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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 96 146
Rank change year-on-year -48 +50 +1
Contract jobs citing Kafka 970 800 710
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.88% 2.58% 1.64%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.67% 11.35% 7.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 574 519 511
10th Percentile £380 £400 £400
25th Percentile £425 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -15.38%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £700
90th Percentile £800 £834 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £470 £493
% change year-on-year +1.06% -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 10,030 7,048 9,315
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.49% 22.76% 21.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,577 4,774 6,384
10th Percentile £363 £352 £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 £765 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 280 144 279
10th Percentile £30.00 £27.97 £22.70
25th Percentile £51.25 £37.10 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £74.45 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.71 £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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -39 840 £550 - 278
London -27 514 £588 -7.48% 183
UK excluding London -61 341 £475 +1.06% 126
Work from Home -55 272 £575 - 116
North of England -25 163 £447 -4.69% 34
Yorkshire -3 74 £465 -15.45% 5
North West -40 74 £430 -8.42% 23
South East -38 56 £513 +17.82% 35
Scotland -20 46 £450 -4.76% 11
Midlands -48 39 £500 +11.11% 15
South West -21 26 £500 -9.09% 21
North East -12 24 £425 -8.11% 6
West Midlands -56 23 £500 - 8
East of England -13 17 £550 +10.00% 5
East Midlands -18 16 £459 +28.43% 7
Northern Ireland -4 2 - - 4
Wales -12 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
1 130 (13.40%) 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%) 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%) JBoss
10 1 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
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
1 567 (58.45%) AWS
2 290 (29.90%) Azure
3 184 (18.97%) GCP
4 134 (13.81%) GitHub
5 117 (12.06%) Serverless
6 98 (10.10%) GitHub Actions
7 91 (9.38%) AWS Lambda
8 90 (9.28%) Amazon S3
9 68 (7.01%) OpenShift
10 62 (6.39%) Amazon EKS
11 60 (6.19%) Azure DevOps
12 59 (6.08%) Snowflake
13 51 (5.26%) Power Platform
14 45 (4.64%) Amazon ECS
14 45 (4.64%) dbt
15 41 (4.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 38 (3.92%) AWS CloudFormation
17 37 (3.81%) Amazon SQS
18 28 (2.89%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 27 (2.78%) Amazon Kinesis
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%) SMS
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%) 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
3 127 (13.09%) NoSQL
4 101 (10.41%) Relational Database
5 65 (6.70%) Big Data
6 62 (6.39%) Data Warehouse
7 58 (5.98%) SQL Server
8 52 (5.36%) Data Lake
9 42 (4.33%) Elasticsearch
9 42 (4.33%) Power BI
10 40 (4.12%) Redis
11 36 (3.71%) Apache Cassandra
12 35 (3.61%) Flink
12 35 (3.61%) MySQL
13 34 (3.51%) Hadoop
14 31 (3.20%) BigQuery
14 31 (3.20%) DynamoDB
15 29 (2.99%) Metadata
16 27 (2.78%) Amazon Athena
17 25 (2.58%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 159 (16.39%) Jenkins
2 129 (13.30%) Git
3 120 (12.37%) GitLab
4 70 (7.22%) 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%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 264 (27.22%) Finance
2 182 (18.76%) Social Skills
3 130 (13.40%) 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 23 (2.37%) Retail
10 21 (2.16%) 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%) Marketing
13 9 (0.93%) Publishing
14 8 (0.82%) Military
15 7 (0.72%) Automotive
15 7 (0.72%) Corporate Banking
15 7 (0.72%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 315 (32.47%) Developer
