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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 101 132
Rank change year-on-year -44 +31 +22
Contract jobs citing Kafka 1,069 842 699
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.96% 2.56% 1.81%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.05% 9.88% 7.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 539 461
10th Percentile £375 £379 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £485
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £547 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -0.55% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £637 £675 £725
90th Percentile £738 £750 £810
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £469 £500
% change year-on-year +6.61% -6.20% -20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 4 8
10th Percentile £43.85 £40.58 £24.60
25th Percentile £56.25 £48.56 £26.60
Median hourly rate £77.00 £59.25 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.96% +111.61% -64.10%
75th Percentile £87.00 £75.31 £39.13
90th Percentile £94.00 £96.13 £54.43
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 - £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 11,809 8,526 9,573
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.63% 25.91% 24.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,767 5,699 6,322
10th Percentile £375 £355 £356
25th Percentile £437 £413 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £637 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £734 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +6.21% -5.00% -2.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 299 188 190
10th Percentile £29.07 £31.25 £25.60
25th Percentile £50.00 £41.25 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £54.35 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +19.60% -11.77% -1.44%
75th Percentile £76.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.15 £74.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +17.39% -11.54% +8.33%

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 20 September 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 20 September 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 20 September 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 -45 894 £550 - 1,065
London -41 534 £575 -4.17% 754
UK excluding London -32 392 £500 +6.61% 437
Work from Home -61 276 £545 -5.22% 436
North of England -21 189 £501 +4.82% 142
Yorkshire -1 97 £501 -16.23% 36
North West -31 74 £550 +17.77% 93
South East -33 61 £460 +5.75% 70
Scotland -33 55 £410 -13.23% 71
Midlands -52 38 £500 +15.47% 33
South West -15 29 £500 -9.09% 53
East of England -4 28 £488 -4.88% 21
West Midlands -45 25 £700 +40.00% 27
North East -29 23 £426 -8.49% 13
East Midlands -21 13 £495 +19.28% 6
Northern Ireland +5 4 - - 43
Wales - 1 £375 - 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
1 129 (12.07%) Apache Spark
2 75 (7.02%) Apache Airflow
3 67 (6.27%) Apache
4 24 (2.25%) Confluence
5 16 (1.50%) Camunda
6 7 (0.65%) OpenStack
6 7 (0.65%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 6 (0.56%) CMS
8 5 (0.47%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.37%) Apache Pulsar
9 4 (0.37%) MQSeries
9 4 (0.37%) PowerExchange
10 3 (0.28%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.28%) Mule
10 3 (0.28%) nginx
10 3 (0.28%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.19%) Apache Pig
11 2 (0.19%) JBoss
12 1 (0.094%) CICS
12 1 (0.094%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 6 (0.56%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.19%) Mingle
3 1 (0.094%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.094%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (0.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 3 (0.28%) Finacle
2 3 (0.28%) FLEXCUBE
2 3 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.28%) Temenos T24
3 2 (0.19%) Endur
3 2 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.094%) Actimize
4 1 (0.094%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.094%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.094%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.094%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.094%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 608 (56.88%) AWS
2 389 (36.39%) Azure
