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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 142 111 127
Rank change year-on-year -31 +16 +44
Contract jobs citing Kafka 1,126 819 734
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 2.47% 1.95%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.35% 9.48% 7.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 730 532 466
10th Percentile £380 £371 £363
25th Percentile £425 £450 £476
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £724
90th Percentile £761 £750 £810
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £458 £490
% change year-on-year +8.62% -6.53% -18.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 4 5
10th Percentile £51.75 £40.58 £26.04
25th Percentile £67.50 £48.56 £27.00
Median hourly rate £81.00 £59.25 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.71% +111.61% -64.10%
75th Percentile £89.06 £75.31 £38.75
90th Percentile £94.50 £96.13 £68.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £82.25 - £28.00
% change year-on-year - - -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 12,042 8,639 9,307
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.78% 26.02% 24.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,910 5,734 6,017
10th Percentile £377 £358 £355
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £725 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 300 188 169
10th Percentile £29.07 £30.18 £25.56
25th Percentile £50.38 £40.75 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £50.72 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.15% -21.97% +10.11%
75th Percentile £77.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.90 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.47 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +22.67% -15.38% +13.04%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 -35 930 £550 - 121
London -30 570 £575 -4.17% 58
UK excluding London -19 404 £498 +8.62% 80
Work from Home -57 279 £550 -4.35% 76
North of England +1 200 £503 +7.14% 27
Yorkshire +8 93 £501 -12.87% 4
North West -12 87 £550 +24.29% 21
Scotland -21 65 £410 -13.68% 6
South East -64 52 £460 +5.75% 21
Midlands -51 40 £475 -5.00% 5
South West -19 29 £588 +6.82% 19
East of England -3 28 £488 -4.88% 3
North East -18 25 £426 -26.00% 2
West Midlands -45 25 £700 +40.00% 4
East Midlands -12 15 £402 -3.13% 1
Northern Ireland - 4 - -
Wales - 1 £375 - 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
1 132 (11.72%) Apache Spark
2 80 (7.10%) Apache Airflow
3 79 (7.02%) Apache
4 28 (2.49%) Confluence
5 14 (1.24%) Camunda
6 7 (0.62%) nginx
6 7 (0.62%) OpenStack
6 7 (0.62%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 5 (0.44%) Apache Pulsar
7 5 (0.44%) CMS
7 5 (0.44%) SharePoint
8 4 (0.36%) PowerExchange
9 3 (0.27%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.27%) MQSeries
9 3 (0.27%) Mule
9 3 (0.27%) Traefik
10 2 (0.18%) JBoss
10 2 (0.18%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.089%) Apache Pig
11 1 (0.089%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (0.44%) CPLEX
2 3 (0.27%) Mingle
3 2 (0.18%) Gliffy
4 1 (0.089%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.089%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.089%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 3 (0.27%) Finacle
3 3 (0.27%) FLEXCUBE
3 3 (0.27%) Temenos T24
4 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.18%) Endur
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.089%) Actimize
5 1 (0.089%) Distributed Ledger
5 1 (0.089%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.089%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.089%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.089%) SAP IS-U
5 1 (0.089%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 644 (57.19%) AWS
2 412 (36.59%) Azure
3 274 (24.33%) GCP
4 196 (17.41%) GitHub
5 128 (11.37%) GitHub Actions
6 106 (9.41%) Serverless
7 90 (7.99%) Amazon S3
8 87 (7.73%) AWS Lambda
9 84 (7.46%) Amazon EKS
10 78 (6.93%) Snowflake
11 68 (6.04%) Azure DevOps
12 64 (5.68%) OpenShift
13 53 (4.71%) Amazon SQS
14 52 (4.62%) dbt
