS Engineer
14 39 (4.56%) Kafka Engineer
15 38 (4.44%) AWS Developer
16 32 (3.74%) AWS Architect
16 32 (3.74%) Java Engineer
17 29 (3.39%) Senior Data Engineer
18 28 (3.27%) Platform Engineer
18 28 (3.27%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 210 (24.53%) Spring
2 175 (20.44%) Spring Boot
3 103 (12.03%) REST
4 99 (11.57%) gRPC
5 80 (9.35%) RESTful
6 73 (8.53%) React
7 68 (7.94%) Node.js
7 68 (7.94%) RabbitMQ
8 43 (5.02%) AngularJS
9 37 (4.32%) Middleware
10 33 (3.86%) Hibernate
11 32 (3.74%) JMS
11 32 (3.74%) Keycloak
12 30 (3.50%) ActiveMQ
12 30 (3.50%) PySpark
13 28 (3.27%) .NET
13 28 (3.27%) JSON
14 26 (3.04%) OAuth
15 24 (2.80%) JAX-RS
15 24 (2.80%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 118 (13.79%) Distributed Systems
2 104 (12.15%) Cloud Native
3 43 (5.02%) Management Information System
4 36 (4.21%) Product Ownership
5 30 (3.50%) Equities
6 28 (3.27%) Data Structures
7 23 (2.69%) Derivative
8 21 (2.45%) Replication
9 19 (2.22%) Market Risk
10 16 (1.87%) Fixed Income
11 14 (1.64%) Legacy Applications
12 13 (1.52%) Distributed Computing
13 12 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
14 11 (1.29%) Greenfield Project
14 11 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
14 11 (1.29%) Onboarding
15 8 (0.93%) Algorithms
15 8 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
15 8 (0.93%) Public Cloud
15 8 (0.93%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 158 (18.46%) Linux
2 80 (9.35%) Unix
3 25 (2.92%) Windows
4 13 (1.52%) Mac OS X
5 7 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.58%) AIX
6 5 (0.58%) CentOS
7 3 (0.35%) VMS
8 2 (0.23%) zOS
9 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 366 (42.76%) CI/CD
2 348 (40.65%) Microservices
3 295 (34.46%) Agile
4 252 (29.44%) DevOps
5 217 (25.35%) Software Engineering
6 179 (20.91%) Problem-Solving
7 175 (20.44%) Containerisation
8 165 (19.28%) Event-Driven
9 148 (17.29%) Observability
10 146 (17.06%) Infrastructure as Code
11 127 (14.84%) Test Automation
12 119 (13.90%) Data Pipeline
13 113 (13.20%) Analytics
14 110 (12.85%) Open Source
15 102 (11.92%) TDD
16 97 (11.33%) Data Engineering
17 96 (11.21%) ETL
18 90 (10.51%) Data Modelling
19 89 (10.40%) Event-Driven Architecture
20 83 (9.70%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 409 (47.78%) Java
2 287 (33.53%) Python
3 246 (28.74%) SQL
4 119 (13.90%) Go
5 71 (8.29%) C#
6 62 (7.24%) JavaScript
7 47 (5.49%) Shell Script
8 43 (5.02%) Bash
8 43 (5.02%) C++
9 40 (4.67%) TypeScript
10 30 (3.50%) Scala
11 17 (1.99%) Rust
12 13 (1.52%) PL/SQL
13 10 (1.17%) PowerShell
14 8 (0.93%) Perl
15 7 (0.82%) Korn
16 6 (0.70%) Groovy
16 6 (0.70%) R
17 5 (0.58%) RPG
17 5 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 192 (22.43%) Security Cleared
2 171 (19.98%) SC Cleared
3 39 (4.56%) Degree
4 31 (3.62%) BPSS Clearance
5 28 (3.27%) Azure Certification
6 19 (2.22%) AWS Certification
6 19 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 17 (1.99%) DV Cleared
8 13 (1.52%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.93%) OCP
9 8 (0.93%) Oracle Certification
10 6 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (0.35%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.23%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.23%) CBAP
12 2 (0.23%) CSPO
12 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.23%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.12%) SAFe Agilist
13 1 (0.12%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (8.64%) Data Quality
2 42 (4.91%) QA
3 34 (3.97%) GDPR
4 10 (1.17%) Accessibility
4 10 (1.17%) NCSC
5 9 (1.05%) ISO 20022
6 7 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.70%) NIST
7 6 (0.70%) PCI DSS
7 6 (0.70%) SEPA
8 5 (0.58%) SLA
9 3 (0.35%) Def Stans
9 3 (0.35%) HL7
9 3 (0.35%) WCAG
10 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.23%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.23%) ISO 8583
10 2 (0.23%) MiFID
10 2 (0.23%) PSD2
11 1 (0.12%) JSP 440
System Software
1 313 (36.57%) Docker
2 8 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.47%) HDFS
4 3 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.23%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.23%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 346 (40.42%) Kubernetes
2 204 (23.83%) Terraform
3 103 (12.03%) Grafana
4 86 (10.05%) Prometheus
5 65 (7.59%) Ansible
6 29 (3.39%) Argo
7 15 (1.75%) Progress Chef
8 9 (1.05%) Kiali
9 8 (0.93%) Istio
9 8 (0.93%) Packer
10 7 (0.82%) linkerd
10 7 (0.82%) logstash
11 6 (0.70%) Puppet
12 5 (0.58%) Rancher
13 4 (0.47%) Fluentd
13 4 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
13 4 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
14 3 (0.35%) Hadoop YARN
15 2 (0.23%) Kibana
15 2 (0.23%) QRadar
Vendors
1 77 (9.00%) Oracle
2 59 (6.89%) Databricks
3 58 (6.78%) Splunk
4 35 (4.09%) Confluent
5 33 (3.86%) Google
6 31 (3.62%) Microsoft
7 28 (3.27%) IBM
8 24 (2.80%) VMware
9 22 (2.57%) Sybase
10 18 (2.10%) Dynatrace
11 14 (1.64%) Informatica
12 13 (1.52%) Cloudera
13 11 (1.29%) Red Hat
14 9 (1.05%) ServiceNow
15 8 (0.93%) Foundry
15 8 (0.93%) Palantir
15 8 (0.93%) SAP
16 7 (0.82%) Atlassian
17 6 (0.70%) PagerDuty
17 6 (0.70%) Talend