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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 109 164
Rank change year-on-year -22 +55 -25
Contract jobs citing Kafka 938 734 622
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.98% 2.51% 1.43%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.91% 11.05% 6.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 577 484 452
10th Percentile £363 £400 £390
25th Percentile £413 £463 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £565 £536
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% +5.36% -17.50%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £475 £485
% change year-on-year -2.37% -2.06% -9.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 4 6
10th Percentile £40.00 £51.09 £22.24
25th Percentile £64.00 £68.84 £23.81
Median hourly rate £70.00 £85.60 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.22% +171.75% -58.82%
75th Percentile £87.25 £93.75 £38.94
90th Percentile £91.50 - £54.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.72 £78.70 £31.50
% change year-on-year -11.41% +149.84% -59.62%

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 9,463 6,644 8,947
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 20.03% 22.70% 20.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,271 4,556 6,208
10th Percentile £358 £363 £338
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -1.23% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £650 £650
90th Percentile £728 £780 £771
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 112 233
10th Percentile £35.00 £27.14 £21.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £48.25 £40.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year - +40.75% -28.95%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.40 £82.87 £74.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year - +36.84% -25.78%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 £530 -9.40% 185
London -15 511 £600 -7.69% 107
Work from Home -9 318 £600 -4.00% 77
UK excluding London -35 292 £464 -2.37% 109
North of England -48 124 £455 -13.33% 30
Yorkshire -20 62 £458 -32.22% 6
South East -28 54 £441 -13.27% 35
North West -52 52 £453 -9.50% 18
Midlands -43 50 £500 +25.31% 11
Scotland -12 34 £450 -4.26% 8
South West -9 30 £550 +7.32% 16
West Midlands -39 28 £523 -5.00% 5
East Midlands -20 22 £425 +18.72% 6
North East -14 16 £450 -3.23% 6
East of England -23 13 £525 +65.00% 7
Wales -8 1 £250 - 1

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 (13.86%) Apache Spark
2 66 (7.04%) Apache
3 48 (5.12%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (2.45%) Confluence
5 6 (0.64%) Camunda
5 6 (0.64%) Ethereum
5 6 (0.64%) Hyperledger
6 5 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.53%) MQSeries
6 5 (0.53%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.53%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
8 2 (0.21%) Apache Pulsar
8 2 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.21%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.32%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.21%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.21%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.11%) Maya
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.11%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (0.43%) Bloomberg AIM
1 4 (0.43%) Fidessa
2 3 (0.32%) Oracle 11i
2 3 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.21%) Actimize
3 2 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 2 (0.21%) Shopify
3 2 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 562 (59.91%) AWS
2 276 (29.42%) Azure
3 164 (17.48%) GCP
4 151 (16.10%) GitHub
5 121 (12.90%) Serverless
6 110 (11.73%) Amazon S3
7 109 (11.62%) GitHub Actions
8 90 (9.59%) AWS Lambda
9 77 (8.21%) Amazon EKS
10 66 (7.04%) OpenShift
11 65 (6.93%) Power Platform
12 64 (6.82%) AWS CloudFormation
13 63 (6.72%) Azure DevOps
14 50 (5.33%) Amazon ECS
