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 7 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 117 118 178
Rank change year-on-year +1 +60 -67
Contract jobs citing Kafka 883 750 647
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.43% 2.10% 1.42%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 10.85% 9.63% 6.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 583 449 496
10th Percentile £363 £381 £450
25th Percentile £425 £488 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £666 £725 £750
90th Percentile £738 £810 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £475 £525
% change year-on-year -4.32% -9.52% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 8
10th Percentile £38.10 £28.65 £57.45
25th Percentile £40.00 £33.54 £72.50
Median hourly rate £56.00 £61.25 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.57% -20.97% +5.80%
75th Percentile £66.88 £89.06 £80.70
90th Percentile £86.00 £91.88 £87.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £85.00 £71.50
% change year-on-year -52.94% +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 8,136 7,791 10,030
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.43% 21.82% 22.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,391 4,931 7,135
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £719 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 110 182
10th Percentile £30.08 £21.93 £32.30
25th Percentile £42.88 £37.13 £46.18
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £54.78
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +14.09% -15.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £74.04 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.75 £65.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -1.92% +23.81% -19.23%

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 7 December 2025.

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 7 December 2025.

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 7 December 2025. 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 +10 772 £550 -10.20% 206
London +5 510 £600 -4.76% 115
Work from Home +32 315 £600 +9.09% 156
UK excluding London -1 254 £455 -4.32% 139
North of England -24 98 £473 -17.65% 38
North West +3 57 £435 -11.33% 23
South East +2 55 £433 -12.89% 50
Scotland +26 49 £458 +22.00% 6
Midlands -5 43 £500 +17.65% 12
Yorkshire -38 35 £598 -11.48% 14
West Midlands -11 26 £550 -2.22% 8
South West -2 21 £550 -15.38% 21
East Midlands -5 17 £420 +17.98% 4
North East -1 8 £556 -10.90% 1
East of England -28 1 £538 +69.83% 5

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 71 (8.04%) Apache Spark
2 52 (5.89%) Apache
3 40 (4.53%) Apache Airflow
4 37 (4.19%) Confluence
5 10 (1.13%) Mule
6 8 (0.91%) Anypoint
6 8 (0.91%) MQSeries
7 6 (0.68%) CMS
8 5 (0.57%) JBoss
8 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.45%) Camunda
10 3 (0.34%) Luigi
10 3 (0.34%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.34%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.23%) SharePoint
11 2 (0.23%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.23%) WebLogic
12 1 (0.11%) IIS
12 1 (0.11%) nginx
12 1 (0.11%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 4 (0.45%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.23%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.11%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 4 (0.45%) Fidessa
1 4 (0.45%) Oracle 11i
2 3 (0.34%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.23%) Actimize
4 1 (0.11%) Bloomberg AIM
4 1 (0.11%) Endur
4 1 (0.11%) Exchequer
4 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.11%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 450 (50.96%) AWS
2 220 (24.92%) Azure
3 130 (14.72%) GitHub
4 122 (13.82%) GCP
5 96 (10.87%) Serverless
6 84 (9.51%) GitHub Actions
7 71 (8.04%) Amazon S3
8 68 (7.70%) AWS Lambda
