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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 99 145
Rank change year-on-year -45 +46 +3
Contract jobs citing Kafka 974 822 710
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.87% 2.58% 1.64%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.63% 11.36% 7.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 574 533 509
10th Percentile £380 £400 £400
25th Percentile £425 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £565
Median % change year-on-year - -2.65% -13.08%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £700
90th Percentile £800 £825 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £470 £493
% change year-on-year +5.32% -4.67% -17.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 5 9
10th Percentile £56.65 £44.75 £22.55
25th Percentile £64.50 £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 £71.25 £78.70 £28.00
% change year-on-year -9.47% +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 10,109 7,235 9,300
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.42% 22.73% 21.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,623 4,888 6,376
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% -4.74% -2.18%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £655
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 278 149 283
10th Percentile £30.00 £28.76 £22.55
25th Percentile £50.88 £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 £80.20 £74.35
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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -41 841 £550 -0.63% 289
London -34 512 £588 -6.00% 148
UK excluding London -51 347 £495 +5.32% 192
Work from Home -61 271 £575 - 286
North of England -21 165 £453 -3.52% 49
Yorkshire -4 76 £465 -15.45% 18
North West -32 74 £430 -8.42% 26
South East -46 56 £513 +17.82% 56
Scotland -29 47 £450 -4.26% 17
Midlands -55 40 £500 +11.11% 15
South West -20 27 £500 -9.09% 28
West Midlands -56 25 £500 - 7
North East -19 24 £425 -8.11% 6
East of England -21 17 £550 +10.00% 17
East Midlands -16 15 £470 +31.65% 8
Northern Ireland +1 3 - - 6
Wales -16 2 £313 - 6

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
1 133 (13.66%) Apache Spark
2 69 (7.08%) Apache
3 59 (6.06%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (1.85%) Confluence
5 7 (0.72%) Camunda
6 6 (0.62%) Ethereum
6 6 (0.62%) Hyperledger
7 5 (0.51%) Apache Pulsar
7 5 (0.51%) 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
3 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Office
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 (58.21%) AWS
2 297 (30.49%) Azure
3 187 (19.20%) GCP
4 136 (13.96%) GitHub
5 116 (11.91%) Serverless
6 97 (9.96%) GitHub Actions
7 91 (9.34%) AWS Lambda
8 88 (9.03%) Amazon S3
9 68 (6.98%) OpenShift
10 63 (6.47%) Azure DevOps
11 61 (6.26%) Amazon EKS
12 59 (6.06%) Snowflake
13 51 (5.24%) Power Platform
14 45 (4.62%) Amazon ECS
14 45 (4.62%) dbt
15 40 (4.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 39 (4.00%) Amazon SQS
17 38 (3.90%) AWS CloudFormation
18 29 (2.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 27 (2.77%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.54%) HTTP
2 12 (1.23%) Firewall
3 10 (1.03%) Network Security
4 7 (0.72%) MQTT
4 7 (0.72%) SSL
5 6 (0.62%) DNS
6 5 (0.51%) NAS
6 5 (0.51%) 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 (18.38%) PostgreSQL
2 161 (16.53%) MongoDB
3 129 (13.24%) NoSQL
4 102 (10.47%) Relational Database
5 66 (6.78%) Big Data
6 62 (6.37%) Data Warehouse
7 58 (5.95%) SQL Server
8 52 (5.34%) Data Lake
9 43 (4.41%) Elasticsearch
9 43 (4.41%) Power BI
10 39 (4.00%) Redis
11 37 (3.80%) Hadoop
12 36 (3.70%) Flink
13 35 (3.59%) Apache Cassandra
13 35 (3.59%) MySQL
14 31 (3.18%) BigQuery
15 30 (3.08%) DynamoDB
15 30 (3.08%) Metadata
16 26 (2.67%) Amazon Athena
17 25 (2.57%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 159 (16.32%) Jenkins
2 128 (13.14%) Git
3 119 (12.22%) GitLab
4 70 (7.19%) JUnit
5 55 (5.65%) Mockito
6 47 (4.83%) JIRA
7 35 (3.59%) Gradle
8 31 (3.18%) Selenium
9 25 (2.57%) Cucumber
10 23 (2.36%) REST Assured
11 18 (1.85%) Gatling
12 17 (1.75%) Liquibase
12 17 (1.75%) Postman
13 16 (1.64%) Maven
14 15 (1.54%) Serenity BDD
15 14 (1.44%) SonarQube
16 8 (0.82%) Cypress.io
17 7 (0.72%) JMeter
18 6 (0.62%) Snyk
19 5 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 263 (27.00%) Finance
2 189 (19.40%) Social Skills
3 129 (13.24%) Banking
4 94 (9.65%) Public Sector
5 89 (9.14%) Analytical Skills
6 48 (4.93%) Front Office
7 36 (3.70%) Investment Banking
8 27 (2.77%) Documentation Skills
9 24 (2.46%) Retail
10 20 (2.05%) Financial Institution
11 14 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.44%) Law
12 12 (1.23%) Telecoms
13 10 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
14 9 (0.92%) Publishing
15 8 (0.82%) Marketing
15 8 (0.82%) Military
16 7 (0.72%) Billing
16 7 (0.72%) Games
16 7 (0.72%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 316 (32.44%) Developer
