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

6 months to
3 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 116 165
Rank change year-on-year -13 +49 -42
Contract jobs citing Kafka 850 711 657
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.20% 2.30% 1.46%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.88% 10.28% 7.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 544 431 518
10th Percentile £363 £378 £413
25th Percentile £415 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £585 £556
Median % change year-on-year -9.40% +5.17% -14.42%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £699
90th Percentile £738 £834 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £462 £475 £519
% change year-on-year -2.84% -8.48% -9.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 5 4
10th Percentile £39.53 £30.94 £47.39
25th Percentile £46.00 £39.25 £58.71
Median hourly rate £66.00 £85.00 £71.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.35% +18.88% -4.67%
75th Percentile £91.00 £93.75 £81.00
90th Percentile £96.50 - £86.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £85.00 £71.50
% change year-on-year -24.71% +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 8,605 6,915 9,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.22% 22.40% 20.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,731 4,372 6,611
10th Percentile £358 £360 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £537 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.61% +0.61% -7.13%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £720 £767 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 87 190
10th Percentile £35.00 £25.34 £25.48
25th Percentile £50.00 £38.88 £45.96
Median hourly rate £64.00 £62.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.40% +13.64% -15.38%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.75 £69.38
90th Percentile £82.10 £77.70 £76.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year - +18.18% -15.38%

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 3 February 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 3 February 2026.

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 3 February 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 -14 745 £550 -10.20% 206
London -12 490 £600 -4.76% 139
Work from Home +9 305 £575 -4.17% 130
UK excluding London -31 229 £462 -2.84% 122
North of England -31 101 £475 -13.64% 35
South East +2 56 £433 -33.46% 53
North West -30 49 £447 -14.86% 25
Yorkshire -23 45 £575 -17.86% 7
Midlands -32 39 £500 +40.45% 2
Scotland -1 28 £463 +22.68% 13
West Midlands -21 23 £550 - 2
South West -8 21 £550 -15.38% 15
East Midlands -18 16 £402 +12.92%
North East -6 13 £463 -25.91% 3
East of England -29 2 £550 +72.41% 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 85 (10.00%) Apache Spark
2 49 (5.76%) Apache
3 45 (5.29%) Apache Airflow
4 36 (4.24%) Confluence
5 8 (0.94%) Palantir Foundry
6 6 (0.71%) Ethereum
6 6 (0.71%) Hyperledger
7 5 (0.59%) Camunda
8 4 (0.47%) CMS
8 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.35%) MQSeries
9 3 (0.35%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.24%) JBoss
10 2 (0.24%) Luigi
10 2 (0.24%) SharePoint
11 1 (0.12%) IIS
11 1 (0.12%) nginx
11 1 (0.12%) SAS
11 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (0.47%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.24%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (0.47%) Oracle 11i
2 3 (0.35%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.24%) Actimize
3 2 (0.24%) Bloomberg AIM
3 2 (0.24%) Fidessa
3 2 (0.24%) Shopify
4 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.12%) R3 Corda
4 1 (0.12%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 488 (57.41%) AWS
2 227 (26.71%) Azure
3 159 (18.71%) GitHub
4 137 (16.12%) GCP
5 123 (14.47%) Serverless
6 112 (13.18%) GitHub Actions
7 101 (11.88%) Amazon S3
8 92 (10.82%) AWS Lambda
9 70 (8.24%) AWS CloudFormation
10 69 (8.12%) Amazon EKS
