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

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 105 170
Rank change year-on-year -24 +65 -31
Contract jobs citing Kafka 936 735 628
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.98% 2.52% 1.44%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.92% 11.09% 7.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 575 486 459
10th Percentile £363 £400 £380
25th Percentile £413 £463 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £563 £534
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +5.34% -17.85%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £475 £482
% change year-on-year -2.37% -1.45% -10.33%
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 9,438 6,629 8,963
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 20.00% 22.68% 20.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,252 4,549 6,220
10th Percentile £358 £363 £338
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £529
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -0.76% -3.82%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £780 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 269 112 231
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 £81.00 £82.87 £75.00
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 30 April 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 30 April 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 30 April 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 -29 809 £530 -9.40% 137
London -22 509 £600 -7.69% 100
Work from Home -11 317 £600 -4.00% 69
UK excluding London -40 292 £464 -2.37% 70
North of England -54 124 £455 -13.33% 19
Yorkshire -24 62 £458 -32.22% 1
South East -22 54 £441 -13.27% 26
North West -50 52 £453 -9.50% 14
Midlands -36 50 £500 +25.31% 4
Scotland -11 34 £450 -4.26% 7
South West -10 30 £550 +7.32% 10
West Midlands -36 28 £523 -5.00% 3
East Midlands -18 22 £425 +18.72% 1
North East -12 16 £450 -3.23% 4
East of England -34 13 £525 +65.00% 1
Wales -11 1 £250 -

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 (13.89%) Apache Spark
2 67 (7.16%) Apache
3 48 (5.13%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (2.46%) 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%) Shopify
3 2 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 559 (59.72%) AWS
2 276 (29.49%) Azure
3 166 (17.74%) GCP
4 149 (15.92%) GitHub
5 121 (12.93%) Serverless
6 110 (11.75%) Amazon S3
7 107 (11.43%) GitHub Actions
8 90 (9.62%) AWS Lambda
9 77 (8.23%) Amazon EKS
10 66 (7.05%) OpenShift
11 64 (6.84%) AWS CloudFormation
12 62 (6.62%) Power Platform
13 61 (6.52%) Azure DevOps
14 50 (5.34%) Amazon ECS
15 48 (5.13%) Snowflake
16 42 (4.49%) Amazon Kinesis
16 42 (4.49%) Amazon SQS
17 40 (4.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 38 (4.06%) Azure Data Factory
19 36 (3.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.14%) Firewall
2 17 (1.82%) 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%) Broadband
9 1 (0.11%) MIMO
9 1 (0.11%) MQTT
9 1 (0.11%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 192 (20.51%) PostgreSQL
2 133 (14.21%) MongoDB
3 121 (12.93%) NoSQL
4 74 (7.91%) Relational Database
5 60 (6.41%) Apache Cassandra
5 60 (6.41%) Big Data
6 58 (6.20%) Data Warehouse
7 57 (6.09%) Data Lake
8 52 (5.56%) SQL Server
9 50 (5.34%) Power BI
10 49 (5.24%) Elasticsearch
11 48 (5.13%) Redis
12 43 (4.59%) Flink
13 41 (4.38%) DynamoDB
14 36 (3.85%) Amazon Athena
14 36 (3.85%) Hadoop
15 34 (3.63%) Amazon Redshift
16 33 (3.53%) Metadata
17 32 (3.42%) Amazon RDS
17 32 (3.42%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 142 (15.17%) Jenkins
2 126 (13.46%) GitLab
3 119 (12.71%) Git
4 63 (6.73%) JUnit
5 56 (5.98%) JIRA
6 39 (4.17%) Mockito
7 23 (2.46%) 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 (1.18%) 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%) SonarQube
General
1 267 (28.53%) Finance
2 180 (19.23%) Social Skills
3 115 (12.29%) Banking
4 74 (7.91%) Analytical Skills
4 74 (7.91%) Public Sector
5 49 (5.24%) Front Office
6 31 (3.31%) Investment Banking
7 28 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (2.14%) Financial Institution
9 12 (1.28%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.07%) Marketing
11 9 (0.96%) Retail
12 8 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (0.85%) Law
