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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 115 155
Rank change year-on-year -22 +40 -17
Contract jobs citing Kafka 941 701 671
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 2.45% 1.57%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.89% 10.78% 7.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 568 459 499
10th Percentile £368 £400 £400
25th Percentile £424 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £650 £712 £675
90th Percentile £800 £827 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £470 £495
% change year-on-year -1.06% -5.00% -10.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 3 7
10th Percentile £50.05 £47.14 £22.34
25th Percentile £64.00 £58.98 £24.88
Median hourly rate £70.00 £78.70 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.05% +181.07% -64.10%
75th Percentile £90.00 £86.23 £37.63
90th Percentile £92.00 £90.74 £51.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £78.70 £28.00
% change year-on-year -11.05% +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 9,510 6,500 8,929
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.59% 22.73% 20.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,248 4,454 6,211
10th Percentile £363 £361 £345
25th Percentile £420 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 276 105 250
10th Percentile £30.77 £27.44 £21.68
25th Percentile £51.25 £37.80 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +31.58% -26.92%
75th Percentile £73.00 £68.75 £65.95
90th Percentile £81.00 £81.22 £74.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.43
% change year-on-year - +34.21% -25.49%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 26 May 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 -23 815 £550 -4.35% 178
London -20 513 £600 -7.69% 113
UK excluding London -41 304 £465 -1.06% 88
Work from Home -10 285 £600 - 78
North of England -34 135 £450 -10.00% 26
Yorkshire -14 71 £463 -15.91% 5
South East -37 53 £488 +18.18% 26
North West -40 53 £434 -13.20% 18
Scotland -9 43 £450 -4.76% 4
Midlands -47 43 £491 +33.86% 5
South West -10 29 £525 -7.69% 14
West Midlands -49 25 £507 -7.82% 3
North East -10 20 £450 -2.70% 3
East Midlands -25 18 £407 +14.40% 2
East of England -29 15 £550 +71.14% 3
Wales -11 1 £250 - 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
1 135 (14.35%) Apache Spark
2 70 (7.44%) Apache
3 50 (5.31%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (1.81%) Confluence
5 6 (0.64%) Camunda
5 6 (0.64%) Ethereum
5 6 (0.64%) Hyperledger
6 5 (0.53%) WebSphere
7 4 (0.43%) Apache Pulsar
7 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.32%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.11%) JBoss
Applications
1 4 (0.43%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.21%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.11%) Maya
Business Applications
1 3 (0.32%) Bloomberg AIM
1 3 (0.32%) Fidessa
1 3 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 2 (0.21%) Shopify
2 2 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.11%) Endur
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
3 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
3 1 (0.11%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 553 (58.77%) AWS
2 271 (28.80%) Azure
3 163 (17.32%) GCP
4 142 (15.09%) GitHub
5 129 (13.71%) Serverless
6 101 (10.73%) Amazon S3
7 99 (10.52%) GitHub Actions
8 94 (9.99%) AWS Lambda
9 66 (7.01%) Amazon EKS
9 66 (7.01%) Power Platform
10 64 (6.80%) OpenShift
11 62 (6.59%) Azure DevOps
12 54 (5.74%) AWS CloudFormation
13 49 (5.21%) Snowflake
14 47 (4.99%) Amazon ECS
15 44 (4.68%) Amazon SQS
16 42 (4.46%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 39 (4.14%) dbt
18 38 (4.04%) Amazon Kinesis
19 36 (3.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.91%) Firewall
2 14 (1.49%) HTTP
3 10 (1.06%) SSL
4 9 (0.96%) DNS
5 7 (0.74%) Network Security
