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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 142 96 148
Rank change year-on-year -46 +52 -2
Contract jobs citing Kafka 970 807 707
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.88% 2.58% 1.63%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.68% 11.32% 7.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 573 522 508
10th Percentile £380 £400 £400
25th Percentile £425 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £556
Median % change year-on-year - -1.12% -14.42%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £700
90th Percentile £800 £833 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £470 £493
% change year-on-year +2.39% -4.67% -17.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 5 9
10th Percentile £56.60 £44.75 £22.55
25th Percentile £64.25 £53.00 £27.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £62.50 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +123.21% -64.10%
75th Percentile £90.00 £78.70 £38.75
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.73 £45.95
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 10,024 7,127 9,317
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.46% 22.79% 21.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,578 4,824 6,384
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 278 146 280
10th Percentile £30.00 £28.29 £22.50
25th Percentile £51.25 £35.00 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £74.82 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.51 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £58.30
% change year-on-year +4.00% +7.20% -6.72%

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 3 July 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 3 July 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 3 July 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 -44 838 £550 - 271
London -33 510 £588 -7.66% 173
UK excluding London -50 344 £481 +2.39% 129
Work from Home -53 272 £575 - 114
North of England -29 163 £449 -4.37% 37
Yorkshire -10 74 £465 -15.45% 10
North West -33 74 £430 -8.42% 22
South East -40 56 £513 +17.82% 37
Scotland -17 47 £450 -4.76% 10
Midlands -59 40 £500 +11.11% 16
South West -13 27 £500 -9.09% 20
North East -19 24 £425 -8.11% 6
West Midlands -59 24 £500 - 8
East of England -15 17 £550 +10.00% 4
East Midlands -14 16 £459 +28.43% 8
Northern Ireland -2 2 - - 4
Wales -17 2 £313 - 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
1 131 (13.51%) Apache Spark
2 67 (6.91%) Apache
3 58 (5.98%) Apache Airflow
4 16 (1.65%) Confluence
5 7 (0.72%) Camunda
6 6 (0.62%) Ethereum
6 6 (0.62%) Hyperledger
7 5 (0.52%) Apache Pulsar
7 5 (0.52%) WebSphere
8 4 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.21%) CMS
9 2 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Pig
Applications
1 8 (0.82%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.21%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.10%) Maya
Business Applications
1 4 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.31%) Bloomberg AIM
2 3 (0.31%) Fidessa
3 2 (0.21%) Endur
3 2 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.10%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.10%) R3 Corda
4 1 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 569 (58.66%) AWS
2 292 (30.10%) Azure
3 186 (19.18%) GCP
4 134 (13.81%) GitHub
5 116 (11.96%) Serverless
6 98 (10.10%) GitHub Actions
7 91 (9.38%) AWS Lambda
8 88 (9.07%) Amazon S3
9 68 (7.01%) OpenShift
10 61 (6.29%) Amazon EKS
10 61 (6.29%) Azure DevOps
11 59 (6.08%) Snowflake
12 51 (5.26%) Power Platform
13 46 (4.74%) Amazon ECS
14 45 (4.64%) dbt
15 41 (4.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 38 (3.92%) Amazon SQS
16 38 (3.92%) AWS CloudFormation
17 29 (2.99%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 27 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.55%) HTTP
2 12 (1.24%) Firewall
3 10 (1.03%) Network Security
4 7 (0.72%) MQTT
4 7 (0.72%) SSL
5 6 (0.62%) DNS