15 48 (5.12%) Snowflake
16 43 (4.58%) Amazon SQS
17 42 (4.48%) Amazon Kinesis
18 40 (4.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 38 (4.05%) Azure Data Factory
20 36 (3.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.13%) Firewall
2 17 (1.81%) HTTP
3 13 (1.39%) SSL
4 9 (0.96%) DNS
5 6 (0.64%) SMS
6 5 (0.53%) FTP
6 5 (0.53%) SSH
6 5 (0.53%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.32%) VPN
8 2 (0.21%) Kerberos
8 2 (0.21%) NaaS
8 2 (0.21%) OpenVPN
8 2 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.21%) WAN
9 1 (0.11%) 4G
9 1 (0.11%) 5G
9 1 (0.11%) Internet
9 1 (0.11%) MQTT
9 1 (0.11%) Network Security
9 1 (0.11%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 193 (20.58%) PostgreSQL
2 133 (14.18%) MongoDB
3 122 (13.01%) NoSQL
4 74 (7.89%) Relational Database
5 60 (6.40%) Apache Cassandra
5 60 (6.40%) Big Data
6 58 (6.18%) Data Warehouse
7 57 (6.08%) Data Lake
8 52 (5.54%) Power BI
8 52 (5.54%) SQL Server
9 49 (5.22%) Elasticsearch
10 48 (5.12%) Redis
11 42 (4.48%) Flink
12 41 (4.37%) DynamoDB
13 36 (3.84%) Amazon Athena
13 36 (3.84%) Hadoop
14 34 (3.62%) Amazon Redshift
15 33 (3.52%) Metadata
16 32 (3.41%) Amazon RDS
16 32 (3.41%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 142 (15.14%) Jenkins
2 128 (13.65%) GitLab
3 118 (12.58%) Git
4 64 (6.82%) JUnit
5 56 (5.97%) JIRA
6 40 (4.26%) Mockito
7 23 (2.45%) Cucumber
8 21 (2.24%) Gradle
9 13 (1.39%) Gatling
9 13 (1.39%) Selenium
10 12 (1.28%) JMeter
10 12 (1.28%) REST Assured
11 11 (1.17%) Maven
12 10 (1.07%) Jaeger
12 10 (1.07%) Liquibase
12 10 (1.07%) Postman
13 9 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.85%) Artifactory
14 8 (0.85%) CircleCI
15 6 (0.64%) SoapUI
General
1 268 (28.57%) Finance
2 181 (19.30%) Social Skills
3 115 (12.26%) Banking
4 76 (8.10%) Analytical Skills
5 75 (8.00%) Public Sector
6 49 (5.22%) Front Office
7 30 (3.20%) Investment Banking
8 28 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
9 21 (2.24%) Financial Institution
10 12 (1.28%) Telecoms
11 10 (1.07%) Marketing
12 9 (0.96%) Law
12 9 (0.96%) Retail
13 8 (0.85%) Publishing
14 7 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (0.64%) Automotive
16 5 (0.53%) Corporate Banking
16 5 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 4 (0.43%) Billing
17 4 (0.43%) Military
Job Titles
1 333 (35.50%) Developer
2 219 (23.35%) Senior
3 158 (16.84%) Java Developer
4 155 (16.52%) Data Engineer
5 114 (12.15%) Lead
6 108 (11.51%) Architect
7 103 (10.98%) Senior Developer
8 88 (9.38%) Software Engineer
9 57 (6.08%) Java Engineer
10 53 (5.65%) AWS Architect
11 51 (5.44%) Senior Java Developer
12 49 (5.22%) Full-Stack Developer
13 45 (4.80%) DevOps Engineer
14 39 (4.16%) Solutions Architect
15 37 (3.94%) AWS Engineer
16 35 (3.73%) Kafka Developer
17 34 (3.62%) Senior Data Engineer
18 33 (3.52%) Developer/Software Engineer
19 32 (3.41%) Full-Stack Engineer
20 31 (3.30%) Kafka Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (22.81%) Spring
2 193 (20.58%) Spring Boot
3 120 (12.79%) REST
4 112 (11.94%) Node.js
5 109 (11.62%) RESTful
6 105 (11.19%) React
7 76 (8.10%) RabbitMQ
8 71 (7.57%) gRPC
9 54 (5.76%) OpenTelemetry
10 49 (5.22%) JSON
11 48 (5.12%) GraphQL
12 43 (4.58%) Middleware
13 42 (4.48%) PySpark
14 40 (4.26%) Apache Avro
15 39 (4.16%) AngularJS
16 38 (4.05%) Redux
17 35 (3.73%) OAuth
18 30 (3.20%) OAuth2
19 29 (3.09%) WireMock
20 28 (2.99%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 156 (16.63%) Distributed Systems
2 140 (14.93%) Cloud Native
3 50 (5.33%) Management Information System
4 48 (5.12%) Fixed Income
5 34 (3.62%) Product Ownership
6 23 (2.45%) Data Structures
7 21 (2.24%) Equities
7 21 (2.24%) Onboarding
8 20 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
9 17 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (1.60%) Derivative
10 15 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
11 14 (1.49%) Algorithms
12 12 (1.28%) Clustering