6 6 (0.64%) SMS
7 5 (0.53%) NAS
7 5 (0.53%) SAN
7 5 (0.53%) TCP/IP
8 4 (0.43%) MQTT
9 2 (0.21%) FTP
9 2 (0.21%) NaaS
9 2 (0.21%) OpenVPN
9 2 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.21%) SSH
9 2 (0.21%) VPN
9 2 (0.21%) WAN
10 1 (0.11%) Broadband
10 1 (0.11%) Internet
10 1 (0.11%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 195 (20.72%) PostgreSQL
2 154 (16.37%) MongoDB
3 129 (13.71%) NoSQL
4 88 (9.35%) Relational Database
5 62 (6.59%) Big Data
6 58 (6.16%) Data Lake
7 57 (6.06%) Data Warehouse
8 54 (5.74%) SQL Server
9 53 (5.63%) Power BI
10 52 (5.53%) Apache Cassandra
11 50 (5.31%) Redis
12 46 (4.89%) Elasticsearch
13 38 (4.04%) Amazon Athena
13 38 (4.04%) DynamoDB
13 38 (4.04%) Flink
14 36 (3.83%) Hadoop
15 35 (3.72%) MySQL
16 31 (3.29%) Amazon Redshift
16 31 (3.29%) BigQuery
17 30 (3.19%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 139 (14.77%) Jenkins
2 129 (13.71%) Git
2 129 (13.71%) GitLab
3 62 (6.59%) JUnit
4 55 (5.84%) JIRA
5 42 (4.46%) Mockito
6 28 (2.98%) Selenium
7 26 (2.76%) Gradle
8 22 (2.34%) REST Assured
9 21 (2.23%) Cucumber
10 20 (2.13%) Gatling
11 15 (1.59%) Liquibase
11 15 (1.59%) Postman
11 15 (1.59%) Serenity BDD
12 13 (1.38%) Maven
13 10 (1.06%) Jaeger
13 10 (1.06%) SonarQube
14 7 (0.74%) JMeter
14 7 (0.74%) Snyk
15 6 (0.64%) Artifactory
General
1 250 (26.57%) Finance
2 168 (17.85%) Social Skills
3 120 (12.75%) Banking
4 78 (8.29%) Public Sector
5 76 (8.08%) Analytical Skills
6 46 (4.89%) Front Office
7 36 (3.83%) Investment Banking
8 27 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (2.66%) Financial Institution
10 13 (1.38%) Retail
11 12 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
11 12 (1.28%) Marketing
12 11 (1.17%) Law
13 10 (1.06%) Telecoms
14 9 (0.96%) Publishing
15 7 (0.74%) Automotive
15 7 (0.74%) Corporate Banking
15 7 (0.74%) Military
16 6 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 5 (0.53%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 309 (32.84%) Developer
2 203 (21.57%) Senior
3 160 (17.00%) Data Engineer
4 152 (16.15%) Java Developer
5 117 (12.43%) Lead
6 109 (11.58%) Architect
7 92 (9.78%) Senior Developer
8 90 (9.56%) Software Engineer
9 65 (6.91%) Java Engineer
10 51 (5.42%) AWS Architect
11 50 (5.31%) Senior Java Developer
12 43 (4.57%) DevOps Engineer
13 42 (4.46%) Full-Stack Developer
14 39 (4.14%) Solutions Architect
15 35 (3.72%) Principal Engineer
16 34 (3.61%) Senior Data Engineer
17 33 (3.51%) Developer/Software Engineer
18 31 (3.29%) Data Architect
18 31 (3.29%) Full-Stack Engineer
19 30 (3.19%) Lead Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 224 (23.80%) Spring
2 206 (21.89%) Spring Boot
3 132 (14.03%) REST
4 120 (12.75%) RESTful
5 113 (12.01%) React
6 101 (10.73%) Node.js
7 85 (9.03%) RabbitMQ
8 60 (6.38%) gRPC
9 58 (6.16%) GraphQL
9 58 (6.16%) OpenTelemetry
10 53 (5.63%) JSON
11 45 (4.78%) Middleware
12 43 (4.57%) PySpark
13 42 (4.46%) Apache Avro
14 39 (4.14%) Redux
15 37 (3.93%) AngularJS
15 37 (3.93%) OAuth
16 34 (3.61%) Swagger
17 33 (3.51%) OpenAPI
18 32 (3.40%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 166 (17.64%) Distributed Systems
2 153 (16.26%) Cloud Native
3 43 (4.57%) Management Information System
4 40 (4.25%) Fixed Income
5 33 (3.51%) Product Ownership
6 27 (2.87%) Data Structures
7 20 (2.13%) Onboarding
8 17 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
9 16 (1.70%) Equities
9 16 (1.70%) Hybrid Cloud
10 15 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
11 14 (1.49%) Algorithms
11 14 (1.49%) Derivative
12 13 (1.38%) Clustering
13 12 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
13 12 (1.28%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 11 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 11 (1.17%) Hedge funds
15 10 (1.06%) CMDB
16 9 (0.96%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 95 (10.10%) Linux
2 56 (5.95%) Unix
3 33 (3.51%) Windows
4 8 (0.85%) Mac OS X