15 50 (4.44%) Amazon ECS
16 47 (4.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 39 (3.46%) Azure Data Factory
18 36 (3.20%) Power Platform
19 31 (2.75%) AWS CloudFormation
19 31 (2.75%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 32 (2.84%) HTTP
2 25 (2.22%) DNS
3 14 (1.24%) Network Security
4 9 (0.80%) Firewall
4 9 (0.80%) TCP/IP
5 8 (0.71%) MQTT
6 7 (0.62%) SSH
6 7 (0.62%) SSL
7 6 (0.53%) SAN
8 5 (0.44%) 4G
8 5 (0.44%) 5G
9 4 (0.36%) NAS
10 3 (0.27%) Internet
10 3 (0.27%) Reverse Proxy
10 3 (0.27%) VPN
11 2 (0.18%) Broadband
11 2 (0.18%) Kerberos
12 1 (0.089%) FIX Connectivity
12 1 (0.089%) RTP
12 1 (0.089%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 188 (16.70%) PostgreSQL
2 172 (15.28%) MongoDB
3 140 (12.43%) NoSQL
4 95 (8.44%) Relational Database
5 77 (6.84%) Data Warehouse
6 62 (5.51%) SQL Server
7 61 (5.42%) Redis
8 55 (4.88%) MySQL
9 51 (4.53%) Data Lake
10 47 (4.17%) Big Data
11 40 (3.55%) Elasticsearch
12 39 (3.46%) BigQuery
13 37 (3.29%) Flink
14 34 (3.02%) Power BI
15 30 (2.66%) Delta Lake
15 30 (2.66%) Metadata
16 26 (2.31%) Amazon Redshift
17 22 (1.95%) RDBMS
18 21 (1.87%) DynamoDB
18 21 (1.87%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 224 (19.89%) Jenkins
2 202 (17.94%) Git
3 174 (15.45%) GitLab
4 76 (6.75%) JUnit
5 75 (6.66%) Gradle
6 61 (5.42%) Mockito
7 57 (5.06%) Selenium
8 51 (4.53%) Maven
9 49 (4.35%) JIRA
10 40 (3.55%) Cucumber
11 36 (3.20%) SonarQube
12 26 (2.31%) Postman
13 25 (2.22%) REST Assured
14 23 (2.04%) Bitbucket
15 21 (1.87%) JMeter
16 18 (1.60%) Claude Code
17 17 (1.51%) Gatling
18 16 (1.42%) Cypress.io
18 16 (1.42%) LoadRunner
18 16 (1.42%) SoapUI
General
1 291 (25.84%) Finance
2 214 (19.01%) Social Skills
3 199 (17.67%) Banking
4 111 (9.86%) Analytical Skills
5 106 (9.41%) Public Sector
6 42 (3.73%) Retail
7 37 (3.29%) Investment Banking
8 27 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 24 (2.13%) Front Office
10 22 (1.95%) Financial Institution
11 18 (1.60%) Telecoms
12 11 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
12 11 (0.98%) Law
13 10 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.80%) Military
15 8 (0.71%) Billing
16 7 (0.62%) Games
16 7 (0.62%) Marketing
16 7 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
16 7 (0.62%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 332 (29.48%) Developer
2 238 (21.14%) Senior
3 186 (16.52%) Java Developer
4 181 (16.07%) Architect
5 134 (11.90%) Data Engineer
6 100 (8.88%) Lead
7 79 (7.02%) Java Engineer
8 73 (6.48%) Solutions Architect
9 69 (6.13%) Senior Developer
10 65 (5.77%) DevOps Engineer
10 65 (5.77%) Software Engineer
11 50 (4.44%) Full-Stack Developer
12 45 (4.00%) Senior Data Engineer
13 40 (3.55%) Senior Java Developer
14 39 (3.46%) AWS Engineer
15 38 (3.37%) Python Engineer
16 37 (3.29%) Senior Java Engineer
17 36 (3.20%) Test Engineer
18 35 (3.11%) Kafka Engineer
19 34 (3.02%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 315 (27.98%) Spring
2 314 (27.89%) Spring Boot
3 262 (23.27%) REST
4 241 (21.40%) Terraform
5 160 (14.21%) RESTful
6 133 (11.81%) React
7 117 (10.39%) RabbitMQ
8 75 (6.66%) OAuth
9 73 (6.48%) JSON
10 60 (5.33%) HTML
11 59 (5.24%) Node.js
12 56 (4.97%) PySpark
13 50 (4.44%) GraphQL
14 48 (4.26%) SOAP
15 47 (4.17%) .NET
15 47 (4.17%) CSS
15 47 (4.17%) OpenTelemetry
16 46 (4.09%) Middleware
16 46 (4.09%) OAuth2
16 46 (4.09%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 275 (24.42%) Cloud Native
2 247 (21.94%) Distributed Systems
3 77 (6.84%) Product Ownership
4 53 (4.71%) Enterprise Software
5 43 (3.82%) Data Structures
6 38 (3.37%) AI Agents
7 36 (3.20%) Onboarding
8 33 (2.93%) Self-Motivation
9 27 (2.40%) Greenfield Project
9 27 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
9 27 (2.40%) Replication
10 25 (2.22%) Distributed Architecture
10 25 (2.22%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 24 (2.13%) Algorithms
12 21 (1.87%) Public Cloud
13 20 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
14 18 (1.60%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 18 (1.60%) PKI
15 17 (1.51%) Private Cloud
16 14 (1.24%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 146 (12.97%) Linux