2 195 (20.02%) Senior
3 164 (16.84%) Java Developer
4 151 (15.50%) Data Engineer
5 122 (12.53%) Architect
6 116 (11.91%) Lead
7 98 (10.06%) Software Engineer
8 82 (8.42%) Senior Developer
9 76 (7.80%) Java Engineer
10 51 (5.24%) Senior Java Developer
11 49 (5.03%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (4.93%) AWS Architect
13 39 (4.00%) Full-Stack Developer
14 38 (3.90%) DevOps Engineer
15 36 (3.70%) Developer/Software Engineer
16 33 (3.39%) Lead Developer
17 32 (3.29%) Java Software Engineer
17 32 (3.29%) Kafka Engineer
17 32 (3.29%) Principal Engineer
18 31 (3.18%) Backend Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (25.36%) Spring
2 233 (23.92%) Spring Boot
3 146 (14.99%) REST
4 131 (13.45%) React
4 131 (13.45%) RESTful
5 106 (10.88%) RabbitMQ
6 85 (8.73%) Node.js
7 66 (6.78%) GraphQL
8 58 (5.95%) JSON
9 52 (5.34%) OpenTelemetry
9 52 (5.34%) Redux
10 39 (4.00%) AngularJS
11 38 (3.90%) gRPC
12 37 (3.80%) Middleware
12 37 (3.80%) OAuth
12 37 (3.80%) Swagger
13 36 (3.70%) OpenAPI
14 34 (3.49%) Apache Avro
14 34 (3.49%) PySpark
15 31 (3.18%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 185 (18.99%) Distributed Systems
2 175 (17.97%) Cloud Native
3 39 (4.00%) Fixed Income
4 38 (3.90%) Product Ownership
5 37 (3.80%) Data Structures
6 31 (3.18%) Management Information System
7 28 (2.87%) Algorithms
7 28 (2.87%) Enterprise Software
8 23 (2.36%) Onboarding
9 20 (2.05%) Legacy Systems
10 17 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
12 15 (1.54%) Equities
12 15 (1.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 14 (1.44%) Clustering
13 14 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
13 14 (1.44%) Public Cloud
14 12 (1.23%) Derivative
14 12 (1.23%) Virtual Team
15 11 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 97 (9.96%) Linux
2 54 (5.54%) Unix
3 26 (2.67%) Windows
4 10 (1.03%) Mac OS X
5 7 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.51%) 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
1 451 (46.30%) CI/CD
2 361 (37.06%) Microservices
3 330 (33.88%) Agile
4 303 (31.11%) Event-Driven
5 297 (30.49%) DevOps
6 218 (22.38%) Observability
7 213 (21.87%) Containerisation
8 204 (20.94%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 189 (19.40%) Software Engineering
10 187 (19.20%) Data Pipeline
11 157 (16.12%) Problem-Solving
11 157 (16.12%) Test Automation
12 156 (16.02%) Infrastructure as Code
13 154 (15.81%) Data Modelling
14 153 (15.71%) Analytics
15 148 (15.20%) Data Engineering
16 145 (14.89%) ETL
17 140 (14.37%) AI
18 117 (12.01%) TDD
19 104 (10.68%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 455 (46.71%) Java
2 342 (35.11%) Python
3 306 (31.42%) SQL
4 120 (12.32%) TypeScript
5 86 (8.83%) JavaScript
6 84 (8.62%) Go
7 58 (5.95%) C#
8 50 (5.13%) Bash
9 35 (3.59%) Scala
10 26 (2.67%) PowerShell
11 16 (1.64%) Kotlin
11 16 (1.64%) PL/SQL
12 14 (1.44%) Rust
12 14 (1.44%) Shell Script
13 12 (1.23%) 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
1 207 (21.25%) Security Cleared
2 161 (16.53%) SC Cleared
3 49 (5.03%) Degree
4 27 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (1.95%) AWS Certification
5 19 (1.95%) DV Cleared
6 16 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.33%) Master's Degree
8 8 (0.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 8 (0.82%) Azure Certification
9 7 (0.72%) SnowPro
10 3 (0.31%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.31%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
11 2 (0.21%) PhD
11 2 (0.21%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.10%) CISSP
12 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.10%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (10.57%) Data Quality
2 50 (5.13%) QA
3 40 (4.11%) GDPR
4 39 (4.00%) Accessibility
5 16 (1.64%) ISO 20022
6 8 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 7 (0.72%) SEPA
8 6 (0.62%) NIST
9 5 (0.51%) 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%) GRC
System Software
1 318 (32.65%) 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
1 392 (40.25%) Kubernetes
2 193 (19.82%) Terraform
3 119 (12.22%) Prometheus
4 115 (11.81%) Grafana
5 61 (6.26%) Ansible
6 18 (1.85%) Argo
7 11 (1.13%) Kibana
8 10 (1.03%) Control-M
9 9 (0.92%) Istio
9 9 (0.92%) Puppet
10 8 (0.82%) Podman
11 7 (0.72%) Fluentd
11 7 (0.72%) Kustomize
12 6 (0.62%) logstash
13 5 (0.51%) Rancher
14 3 (0.31%) Kiali
14 3 (0.31%) NetBackup
15 2 (0.21%) Amdocs OSS
15 2 (0.21%) CA Wily
15 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 78 (8.01%) Databricks
2 69 (7.08%) Oracle
3 61 (6.26%) Splunk
4 43 (4.41%) Microsoft
5 40 (4.11%) Google
6 26 (2.67%) Informatica
7 23 (2.36%) Confluent
8 16 (1.64%) IBM
9 15 (1.54%) Dynatrace
10 14 (1.44%) Salesforce
10 14 (1.44%) Solace
11 11 (1.13%) MuleSoft
12 10 (1.03%) OpenAI
12 10 (1.03%) Sybase
13 9 (0.92%) Talend
14 8 (0.82%) Red Hat
14 8 (0.82%) SAP
14 8 (0.82%) ServiceNow
15 6 (0.62%) AppDynamics
15 6 (0.62%) Pega