11 47 (5.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 46 (5.41%) Amazon ECS
13 44 (5.18%) Power Platform
14 42 (4.94%) Amazon Kinesis
14 42 (4.94%) Amazon SQS
15 40 (4.71%) OpenShift
16 37 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
17 36 (4.24%) Azure Data Factory
18 32 (3.76%) Amazon EC2
19 27 (3.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.76%) Firewall
2 13 (1.53%) HTTP
3 12 (1.41%) DNS
4 11 (1.29%) SSL
5 6 (0.71%) FTP
5 6 (0.71%) Kerberos
5 6 (0.71%) SMS
5 6 (0.71%) SSH
6 4 (0.47%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.35%) VPN
8 2 (0.24%) MQTT
9 1 (0.12%) Broadband
9 1 (0.12%) HTTPS
9 1 (0.12%) Internet
9 1 (0.12%) NAS
9 1 (0.12%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (19.88%) PostgreSQL
2 155 (18.24%) MongoDB
3 134 (15.76%) NoSQL
4 78 (9.18%) Apache Cassandra
5 55 (6.47%) Relational Database
6 49 (5.76%) Amazon RDS
7 48 (5.65%) Data Warehouse
8 47 (5.53%) Elasticsearch
9 46 (5.41%) Big Data
10 43 (5.06%) Data Lake
10 43 (5.06%) DynamoDB
10 43 (5.06%) Redis
10 43 (5.06%) SQL Server
11 34 (4.00%) Power BI
12 32 (3.76%) Amazon Athena
13 31 (3.65%) Amazon Redshift
14 30 (3.53%) MySQL
15 28 (3.29%) Hadoop
16 26 (3.06%) Metadata
17 25 (2.94%) DB2
Development Applications
1 154 (18.12%) Jenkins
2 134 (15.76%) GitLab
3 106 (12.47%) Git
4 81 (9.53%) JUnit
5 57 (6.71%) JIRA
6 40 (4.71%) Mockito
7 24 (2.82%) Cucumber
7 24 (2.82%) JMeter
7 24 (2.82%) Sonatype Nexus
8 21 (2.47%) Gradle
9 15 (1.76%) Gatling
10 14 (1.65%) Maven
11 11 (1.29%) Selenium
12 10 (1.18%) Artifactory
12 10 (1.18%) CircleCI
13 9 (1.06%) Jaeger
13 9 (1.06%) SoapUI
14 8 (0.94%) Postman
14 8 (0.94%) SonarQube
15 7 (0.82%) REST Assured
General
1 225 (26.47%) Finance
2 204 (24.00%) Social Skills
3 122 (14.35%) Banking
4 72 (8.47%) Analytical Skills
5 64 (7.53%) Public Sector
6 48 (5.65%) Investment Banking
7 23 (2.71%) Front Office
8 20 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (1.65%) Financial Institution
10 10 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (1.06%) Marketing
12 7 (0.82%) Retail
13 5 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.59%) Law
14 4 (0.47%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.35%) Corporate Banking
15 3 (0.35%) Legal
15 3 (0.35%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.35%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.24%) Games
Job Titles
1 321 (37.76%) Developer
2 257 (30.24%) Senior
3 183 (21.53%) Java Developer
4 131 (15.41%) Senior Developer
5 108 (12.71%) Data Engineer
6 83 (9.76%) Lead
7 79 (9.29%) Senior Java Developer
8 75 (8.82%) Software Engineer
9 70 (8.24%) Architect
10 56 (6.59%) DevOps Engineer
11 46 (5.41%) Kafka Developer
12 42 (4.94%) Full-Stack Developer
13 40 (4.71%) AWS Engineer
14 38 (4.47%) AWS Developer
14 38 (4.47%) Kafka Engineer
15 33 (3.88%) AWS Architect
16 32 (3.76%) Java Engineer
17 30 (3.53%) Senior Data Engineer
18 27 (3.18%) Platform Engineer
18 27 (3.18%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (24.35%) Spring
2 173 (20.35%) Spring Boot
3 103 (12.12%) REST
4 98 (11.53%) gRPC
5 80 (9.41%) RESTful
6 71 (8.35%) React
7 69 (8.12%) Node.js
8 68 (8.00%) RabbitMQ
9 40 (4.71%) AngularJS
10 35 (4.12%) Middleware
11 33 (3.88%) Hibernate
12 32 (3.76%) Keycloak
13 31 (3.65%) PySpark
14 29 (3.41%) ActiveMQ
14 29 (3.41%) JMS
14 29 (3.41%) JSON
15 27 (3.18%) .NET
16 26 (3.06%) OAuth
16 26 (3.06%) OpenTelemetry
17 24 (2.82%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 121 (14.24%) Distributed Systems
2 106 (12.47%) Cloud Native
3 43 (5.06%) Management Information System
4 36 (4.24%) Product Ownership
5 27 (3.18%) Equities
6 26 (3.06%) Data Structures
7 23 (2.71%) Derivative
8 19 (2.24%) Market Risk
9 17 (2.00%) Replication
10 16 (1.88%) Fixed Income
11 14 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
11 14 (1.65%) Legacy Applications
12 13 (1.53%) Distributed Computing
13 12 (1.41%) Onboarding
14 11 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