12 12 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (1.17%) Replication
14 10 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 10 (1.07%) Hedge funds
14 10 (1.07%) Market Risk
14 10 (1.07%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 113 (12.05%) Linux
2 58 (6.18%) Unix
3 36 (3.84%) Windows
4 9 (0.96%) Mac OS X
5 5 (0.53%) AIX
6 4 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.43%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.32%) VMS
7 3 (0.32%) zOS
8 2 (0.21%) Debian
8 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.21%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.11%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 421 (44.88%) CI/CD
2 326 (34.75%) Microservices
3 309 (32.94%) Agile
4 280 (29.85%) DevOps
5 229 (24.41%) Event-Driven
6 202 (21.54%) Observability
6 202 (21.54%) Software Engineering
7 199 (21.22%) Containerisation
8 174 (18.55%) Data Pipeline
9 163 (17.38%) Analytics
10 160 (17.06%) Infrastructure as Code
11 159 (16.95%) Data Modelling
12 158 (16.84%) Problem-Solving
13 153 (16.31%) Data Engineering
14 148 (15.78%) Event-Driven Architecture
15 144 (15.35%) ETL
16 136 (14.50%) Test Automation
17 116 (12.37%) Full-Stack Development
18 103 (10.98%) Data Governance
19 95 (10.13%) AI
Programming Languages
1 433 (46.16%) Java
2 336 (35.82%) Python
3 278 (29.64%) SQL
4 113 (12.05%) Go
5 102 (10.87%) TypeScript
6 98 (10.45%) JavaScript
7 61 (6.50%) C#
8 43 (4.58%) Bash
9 32 (3.41%) Scala
10 20 (2.13%) PowerShell
11 18 (1.92%) C++
11 18 (1.92%) Rust
11 18 (1.92%) Shell Script
12 13 (1.39%) Bicep
13 9 (0.96%) PL/SQL
14 8 (0.85%) Search Processing Language
15 7 (0.75%) Perl
16 6 (0.64%) Groovy
17 5 (0.53%) Korn
17 5 (0.53%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 215 (22.92%) Security Cleared
2 174 (18.55%) SC Cleared
3 46 (4.90%) Degree
4 30 (3.20%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (2.13%) AWS Certification
6 19 (2.03%) Azure Certification
7 16 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
7 16 (1.71%) DV Cleared
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%) OCP
11 3 (0.32%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Certification
13 1 (0.11%) CISSP
13 1 (0.11%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.11%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (11.83%) Data Quality
2 49 (5.22%) QA
3 47 (5.01%) GDPR
4 22 (2.35%) Accessibility
5 14 (1.49%) ISO 20022
6 9 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 9 (0.96%) NIST
7 8 (0.85%) NCSC
8 7 (0.75%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.64%) SEPA
10 4 (0.43%) HL7
10 4 (0.43%) MiFID
10 4 (0.43%) SLA
10 4 (0.43%) WCAG
11 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
12 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.21%) EMIR
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.21%) PSD2
13 1 (0.11%) PMO
System Software
1 321 (34.22%) Docker
2 6 (0.64%) etcd
2 6 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.32%) HDFS
4 1 (0.11%) Apache Flume
4 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 379 (40.41%) Kubernetes
2 198 (21.11%) Terraform
3 119 (12.69%) Grafana
4 114 (12.15%) Prometheus
5 57 (6.08%) Ansible
6 32 (3.41%) Argo
7 10 (1.07%) Istio
7 10 (1.07%) Kibana
8 9 (0.96%) Fluentd
8 9 (0.96%) Kiali
9 8 (0.85%) linkerd
9 8 (0.85%) logstash
10 7 (0.75%) Puppet
10 7 (0.75%) Rancher
11 5 (0.53%) Podman
11 5 (0.53%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.32%) QRadar
13 2 (0.21%) Amdocs OSS
13 2 (0.21%) Sysdig
13 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 91 (9.70%) Databricks
2 72 (7.68%) Splunk
3 69 (7.36%) Oracle
4 50 (5.33%) Microsoft
5 41 (4.37%) Google
6 34 (3.62%) Confluent
7 25 (2.67%) Informatica
8 21 (2.24%) IBM
9 14 (1.49%) Dynatrace
9 14 (1.49%) Red Hat
9 14 (1.49%) VMware
10 12 (1.28%) Talend
11 11 (1.17%) ServiceNow
12 10 (1.07%) Solace
13 9 (0.96%) AppDynamics
13 9 (0.96%) Salesforce
14 8 (0.85%) Pega
15 7 (0.75%) PagerDuty
15 7 (0.75%) SAP
16 6 (0.64%) Bloomberg