12 8 (0.85%) Publishing
13 6 (0.64%) Automotive
14 5 (0.53%) Corporate Banking
14 5 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.43%) Billing
15 4 (0.43%) Military
Job Titles
1 331 (35.36%) Developer
2 216 (23.08%) Senior
3 158 (16.88%) Java Developer
4 155 (16.56%) Data Engineer
5 116 (12.39%) Lead
6 109 (11.65%) Architect
7 100 (10.68%) Senior Developer
8 87 (9.29%) Software Engineer
9 56 (5.98%) Java Engineer
10 53 (5.66%) AWS Architect
11 51 (5.45%) Senior Java Developer
12 47 (5.02%) Full-Stack Developer
13 45 (4.81%) DevOps Engineer
14 41 (4.38%) Solutions Architect
15 37 (3.95%) AWS Engineer
16 35 (3.74%) Kafka Developer
17 34 (3.63%) Senior Data Engineer
18 33 (3.53%) Developer/Software Engineer
19 32 (3.42%) Full-Stack Engineer
20 31 (3.31%) Kafka Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 213 (22.76%) Spring
2 192 (20.51%) Spring Boot
3 120 (12.82%) REST
4 112 (11.97%) Node.js
5 106 (11.32%) RESTful
6 103 (11.00%) React
7 75 (8.01%) RabbitMQ
8 71 (7.59%) gRPC
9 54 (5.77%) OpenTelemetry
10 48 (5.13%) GraphQL
10 48 (5.13%) JSON
11 42 (4.49%) Middleware
12 40 (4.27%) Apache Avro
12 40 (4.27%) PySpark
13 39 (4.17%) AngularJS
14 37 (3.95%) OAuth
15 36 (3.85%) Redux
16 32 (3.42%) OAuth2
17 29 (3.10%) Swagger
17 29 (3.10%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 154 (16.45%) Distributed Systems
2 137 (14.64%) Cloud Native
3 50 (5.34%) Management Information System
4 48 (5.13%) Fixed Income
5 34 (3.63%) Product Ownership
6 23 (2.46%) Data Structures
7 21 (2.24%) Equities
8 20 (2.14%) Hybrid Cloud
8 20 (2.14%) Onboarding
9 18 (1.92%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (1.60%) Derivative
10 15 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
11 14 (1.50%) Algorithms
12 12 (1.28%) Clustering
12 12 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (1.18%) 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
1 111 (11.86%) Linux
2 57 (6.09%) Unix
3 35 (3.74%) 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 (44.98%) CI/CD
2 323 (34.51%) Microservices
3 306 (32.69%) Agile
4 278 (29.70%) DevOps
5 226 (24.15%) Event-Driven
6 200 (21.37%) Software Engineering
7 199 (21.26%) Containerisation
7 199 (21.26%) Observability
8 173 (18.48%) Data Pipeline
9 163 (17.41%) Analytics
10 159 (16.99%) Infrastructure as Code
10 159 (16.99%) Problem-Solving
11 156 (16.67%) Data Modelling
12 153 (16.35%) Data Engineering
13 146 (15.60%) Event-Driven Architecture
14 144 (15.38%) ETL
15 133 (14.21%) Test Automation
16 114 (12.18%) Full-Stack Development
17 103 (11.00%) Data Governance
18 95 (10.15%) AI
Programming Languages
1 434 (46.37%) Java
2 334 (35.68%) Python
3 276 (29.49%) SQL
4 113 (12.07%) Go
5 99 (10.58%) TypeScript
6 95 (10.15%) JavaScript
7 58 (6.20%) C#
8 43 (4.59%) Bash
9 33 (3.53%) Scala
10 19 (2.03%) PowerShell
11 18 (1.92%) Rust
12 17 (1.82%) C++
12 17 (1.82%) Shell Script
13 12 (1.28%) Bicep
14 9 (0.96%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.85%) Search Processing Language
16 7 (0.75%) Perl
17 6 (0.64%) Groovy
18 5 (0.53%) Korn
19 4 (0.43%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 214 (22.86%) Security Cleared
2 173 (18.48%) SC Cleared
3 44 (4.70%) Degree
4 30 (3.21%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (2.14%) 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%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
13 1 (0.11%) PMP
13 1 (0.11%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (11.86%) Data Quality
2 49 (5.24%) QA
3 47 (5.02%) GDPR
4 22 (2.35%) Accessibility
5 14 (1.50%) 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
1 322 (34.40%) 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
1 378 (40.38%) Kubernetes
2 197 (21.05%) Terraform
3 119 (12.71%) Grafana
4 114 (12.18%) Prometheus
5 57 (6.09%) Ansible
6 32 (3.42%) 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 2 (0.21%) Amdocs OSS
12 2 (0.21%) QRadar
12 2 (0.21%) Sysdig
12 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 91 (9.72%) Databricks
2 72 (7.69%) Splunk
3 68 (7.26%) Oracle
4 49 (5.24%) Microsoft
5 41 (4.38%) Google
6 35 (3.74%) Confluent
7 25 (2.67%) Informatica
8 23 (2.46%) IBM
9 14 (1.50%) Dynatrace
9 14 (1.50%) Red Hat
9 14 (1.50%) VMware
10 12 (1.28%) Talend
11 11 (1.18%) 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%) Cloudera
15 7 (0.75%) PagerDuty
15 7 (0.75%) SAP