6 5 (0.52%) NAS
6 5 (0.52%) SAN
7 4 (0.41%) Internet
8 3 (0.31%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.21%) NaaS
9 2 (0.21%) OpenVPN
9 2 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.21%) SMS
9 2 (0.21%) WAN
10 1 (0.10%) 4G
10 1 (0.10%) 5G
10 1 (0.10%) FIX Connectivity
10 1 (0.10%) MIMO
10 1 (0.10%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 179 (18.45%) PostgreSQL
2 161 (16.60%) MongoDB
3 129 (13.30%) NoSQL
4 101 (10.41%) Relational Database
5 66 (6.80%) Big Data
6 62 (6.39%) Data Warehouse
7 57 (5.88%) SQL Server
8 52 (5.36%) Data Lake
9 43 (4.43%) Power BI
10 42 (4.33%) Elasticsearch
11 40 (4.12%) Redis
12 37 (3.81%) Apache Cassandra
13 36 (3.71%) Hadoop
14 35 (3.61%) Flink
14 35 (3.61%) MySQL
15 31 (3.20%) BigQuery
15 31 (3.20%) DynamoDB
16 29 (2.99%) Metadata
17 26 (2.68%) Amazon Athena
18 25 (2.58%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 159 (16.39%) Jenkins
2 129 (13.30%) Git
3 120 (12.37%) GitLab
4 71 (7.32%) JUnit
5 55 (5.67%) Mockito
6 45 (4.64%) JIRA
7 35 (3.61%) Gradle
8 31 (3.20%) Selenium
9 25 (2.58%) Cucumber
10 23 (2.37%) REST Assured
11 18 (1.86%) Gatling
12 17 (1.75%) Liquibase
12 17 (1.75%) Postman
13 16 (1.65%) Maven
14 15 (1.55%) Serenity BDD
15 14 (1.44%) SonarQube
16 7 (0.72%) Cypress.io
16 7 (0.72%) JMeter
17 6 (0.62%) Snyk
18 5 (0.52%) Claude Code
General
1 262 (27.01%) Finance
2 183 (18.87%) Social Skills
3 129 (13.30%) Banking
4 95 (9.79%) Public Sector
5 85 (8.76%) Analytical Skills
6 48 (4.95%) Front Office
7 36 (3.71%) Investment Banking
8 27 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
9 24 (2.47%) Retail
10 20 (2.06%) Financial Institution
11 14 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.44%) Law
12 10 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.03%) Telecoms
13 9 (0.93%) Publishing
14 8 (0.82%) Marketing
14 8 (0.82%) Military
15 7 (0.72%) Automotive
15 7 (0.72%) Retail Banking
16 6 (0.62%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 317 (32.68%) Developer
2 195 (20.10%) Senior
3 164 (16.91%) Java Developer
4 150 (15.46%) Data Engineer
5 121 (12.47%) Architect
6 115 (11.86%) Lead
7 99 (10.21%) Software Engineer
8 83 (8.56%) Senior Developer
9 76 (7.84%) Java Engineer
10 51 (5.26%) Senior Java Developer
11 50 (5.15%) AWS Architect
12 49 (5.05%) Solutions Architect
13 39 (4.02%) DevOps Engineer
13 39 (4.02%) Full-Stack Developer
14 36 (3.71%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 33 (3.40%) Lead Developer
16 32 (3.30%) Java Software Engineer
16 32 (3.30%) Kafka Engineer
17 31 (3.20%) Principal Engineer
18 30 (3.09%) Senior Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 246 (25.36%) Spring
2 232 (23.92%) Spring Boot
3 143 (14.74%) REST
4 131 (13.51%) React
5 130 (13.40%) RESTful
6 104 (10.72%) RabbitMQ
7 86 (8.87%) Node.js
8 66 (6.80%) GraphQL
9 57 (5.88%) JSON
10 52 (5.36%) OpenTelemetry
10 52 (5.36%) Redux
11 40 (4.12%) gRPC
12 39 (4.02%) AngularJS
13 37 (3.81%) Swagger
14 36 (3.71%) Middleware
14 36 (3.71%) OAuth
14 36 (3.71%) OpenAPI
15 34 (3.51%) Apache Avro
15 34 (3.51%) PySpark
16 30 (3.09%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 187 (19.28%) Distributed Systems
2 174 (17.94%) Cloud Native
3 39 (4.02%) Fixed Income
4 37 (3.81%) Data Structures
4 37 (3.81%) Product Ownership
5 32 (3.30%) Management Information System
6 27 (2.78%) Algorithms
6 27 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
7 23 (2.37%) Onboarding
8 20 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
9 17 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
10 16 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
11 15 (1.55%) Equities
11 15 (1.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 14 (1.44%) Clustering
12 14 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.44%) Public Cloud
13 13 (1.34%) Derivative
14 12 (1.24%) Virtual Team
15 11 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 95 (9.79%) Linux
2 53 (5.46%) Unix
3 25 (2.58%) Windows
4 10 (1.03%) Mac OS X