3 253 (23.67%) GCP
4 177 (16.56%) GitHub
5 121 (11.32%) GitHub Actions
6 102 (9.54%) Serverless
7 85 (7.95%) AWS Lambda
8 76 (7.11%) Amazon EKS
9 75 (7.02%) Amazon S3
10 72 (6.74%) Snowflake
11 71 (6.64%) Azure DevOps
12 69 (6.45%) OpenShift
13 50 (4.68%) dbt
14 49 (4.58%) Amazon SQS
15 43 (4.02%) Amazon ECS
16 40 (3.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 37 (3.46%) Power Platform
18 35 (3.27%) Azure Data Factory
19 31 (2.90%) Google Kubernetes Engine
20 27 (2.53%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.90%) HTTP
2 20 (1.87%) DNS
3 12 (1.12%) Network Security
4 9 (0.84%) TCP/IP
5 7 (0.65%) Firewall
5 7 (0.65%) MQTT
5 7 (0.65%) SSH
6 6 (0.56%) SAN
6 6 (0.56%) SSL
7 5 (0.47%) 4G
7 5 (0.47%) 5G
8 4 (0.37%) NAS
9 3 (0.28%) Internet
10 2 (0.19%) Kerberos
11 1 (0.094%) Broadband
11 1 (0.094%) FIX Connectivity
11 1 (0.094%) MIMO
11 1 (0.094%) RTP
11 1 (0.094%) VPN
11 1 (0.094%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 186 (17.40%) PostgreSQL
2 168 (15.72%) MongoDB
3 131 (12.25%) NoSQL
4 92 (8.61%) Relational Database
5 73 (6.83%) Data Warehouse
6 66 (6.17%) SQL Server
7 57 (5.33%) Redis
8 53 (4.96%) Big Data
9 49 (4.58%) MySQL
10 48 (4.49%) Data Lake
11 43 (4.02%) Elasticsearch
12 38 (3.55%) BigQuery
13 36 (3.37%) Power BI
14 34 (3.18%) Flink
15 32 (2.99%) Metadata
16 27 (2.53%) Delta Lake
17 25 (2.34%) Hadoop
18 24 (2.25%) DynamoDB
19 23 (2.15%) Amazon Redshift
20 22 (2.06%) Apache Cassandra
Development Applications
1 213 (19.93%) Jenkins
2 187 (17.49%) Git
3 162 (15.15%) GitLab
4 71 (6.64%) JUnit
5 67 (6.27%) Gradle
6 60 (5.61%) Mockito
7 55 (5.14%) Selenium
8 47 (4.40%) Maven
9 45 (4.21%) JIRA
10 35 (3.27%) Cucumber
11 32 (2.99%) SonarQube
12 24 (2.25%) REST Assured
13 22 (2.06%) Postman
14 18 (1.68%) Bitbucket
14 18 (1.68%) JMeter
15 16 (1.50%) Gatling
16 14 (1.31%) Liquibase
17 13 (1.22%) Cypress.io
17 13 (1.22%) LoadRunner
17 13 (1.22%) SoapUI
General
1 270 (25.26%) Finance
2 209 (19.55%) Social Skills
3 167 (15.62%) Banking
4 112 (10.48%) Analytical Skills
5 100 (9.35%) Public Sector
6 38 (3.55%) Retail
7 25 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 25 (2.34%) Investment Banking
8 19 (1.78%) Front Office
9 18 (1.68%) Telecoms
10 16 (1.50%) Financial Institution
11 12 (1.12%) Law
12 11 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
13 10 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
13 10 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.84%) Military
15 8 (0.75%) Billing
15 8 (0.75%) Publishing
15 8 (0.75%) Retail Banking
16 7 (0.65%) Games
Job Titles
1 329 (30.78%) Developer
2 230 (21.52%) Senior
3 187 (17.49%) Java Developer
4 165 (15.43%) Architect
5 127 (11.88%) Data Engineer
6 98 (9.17%) Lead
7 71 (6.64%) Senior Developer
8 69 (6.45%) Java Engineer
9 67 (6.27%) Solutions Architect
10 62 (5.80%) DevOps Engineer
10 62 (5.80%) Software Engineer
11 44 (4.12%) Senior Java Developer
12 43 (4.02%) Full-Stack Developer
13 42 (3.93%) Senior Data Engineer
14 39 (3.65%) Kafka Engineer
15 38 (3.55%) AWS Engineer
16 37 (3.46%) Python Engineer
17 36 (3.37%) Test Engineer
18 35 (3.27%) Python Developer
19 34 (3.18%) AWS Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 287 (26.85%) Spring
1 287 (26.85%) Spring Boot
2 243 (22.73%) REST
3 225 (21.05%) Terraform
4 153 (14.31%) RESTful
5 130 (12.16%) React
6 124 (11.60%) RabbitMQ
7 73 (6.83%) JSON
8 61 (5.71%) OAuth
9 57 (5.33%) Node.js
10 52 (4.86%) HTML
11 50 (4.68%) GraphQL
11 50 (4.68%) OpenTelemetry
11 50 (4.68%) PySpark
12 46 (4.30%) .NET
13 43 (4.02%) Elastic Stack
13 43 (4.02%) Middleware
13 43 (4.02%) Swagger
14 41 (3.84%) SOAP
14 41 (3.84%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 243 (22.73%) Cloud Native
2 226 (21.14%) Distributed Systems
3 73 (6.83%) Product Ownership
4 44 (4.12%) Enterprise Software
5 43 (4.02%) Data Structures
6 38 (3.55%) Onboarding
7 36 (3.37%) AI Agents
8 34 (3.18%) Self-Motivation
9 28 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
10 27 (2.53%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 26 (2.43%) Algorithms
11 26 (2.43%) Replication
12 25 (2.34%) Greenfield Project
13 20 (1.87%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 19 (1.78%) Distributed Architecture
15 17 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
15 17 (1.59%) Private Cloud
15 17 (1.59%) Public Cloud