2 71 (6.31%) Unix
3 28 (2.49%) Windows
4 12 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (0.62%) macOS
6 5 (0.44%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.36%) CentOS
8 2 (0.18%) Android
8 2 (0.18%) VMS
9 1 (0.089%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.089%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.089%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 644 (57.19%) CI/CD
2 489 (43.43%) Event-Driven
3 474 (42.10%) Microservices
4 412 (36.59%) DevOps
5 408 (36.23%) Agile
6 342 (30.37%) Event-Driven Architecture
7 294 (26.11%) Observability
8 274 (24.33%) Test Automation
9 251 (22.29%) Infrastructure as Code
10 225 (19.98%) Containerisation
11 219 (19.45%) Software Engineering
12 192 (17.05%) AI
13 169 (15.01%) Data Pipeline
14 156 (13.85%) Problem-Solving
15 147 (13.06%) Continuous Improvement
16 146 (12.97%) Data Modelling
16 146 (12.97%) Technical Leadership
17 133 (11.81%) TDD
18 131 (11.63%) ETL
19 126 (11.19%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 509 (45.20%) Java
2 383 (34.01%) Python
3 372 (33.04%) SQL
4 113 (10.04%) JavaScript
5 100 (8.88%) TypeScript
6 89 (7.90%) Bash
7 69 (6.13%) C#
8 54 (4.80%) Go
9 40 (3.55%) Scala
10 34 (3.02%) PowerShell
11 31 (2.75%) PL/SQL
12 28 (2.49%) Shell Script
13 25 (2.22%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.98%) C++
14 11 (0.98%) Groovy
15 8 (0.71%) Bicep
15 8 (0.71%) Kusto Query Language
15 8 (0.71%) Perl
15 8 (0.71%) PHP
16 6 (0.53%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 275 (24.42%) Security Cleared
2 227 (20.16%) SC Cleared
3 68 (6.04%) Degree
4 46 (4.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 44 (3.91%) BPSS Clearance
6 30 (2.66%) DV Cleared
7 17 (1.51%) Azure Certification
8 15 (1.33%) AWS Certification
9 12 (1.07%) Master's Degree
10 11 (0.98%) ISTQB
11 7 (0.62%) DBS Check
11 7 (0.62%) ISEB
11 7 (0.62%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 5 (0.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 5 (0.44%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (0.27%) PhD
13 3 (0.27%) SnowPro
14 2 (0.18%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 1 (0.089%) CISSP
15 1 (0.089%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (8.35%) Data Quality
2 90 (7.99%) QA
3 44 (3.91%) Accessibility
4 32 (2.84%) ISO 20022
5 20 (1.78%) GDPR
6 14 (1.24%) SEPA
7 6 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
7 6 (0.53%) NIST
8 5 (0.44%) ISO 15022
8 5 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.44%) PSD2
9 4 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 4 (0.36%) SLA
9 4 (0.36%) WCAG
10 2 (0.18%) Basel III
10 2 (0.18%) EMIR
10 2 (0.18%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.18%) MiFID
10 2 (0.18%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.18%) Solvency II
System Software
1 396 (35.17%) Docker
2 16 (1.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (0.71%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 4 (0.36%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.089%) Apache Flume
5 1 (0.089%) HDFS
5 1 (0.089%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 516 (45.83%) Kubernetes
2 150 (13.32%) Grafana
3 128 (11.37%) Prometheus
4 67 (5.95%) Ansible
5 27 (2.40%) Argo
5 27 (2.40%) Control-M
6 17 (1.51%) Istio
7 16 (1.42%) Kustomize
8 14 (1.24%) Puppet
9 12 (1.07%) Kibana
10 9 (0.80%) Podman
11 7 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (0.53%) HP Fortify
12 6 (0.53%) logstash
13 5 (0.44%) Check_MK
13 5 (0.44%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.44%) Rancher
14 4 (0.36%) Bosun
14 4 (0.36%) HAProxy
15 3 (0.27%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 123 (10.92%) Oracle
2 110 (9.77%) Databricks
3 63 (5.60%) Splunk
4 62 (5.51%) Google
4 62 (5.51%) IBM
5 60 (5.33%) Microsoft
6 40 (3.55%) Dynatrace
7 31 (2.75%) Confluent
8 28 (2.49%) Informatica
9 20 (1.78%) MuleSoft
9 20 (1.78%) OpenAI
9 20 (1.78%) SAP
9 20 (1.78%) VMware
10 15 (1.33%) TIBCO
11 13 (1.15%) New Relic
11 13 (1.15%) Salesforce
12 12 (1.07%) Solace
13 10 (0.89%) Sybase
13 10 (0.89%) Veracode
13 10 (0.89%) WSO2