2 195 (20.10%) Senior
3 163 (16.80%) Java Developer
4 152 (15.67%) Data Engineer
5 119 (12.27%) Architect
6 116 (11.96%) Lead
7 99 (10.21%) Software Engineer
8 82 (8.45%) Senior Developer
9 77 (7.94%) Java Engineer
10 51 (5.26%) AWS Architect
10 51 (5.26%) Senior Java Developer
11 47 (4.85%) Solutions Architect
12 39 (4.02%) DevOps Engineer
13 38 (3.92%) Full-Stack Developer
14 36 (3.71%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 33 (3.40%) Lead Developer
16 32 (3.30%) Java Software Engineer
17 31 (3.20%) Kafka Engineer
17 31 (3.20%) Principal Engineer
18 30 (3.09%) Senior Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (25.15%) Spring
2 233 (24.02%) Spring Boot
3 143 (14.74%) REST
4 130 (13.40%) React
4 130 (13.40%) RESTful
5 103 (10.62%) RabbitMQ
6 85 (8.76%) Node.js
7 65 (6.70%) GraphQL
8 57 (5.88%) JSON
9 53 (5.46%) OpenTelemetry
10 52 (5.36%) Redux
11 40 (4.12%) gRPC
12 38 (3.92%) AngularJS
12 38 (3.92%) Middleware
13 37 (3.81%) Swagger
14 36 (3.71%) OAuth
14 36 (3.71%) OpenAPI
15 35 (3.61%) Apache Avro
16 34 (3.51%) PySpark
17 30 (3.09%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 187 (19.28%) Distributed Systems
2 172 (17.73%) Cloud Native
3 39 (4.02%) Fixed Income
4 37 (3.81%) Data Structures
4 37 (3.81%) Product Ownership
5 33 (3.40%) Management Information System
6 27 (2.78%) Algorithms
6 27 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
7 24 (2.47%) 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 96 (9.90%) Linux
2 54 (5.57%) 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
1 445 (45.88%) CI/CD
2 360 (37.11%) Microservices
3 325 (33.51%) Agile
4 297 (30.62%) Event-Driven
5 296 (30.52%) DevOps
6 217 (22.37%) Observability
7 209 (21.55%) Containerisation
8 200 (20.62%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 190 (19.59%) Software Engineering
10 184 (18.97%) Data Pipeline
11 157 (16.19%) Test Automation
12 156 (16.08%) Problem-Solving
13 155 (15.98%) Data Modelling
14 154 (15.88%) Infrastructure as Code
15 149 (15.36%) Analytics
16 145 (14.95%) Data Engineering
17 144 (14.85%) ETL
18 136 (14.02%) AI
19 116 (11.96%) TDD
20 104 (10.72%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 450 (46.39%) Java
2 340 (35.05%) Python
3 299 (30.82%) SQL
4 119 (12.27%) TypeScript
5 83 (8.56%) Go
5 83 (8.56%) JavaScript
6 56 (5.77%) C#
7 50 (5.15%) Bash
8 32 (3.30%) Scala
9 25 (2.58%) PowerShell
10 17 (1.75%) PL/SQL
11 16 (1.65%) Rust
12 14 (1.44%) Kotlin
12 14 (1.44%) Shell Script
13 12 (1.24%) C++
14 10 (1.03%) Bicep
14 10 (1.03%) Groovy
14 10 (1.03%) Search Processing Language
15 7 (0.72%) PHP
16 6 (0.62%) Perl
Qualifications
1 208 (21.44%) Security Cleared
2 162 (16.70%) SC Cleared
3 50 (5.15%) 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%) Microsoft 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 7 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (0.72%) SEPA
7 6 (0.62%) NIST
8 5 (0.52%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.31%) WCAG
10 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.21%) EMIR
10 2 (0.21%) IFRS
10 2 (0.21%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.21%) MiFID
10 2 (0.21%) NCSC
10 2 (0.21%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.10%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.10%) PMO
System Software
1 319 (32.89%) 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
1 390 (40.21%) Kubernetes
2 193 (19.90%) Terraform
3 120 (12.37%) Prometheus
4 116 (11.96%) 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 4 (0.41%) Kiali
14 3 (0.31%) NetBackup
15 2 (0.21%) CA Wily
15 2 (0.21%) linkerd
15 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 79 (8.14%) Databricks
2 68 (7.01%) Oracle
3 63 (6.49%) Splunk
4 40 (4.12%) Google
4 40 (4.12%) Microsoft
5 25 (2.58%) Informatica
6 24 (2.47%) Confluent
7 17 (1.75%) IBM
8 16 (1.65%) Dynatrace
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%) ServiceNow
14 7 (0.72%) SAP
15 6 (0.62%) AppDynamics
15 6 (0.62%) Pega