16 16 (1.50%) Management Information System
17 15 (1.40%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 139 (13.00%) Linux
2 72 (6.74%) Unix
3 24 (2.25%) Windows
4 11 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.56%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.47%) Mac OS X
7 3 (0.28%) CentOS
7 3 (0.28%) VMS
8 2 (0.19%) Android
8 2 (0.19%) Debian
8 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.094%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.094%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.094%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.094%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.094%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 591 (55.29%) CI/CD
2 452 (42.28%) Event-Driven
3 439 (41.07%) Microservices
4 386 (36.11%) DevOps
5 381 (35.64%) Agile
6 317 (29.65%) Event-Driven Architecture
7 284 (26.57%) Observability
8 240 (22.45%) Test Automation
9 236 (22.08%) Infrastructure as Code
10 230 (21.52%) Containerisation
11 195 (18.24%) Software Engineering
12 179 (16.74%) AI
13 171 (16.00%) Data Pipeline
14 152 (14.22%) Problem-Solving
15 145 (13.56%) Data Modelling
16 137 (12.82%) Technical Leadership
17 130 (12.16%) Continuous Improvement
17 130 (12.16%) ETL
18 124 (11.60%) Analytics
19 121 (11.32%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 476 (44.53%) Java
2 361 (33.77%) Python
3 341 (31.90%) SQL
4 101 (9.45%) JavaScript
5 99 (9.26%) TypeScript
6 82 (7.67%) Bash
7 62 (5.80%) C#
8 51 (4.77%) Go
9 43 (4.02%) Scala
10 30 (2.81%) PowerShell
11 29 (2.71%) PL/SQL
12 26 (2.43%) Shell Script
13 25 (2.34%) Kotlin
14 11 (1.03%) Groovy
15 9 (0.84%) Perl
16 8 (0.75%) C++
16 8 (0.75%) Rust
16 8 (0.75%) Search Processing Language
17 7 (0.65%) Bicep
17 7 (0.65%) PHP
Qualifications
1 259 (24.23%) Security Cleared
2 212 (19.83%) SC Cleared
3 64 (5.99%) Degree
4 41 (3.84%) Computer Science Degree
5 40 (3.74%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (2.15%) DV Cleared
7 13 (1.22%) Azure Certification
8 12 (1.12%) Master's Degree
9 11 (1.03%) AWS Certification
10 10 (0.94%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.56%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.56%) ISEB
12 5 (0.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 5 (0.47%) TOGAF Certification
13 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 4 (0.37%) SnowPro
14 3 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 3 (0.28%) PhD
15 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
16 1 (0.094%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (8.04%) Data Quality
2 85 (7.95%) QA
3 44 (4.12%) Accessibility
4 34 (3.18%) ISO 20022
5 20 (1.87%) GDPR
6 15 (1.40%) SEPA
7 5 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
7 5 (0.47%) ISO 15022
7 5 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.47%) PSD2
7 5 (0.47%) SLA
7 5 (0.47%) WCAG
8 4 (0.37%) NIST
9 2 (0.19%) Basel III
9 2 (0.19%) EMIR
9 2 (0.19%) GRC
9 2 (0.19%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.19%) IFRS 17
9 2 (0.19%) MiFID
9 2 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 378 (35.36%) Docker
2 17 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (0.75%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 3 (0.28%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.19%) Apache Flume
5 2 (0.19%) HDFS
6 1 (0.094%) etcd
6 1 (0.094%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 490 (45.84%) Kubernetes
2 141 (13.19%) Grafana
3 124 (11.60%) Prometheus
4 69 (6.45%) Ansible
5 30 (2.81%) Argo
6 25 (2.34%) Control-M
7 14 (1.31%) Istio
7 14 (1.31%) Kibana
7 14 (1.31%) Kustomize
8 11 (1.03%) Puppet
9 9 (0.84%) Podman
10 8 (0.75%) logstash
11 7 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (0.56%) Rancher
13 5 (0.47%) Check_MK
13 5 (0.47%) HP Fortify
14 4 (0.37%) Bosun
14 4 (0.37%) Consul
15 3 (0.28%) Cilium
15 3 (0.28%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 121 (11.32%) Oracle
2 101 (9.45%) Databricks
3 62 (5.80%) Splunk
4 57 (5.33%) IBM
5 54 (5.05%) Microsoft
6 51 (4.77%) Google
7 37 (3.46%) Dynatrace
8 31 (2.90%) Confluent
9 28 (2.62%) Informatica
10 21 (1.96%) MuleSoft
10 21 (1.96%) VMware
11 19 (1.78%) OpenAI
12 16 (1.50%) Salesforce
12 16 (1.50%) SAP
13 14 (1.31%) Solace
14 13 (1.22%) TIBCO
15 12 (1.12%) New Relic
16 9 (0.84%) Sybase
16 9 (0.84%) Veracode
16 9 (0.84%) WSO2