5 5 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.53%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.32%) VMS
6 3 (0.32%) zOS
7 2 (0.21%) AIX
7 2 (0.21%) Debian
7 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.21%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (0.21%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.11%) Android
8 1 (0.11%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.11%) CentOS
8 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 423 (44.95%) CI/CD
2 345 (36.66%) Microservices
3 298 (31.67%) Agile
4 284 (30.18%) DevOps
5 251 (26.67%) Event-Driven
6 219 (23.27%) Observability
7 196 (20.83%) Containerisation
8 192 (20.40%) Software Engineering
9 171 (18.17%) Data Pipeline
10 166 (17.64%) Data Modelling
11 164 (17.43%) Infrastructure as Code
12 163 (17.32%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 155 (16.47%) Analytics
14 150 (15.94%) Data Engineering
15 148 (15.73%) Problem-Solving
16 142 (15.09%) ETL
16 142 (15.09%) Test Automation
17 107 (11.37%) Full-Stack Development
18 104 (11.05%) AI
19 98 (10.41%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 424 (45.06%) Java
2 322 (34.22%) Python
3 294 (31.24%) SQL
4 110 (11.69%) TypeScript
5 104 (11.05%) Go
6 90 (9.56%) JavaScript
7 58 (6.16%) C#
8 43 (4.57%) Bash
9 28 (2.98%) Scala
10 20 (2.13%) Rust
11 19 (2.02%) PowerShell
12 16 (1.70%) C++
12 16 (1.70%) Shell Script
13 13 (1.38%) Bicep
14 11 (1.17%) PL/SQL
15 10 (1.06%) Search Processing Language
16 8 (0.85%) Perl
17 6 (0.64%) PHP
18 5 (0.53%) Kotlin
18 5 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 205 (21.79%) Security Cleared
2 159 (16.90%) SC Cleared
3 49 (5.21%) Degree
4 27 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (1.81%) AWS Certification
5 17 (1.81%) DV Cleared
6 14 (1.49%) Azure Certification
7 13 (1.38%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.38%) Master's Degree
8 7 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 7 (0.74%) SnowPro
9 4 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
11 2 (0.21%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.21%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.11%) CISSP
12 1 (0.11%) OCP
12 1 (0.11%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (11.16%) Data Quality
2 50 (5.31%) QA
3 43 (4.57%) GDPR
4 30 (3.19%) Accessibility
5 19 (2.02%) ISO 20022
6 11 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (0.96%) NIST
8 8 (0.85%) SEPA
9 7 (0.74%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.64%) NCSC
11 4 (0.43%) SLA
11 4 (0.43%) WCAG
12 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
13 2 (0.21%) EMIR
13 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
13 2 (0.21%) MiFID
13 2 (0.21%) PSD2
14 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
14 1 (0.11%) Basel III
14 1 (0.11%) HL7
System Software
1 322 (34.22%) Docker
2 6 (0.64%) etcd
3 3 (0.32%) Apache ZooKeeper
3 3 (0.32%) HDFS
3 3 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.11%) Apache Flume
4 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 366 (38.89%) Kubernetes
2 197 (20.94%) Terraform
3 129 (13.71%) Grafana
3 129 (13.71%) Prometheus
4 60 (6.38%) Ansible
5 26 (2.76%) Argo
6 11 (1.17%) Istio
6 11 (1.17%) Kibana
7 9 (0.96%) Kiali
8 8 (0.85%) Puppet
9 7 (0.74%) Fluentd
9 7 (0.74%) linkerd
9 7 (0.74%) Podman
10 6 (0.64%) logstash
10 6 (0.64%) Rancher
11 5 (0.53%) Kustomize
12 3 (0.32%) NetBackup
13 2 (0.21%) Amdocs OSS
13 2 (0.21%) CA Wily
13 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 93 (9.88%) Databricks
2 77 (8.18%) Splunk
3 71 (7.55%) Oracle
4 44 (4.68%) Microsoft
5 37 (3.93%) Google
6 28 (2.98%) Confluent
7 22 (2.34%) Informatica
8 18 (1.91%) IBM
9 13 (1.38%) Dynatrace
9 13 (1.38%) Red Hat
9 13 (1.38%) Salesforce
10 11 (1.17%) ServiceNow
11 9 (0.96%) Solace
11 9 (0.96%) Talend
12 8 (0.85%) MuleSoft
12 8 (0.85%) VMware
13 7 (0.74%) AppDynamics
13 7 (0.74%) Sybase
14 6 (0.64%) Pega
15 5 (0.53%) Teradata