5 7 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.52%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.31%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.21%) Android
8 2 (0.21%) Debian
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.21%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 2 (0.21%) VMS
8 2 (0.21%) zOS
9 1 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.10%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 447 (46.08%) CI/CD
2 361 (37.22%) Microservices
3 326 (33.61%) Agile
4 298 (30.72%) Event-Driven
5 296 (30.52%) DevOps
6 217 (22.37%) Observability
7 208 (21.44%) Containerisation
8 199 (20.52%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 190 (19.59%) Software Engineering
10 185 (19.07%) Data Pipeline
11 158 (16.29%) Test Automation
12 156 (16.08%) Problem-Solving
13 155 (15.98%) Infrastructure as Code
14 154 (15.88%) Data Modelling
15 150 (15.46%) Analytics
16 145 (14.95%) Data Engineering
17 144 (14.85%) ETL
18 137 (14.12%) AI
19 115 (11.86%) TDD
20 104 (10.72%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 452 (46.60%) Java
2 341 (35.15%) Python
3 301 (31.03%) SQL
4 120 (12.37%) TypeScript
5 84 (8.66%) Go
5 84 (8.66%) JavaScript
6 56 (5.77%) C#
7 50 (5.15%) Bash
8 34 (3.51%) Scala
9 26 (2.68%) PowerShell
10 16 (1.65%) PL/SQL
11 15 (1.55%) Rust
12 14 (1.44%) Kotlin
12 14 (1.44%) Shell Script
13 12 (1.24%) C++
14 11 (1.13%) Bicep
15 10 (1.03%) Groovy
15 10 (1.03%) Search Processing Language
16 7 (0.72%) PHP
17 6 (0.62%) Perl
Qualifications
1 208 (21.44%) Security Cleared
2 162 (16.70%) SC Cleared
3 49 (5.05%) Degree
4 28 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (1.96%) AWS Certification
6 18 (1.86%) DV Cleared
7 17 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (1.34%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 8 (0.82%) Azure Certification
10 7 (0.72%) SnowPro
11 3 (0.31%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.31%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.21%) PhD
12 2 (0.21%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.10%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
13 1 (0.10%) CISSP
13 1 (0.10%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (10.52%) Data Quality
2 51 (5.26%) QA
3 39 (4.02%) Accessibility
4 38 (3.92%) GDPR
5 16 (1.65%) ISO 20022
6 8 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 7 (0.72%) SEPA
8 6 (0.62%) NIST
9 5 (0.52%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.31%) WCAG
11 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.21%) EMIR
11 2 (0.21%) IFRS
11 2 (0.21%) IFRS 17
11 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
11 2 (0.21%) MiFID
11 2 (0.21%) NCSC
11 2 (0.21%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.10%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 1 (0.10%) PMO
System Software
1 318 (32.78%) Docker
2 6 (0.62%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 6 (0.62%) etcd
3 2 (0.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.10%) Apache Flume
4 1 (0.10%) HDFS
4 1 (0.10%) OpenSSH
4 1 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 389 (40.10%) Kubernetes
2 193 (19.90%) Terraform
3 119 (12.27%) Prometheus
4 115 (11.86%) Grafana
5 60 (6.19%) Ansible
6 18 (1.86%) Argo
7 10 (1.03%) Control-M
7 10 (1.03%) Kibana
8 9 (0.93%) Istio
8 9 (0.93%) Puppet
9 8 (0.82%) Podman
10 7 (0.72%) Fluentd
11 6 (0.62%) Kustomize
12 5 (0.52%) logstash
12 5 (0.52%) Rancher
13 3 (0.31%) Kiali
13 3 (0.31%) NetBackup
14 2 (0.21%) linkerd
14 2 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
14 2 (0.21%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 79 (8.14%) Databricks
2 68 (7.01%) Oracle
3 62 (6.39%) Splunk
4 42 (4.33%) Microsoft
5 41 (4.23%) Google
6 26 (2.68%) Informatica
7 23 (2.37%) Confluent
8 16 (1.65%) Dynatrace
8 16 (1.65%) IBM
9 14 (1.44%) Solace
10 13 (1.34%) Salesforce
11 10 (1.03%) MuleSoft
11 10 (1.03%) OpenAI
12 9 (0.93%) Sybase
12 9 (0.93%) Talend
13 8 (0.82%) Red Hat
13 8 (0.82%) SAP
13 8 (0.82%) ServiceNow
14 6 (0.62%) AppDynamics
14 6 (0.62%) Pega