9 52 (5.89%) AWS CloudFormation
10 47 (5.32%) Amazon EKS
11 46 (5.21%) Azure DevOps
12 41 (4.64%) OpenShift
13 40 (4.53%) Amazon SQS
14 39 (4.42%) Amazon ECS
15 34 (3.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 34 (3.85%) Amazon Kinesis
15 34 (3.85%) Azure Data Factory
16 29 (3.28%) Amazon EC2
17 28 (3.17%) Snowflake
18 22 (2.49%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.13%) SSL
2 9 (1.02%) HTTP
3 8 (0.91%) DNS
4 7 (0.79%) AMQP
4 7 (0.79%) DSL
4 7 (0.79%) SSH
5 6 (0.68%) Firewall
5 6 (0.68%) Kerberos
6 5 (0.57%) FTP
7 4 (0.45%) MQTT
8 3 (0.34%) VPN
9 2 (0.23%) TCP/IP
10 1 (0.11%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (19.82%) PostgreSQL
2 172 (19.48%) MongoDB
3 128 (14.50%) NoSQL
4 76 (8.61%) Apache Cassandra
5 67 (7.59%) Relational Database
6 59 (6.68%) Big Data
7 48 (5.44%) Redis
8 44 (4.98%) SQL Server
9 41 (4.64%) Amazon RDS
10 39 (4.42%) Data Warehouse
11 37 (4.19%) DB2
11 37 (4.19%) Elasticsearch
12 36 (4.08%) DynamoDB
13 34 (3.85%) Hadoop
14 33 (3.74%) Data Lake
15 25 (2.83%) Metadata
16 21 (2.38%) Amazon Redshift
16 21 (2.38%) Power BI
17 20 (2.27%) MySQL
18 19 (2.15%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 177 (20.05%) Jenkins
2 126 (14.27%) GitLab
3 115 (13.02%) Git
4 102 (11.55%) JUnit
5 61 (6.91%) JIRA
6 48 (5.44%) Mockito
7 31 (3.51%) Cucumber
8 24 (2.72%) Gradle
8 24 (2.72%) JMeter
8 24 (2.72%) Sonatype Nexus
9 21 (2.38%) SonarQube
10 20 (2.27%) Maven
11 13 (1.47%) Artifactory
12 12 (1.36%) SoapUI
13 11 (1.25%) Gatling
13 11 (1.25%) Liquibase
13 11 (1.25%) Subversion
14 8 (0.91%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 7 (0.79%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.79%) TeamCity
General
1 245 (27.75%) Finance
2 237 (26.84%) Social Skills
3 135 (15.29%) Banking
4 97 (10.99%) Analytical Skills
5 76 (8.61%) Public Sector
6 64 (7.25%) Investment Banking
7 49 (5.55%) Front Office
8 13 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (0.79%) Military
11 6 (0.68%) Financial Institution
11 6 (0.68%) Retail
12 5 (0.57%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.45%) Aerospace
14 3 (0.34%) Back Office
14 3 (0.34%) Law
14 3 (0.34%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.34%) Marketing
14 3 (0.34%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 360 (40.77%) Developer
2 240 (27.18%) Senior
3 218 (24.69%) Java Developer
4 121 (13.70%) Senior Developer
5 89 (10.08%) Data Engineer
6 86 (9.74%) Software Engineer
7 82 (9.29%) Lead
8 77 (8.72%) Senior Java Developer
9 63 (7.13%) Architect
9 63 (7.13%) DevOps Engineer
10 40 (4.53%) AWS Engineer
10 40 (4.53%) Kafka Developer
11 39 (4.42%) Platform Engineer
12 38 (4.30%) AWS Developer
12 38 (4.30%) Python Engineer
13 37 (4.19%) Kafka Engineer
14 36 (4.08%) Full-Stack Developer
15 31 (3.51%) Java Engineer
16 28 (3.17%) SQL Developer
17 26 (2.94%) Investment Banking Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 202 (22.88%) Spring
2 146 (16.53%) Spring Boot
3 103 (11.66%) REST
4 102 (11.55%) gRPC
5 101 (11.44%) React
6 89 (10.08%) RabbitMQ
7 79 (8.95%) RESTful
8 56 (6.34%) Node.js
9 45 (5.10%) ActiveMQ
10 44 (4.98%) JMS
11 41 (4.64%) AngularJS
12 39 (4.42%) .NET
13 34 (3.85%) GraphQL
13 34 (3.85%) Hibernate
14 33 (3.74%) JSON
14 33 (3.74%) Keycloak
15 31 (3.51%) OAuth
16 30 (3.40%) Middleware
17 29 (3.28%) Apache NiFi
17 29 (3.28%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 116 (13.14%) Distributed Systems
2 87 (9.85%) Cloud Native
3 43 (4.87%) Equities
4 37 (4.19%) Data Structures
5 30 (3.40%) Fixed Income
5 30 (3.40%) Management Information System
6 29 (3.28%) Product Ownership
7 26 (2.94%) Replication
8 22 (2.49%) Derivative
9 21 (2.38%) Market Risk
10 13 (1.47%) Distributed Computing
11 12 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
12 11 (1.25%) PKI
13 10 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