15 10 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
16 8 (0.94%) Algorithms
16 8 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
16 8 (0.94%) SWIFT Messaging Network
17 6 (0.71%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 157 (18.47%) Linux
2 78 (9.18%) Unix
3 28 (3.29%) Windows
4 13 (1.53%) Mac OS X
5 7 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.59%) AIX
6 5 (0.59%) CentOS
7 3 (0.35%) zOS
8 2 (0.24%) VMS
9 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 367 (43.18%) CI/CD
2 341 (40.12%) Microservices
3 292 (34.35%) Agile
4 247 (29.06%) DevOps
5 214 (25.18%) Software Engineering
6 178 (20.94%) Problem-Solving
7 173 (20.35%) Containerisation
8 165 (19.41%) Event-Driven
9 150 (17.65%) Observability
10 146 (17.18%) Infrastructure as Code
11 125 (14.71%) Test Automation
12 124 (14.59%) Data Pipeline
13 120 (14.12%) Analytics
14 108 (12.71%) Open Source
15 105 (12.35%) Data Engineering
16 103 (12.12%) ETL
17 101 (11.88%) TDD
18 98 (11.53%) Data Modelling
19 92 (10.82%) Event-Driven Architecture
20 83 (9.76%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 401 (47.18%) Java
2 286 (33.65%) Python
3 248 (29.18%) SQL
4 116 (13.65%) Go
5 71 (8.35%) C#
6 60 (7.06%) JavaScript
7 45 (5.29%) Shell Script
8 43 (5.06%) C++
9 42 (4.94%) Bash
10 39 (4.59%) TypeScript
11 31 (3.65%) Scala
12 17 (2.00%) Rust
13 12 (1.41%) PL/SQL
14 10 (1.18%) PowerShell
15 8 (0.94%) Perl
16 7 (0.82%) Bicep
16 7 (0.82%) Korn
17 6 (0.71%) Groovy
17 6 (0.71%) R
18 5 (0.59%) RPG
Qualifications
1 187 (22.00%) Security Cleared
2 167 (19.65%) SC Cleared
3 40 (4.71%) Degree
4 29 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
5 28 (3.29%) Azure Certification
6 19 (2.24%) AWS Certification
6 19 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
7 17 (2.00%) DV Cleared
8 14 (1.65%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.94%) OCP
9 8 (0.94%) Oracle Certification
10 6 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (0.35%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.24%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.24%) CBAP
12 2 (0.24%) CSPO
12 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.24%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.12%) SAFe Agilist
13 1 (0.12%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (9.41%) Data Quality
2 40 (4.71%) QA
3 35 (4.12%) GDPR
4 11 (1.29%) Accessibility
5 10 (1.18%) NCSC
6 9 (1.06%) ISO 20022
7 7 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 7 (0.82%) PCI DSS
8 6 (0.71%) NIST
8 6 (0.71%) SEPA
9 5 (0.59%) SLA
10 3 (0.35%) Def Stans
10 3 (0.35%) HL7
10 3 (0.35%) ISO 8583
10 3 (0.35%) WCAG
11 2 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.24%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.24%) MiFID
11 2 (0.24%) PSD2
12 1 (0.12%) JSP 440
System Software
1 310 (36.47%) Docker
2 8 (0.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.47%) HDFS
4 3 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.24%) Active Directory
6 1 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 346 (40.71%) Kubernetes
2 204 (24.00%) Terraform
3 103 (12.12%) Grafana
4 89 (10.47%) Prometheus
5 62 (7.29%) Ansible
6 25 (2.94%) Argo
7 15 (1.76%) Progress Chef
8 9 (1.06%) Kiali
9 8 (0.94%) Istio
9 8 (0.94%) Packer
10 7 (0.82%) linkerd
10 7 (0.82%) logstash
11 6 (0.71%) Puppet
12 5 (0.59%) Rancher
13 4 (0.47%) Fluentd
13 4 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
13 4 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
14 3 (0.35%) Hadoop YARN
15 2 (0.24%) Kibana
15 2 (0.24%) rkt
Vendors
1 76 (8.94%) Oracle
2 63 (7.41%) Databricks
3 59 (6.94%) Splunk
4 34 (4.00%) Confluent
4 34 (4.00%) Google
5 32 (3.76%) Microsoft
6 29 (3.41%) IBM
7 24 (2.82%) VMware
8 20 (2.35%) Sybase
9 17 (2.00%) Dynatrace
10 16 (1.88%) Informatica
11 13 (1.53%) Cloudera
12 12 (1.41%) Red Hat
13 9 (1.06%) ServiceNow
14 8 (0.94%) Foundry
14 8 (0.94%) Palantir
14 8 (0.94%) SAP
15 7 (0.82%) Atlassian
15 7 (0.82%) PagerDuty
15 7 (0.82%) Talend