13 10 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
13 10 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
14 9 (1.02%) Algorithms
14 9 (1.02%) Legacy Applications
14 9 (1.02%) Onboarding
15 8 (0.91%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 166 (18.80%) Linux
2 80 (9.06%) Unix
3 24 (2.72%) Windows
4 13 (1.47%) Mac OS X
5 12 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (0.79%) CentOS
7 5 (0.57%) AIX
8 2 (0.23%) zOS
9 1 (0.11%) Debian
9 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.11%) VMS
9 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 360 (40.77%) Agile
2 357 (40.43%) Microservices
3 355 (40.20%) CI/CD
4 256 (28.99%) Software Engineering
5 245 (27.75%) DevOps
6 205 (23.22%) Problem-Solving
7 163 (18.46%) Containerisation
8 135 (15.29%) Event-Driven
9 134 (15.18%) Infrastructure as Code
10 125 (14.16%) Observability
11 124 (14.04%) Open Source
12 123 (13.93%) TDD
13 120 (13.59%) Test Automation
14 109 (12.34%) Data Pipeline
15 100 (11.33%) SDLC
16 98 (11.10%) Analytics
17 88 (9.97%) Scrum
18 87 (9.85%) Data Engineering
19 85 (9.63%) ETL
19 85 (9.63%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 439 (49.72%) Java
2 328 (37.15%) Python
3 245 (27.75%) SQL
4 137 (15.52%) Go
5 67 (7.59%) JavaScript
6 66 (7.47%) C#
7 58 (6.57%) Shell Script
8 51 (5.78%) C++
9 47 (5.32%) Bash
10 41 (4.64%) TypeScript
11 33 (3.74%) Scala
12 14 (1.59%) Perl
13 12 (1.36%) PL/SQL
14 9 (1.02%) Groovy
15 8 (0.91%) Korn
15 8 (0.91%) T-SQL
16 7 (0.79%) DataWeave
17 6 (0.68%) PowerShell
17 6 (0.68%) R
17 6 (0.68%) Rust
Qualifications
1 176 (19.93%) Security Cleared
2 153 (17.33%) SC Cleared
3 47 (5.32%) Degree
4 31 (3.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 26 (2.94%) DV Cleared
7 25 (2.83%) Azure Certification
8 18 (2.04%) AWS Certification
9 15 (1.70%) Master's Degree
10 8 (0.91%) OCP
10 8 (0.91%) Oracle Certification
11 5 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.45%) Numerate Degree
13 2 (0.23%) CBAP
13 2 (0.23%) CSPO
13 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.23%) TOGAF Certification
14 1 (0.11%) ITIL Certification
14 1 (0.11%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.11%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (6.46%) Data Quality
2 42 (4.76%) QA
3 23 (2.60%) GDPR
4 10 (1.13%) NCSC
5 5 (0.57%) MiFID
5 5 (0.57%) WCAG
6 4 (0.45%) Accessibility
6 4 (0.45%) HIPAA
6 4 (0.45%) HL7
6 4 (0.45%) SEPA
7 3 (0.34%) Def Stans
7 3 (0.34%) EMIR
7 3 (0.34%) SLA
8 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (0.23%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.11%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.11%) Section 508
System Software
1 305 (34.54%) Docker
2 8 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (0.57%) HDFS
4 3 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.23%) Active Directory
6 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 348 (39.41%) Kubernetes
2 186 (21.06%) Terraform
3 90 (10.19%) Grafana
4 78 (8.83%) Prometheus
5 70 (7.93%) Ansible
6 21 (2.38%) Argo
7 17 (1.93%) Progress Chef
8 13 (1.47%) Packer
9 9 (1.02%) logstash
10 7 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
11 6 (0.68%) Kibana
12 5 (0.57%) Puppet
12 5 (0.57%) Rancher
12 5 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.45%) Fluentd
13 4 (0.45%) Hadoop YARN
13 4 (0.45%) Istio
13 4 (0.45%) Kustomize
14 3 (0.34%) linkerd
14 3 (0.34%) Oozie
Vendors
1 79 (8.95%) Oracle
2 48 (5.44%) Splunk
3 42 (4.76%) Databricks
4 37 (4.19%) Microsoft
5 32 (3.62%) Sybase
6 30 (3.40%) Google
7 29 (3.28%) Confluent
7 29 (3.28%) IBM
8 21 (2.38%) Dynatrace
9 20 (2.27%) VMware
10 17 (1.93%) Cloudera
11 14 (1.59%) CA Agile Central
12 13 (1.47%) Foundry
12 13 (1.47%) Palantir
13 12 (1.36%) MuleSoft
13 12 (1.36%) ServiceNow
14 11 (1.25%) Red Hat
15 10 (1.13%) Informatica
15 10 (1.13%) SAP
15 10 (1.13%) TIBCO