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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 102 136
Rank change year-on-year -45 +34 +25
Contract jobs citing Kafka 1,027 852 686
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.91% 2.59% 1.78%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 8.78% 10.17% 7.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 634 547 473
10th Percentile £371 £384 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £723
90th Percentile £737 £750 £799
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £469 £492
% change year-on-year +6.61% -4.58% -21.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 5 9
10th Percentile £44.78 £42.35 £24.87
25th Percentile £56.38 £53.00 £27.00
Median hourly rate £71.25 £62.50 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.00% +123.21% -64.10%
75th Percentile £83.00 £78.70 £38.75
90th Percentile £90.00 £97.48 £45.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 £78.70 £28.00
% change year-on-year -2.16% +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 11,693 8,375 9,489
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.76% 25.41% 24.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,693 5,653 6,417
10th Percentile £375 £355 £356
25th Percentile £433 £413 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £630 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £780
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +6.26% -5.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 283 185 197
10th Percentile £29.07 £30.45 £26.44
25th Percentile £45.00 £41.25 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £54.00 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +20.37% -12.34% -1.44%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.59 £79.48 £74.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +22.73% -15.38% +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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 -49 867 £550 - 496
London -42 508 £563 -6.25% 351
UK excluding London -25 390 £500 +6.61% 231
Work from Home -60 254 £530 -7.83% 222
North of England -25 188 £500 +6.38% 65
Yorkshire +3 97 £500 -14.89% 25
North West -42 72 £544 +16.88% 31
South East -39 61 £513 +17.82% 63
Scotland -33 53 £425 -9.57% 37
Midlands -42 42 £500 +17.51% 15
East of England +7 28 £500 -2.44% 5
West Midlands -37 27 £517 +3.40% 9
North East -17 26 £425 -8.55% 9
South West -27 26 £500 -9.09% 35
East Midlands -12 15 £447 +9.02% 6
Northern Ireland +2 4 - - 12
Wales - 1 £375 -

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
1 132 (12.85%) Apache Spark
2 68 (6.62%) Apache
3 67 (6.52%) Apache Airflow
4 22 (2.14%) Confluence
5 15 (1.46%) Camunda
6 8 (0.78%) OpenStack
7 7 (0.68%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.58%) CMS
9 5 (0.49%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.39%) Apache Pulsar
10 4 (0.39%) PowerExchange
10 4 (0.39%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.29%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.29%) Mule
12 2 (0.19%) Apache Pig
12 2 (0.19%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.19%) MQSeries
12 2 (0.19%) nginx
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.19%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 7 (0.68%) CPLEX
2 1 (0.097%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.097%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (0.19%) Endur
2 2 (0.19%) Finacle
2 2 (0.19%) FLEXCUBE
2 2 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.19%) Temenos T24
3 1 (0.097%) Actimize
3 1 (0.097%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.097%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.097%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.097%) SAP IS-U
3 1 (0.097%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 596 (58.03%) AWS
2 366 (35.64%) Azure
3 232 (22.59%) GCP
4 171 (16.65%) GitHub
5 120 (11.68%) GitHub Actions
6 100 (9.74%) Serverless
7 79 (7.69%) AWS Lambda
8 76 (7.40%) Amazon S3
9 74 (7.21%) Azure DevOps
10 71 (6.91%) OpenShift
11 70 (6.82%) Amazon EKS
12 68 (6.62%) Snowflake
13 53 (5.16%) Amazon SQS
14 50 (4.87%) dbt
15 47 (4.58%) Power Platform
16 41 (3.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 38 (3.70%) Amazon ECS
18 33 (3.21%) Azure Data Factory
18 33 (3.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 29 (2.82%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 29 (2.82%) HTTP
2 18 (1.75%) DNS
3 11 (1.07%) Firewall
3 11 (1.07%) Network Security
4 8 (0.78%) TCP/IP
5 7 (0.68%) MQTT
5 7 (0.68%) SSL
6 6 (0.58%) SSH
7 5 (0.49%) SAN
8 4 (0.39%) 4G
8 4 (0.39%) 5G
8 4 (0.39%) NAS
9 3 (0.29%) Internet
10 2 (0.19%) OpenVPN
11 1 (0.097%) FIX Connectivity
11 1 (0.097%) MIMO
11 1 (0.097%) NaaS
11 1 (0.097%) Reverse Proxy
11 1 (0.097%) VPN
11 1 (0.097%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (17.53%) PostgreSQL
2 159 (15.48%) MongoDB
3 136 (13.24%) NoSQL
4 95 (9.25%) Relational Database
5 71 (6.91%) Data Warehouse
6 63 (6.13%) SQL Server
7 58 (5.65%) Big Data
8 54 (5.26%) Data Lake
9 53 (5.16%) Redis
10 46 (4.48%) Power BI
11 41 (3.99%) BigQuery
11 41 (3.99%) MySQL
12 36 (3.51%) Elasticsearch
12 36 (3.51%) Metadata
13 35 (3.41%) Flink
14 28 (2.73%) Amazon Redshift
14 28 (2.73%) Apache Cassandra
14 28 (2.73%) Delta Lake
14 28 (2.73%) DynamoDB
15 25 (2.43%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 213 (20.74%) Jenkins
2 175 (17.04%) Git
3 153 (14.90%) GitLab
4 73 (7.11%) JUnit
5 64 (6.23%) Gradle
6 61 (5.94%) Mockito
7 49 (4.77%) Selenium
8 46 (4.48%) JIRA
9 40 (3.89%) Maven
10 33 (3.21%) SonarQube
11 26 (2.53%) Cucumber
12 24 (2.34%) REST Assured
13 23 (2.24%) Postman
14 18 (1.75%) JMeter
14 18 (1.75%) Liquibase
15 16 (1.56%) Bitbucket
16 15 (1.46%) Gatling
17 13 (1.27%) Cypress.io
18 12 (1.17%) LoadRunner
18 12 (1.17%) SoapUI
General
1 240 (23.37%) Finance
2 193 (18.79%) Social Skills
3 145 (14.12%) Banking
4 106 (10.32%) Analytical Skills
5 102 (9.93%) Public Sector
6 34 (3.31%) Retail
7 23 (2.24%) Investment Banking
8 19 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 18 (1.75%) Telecoms
10 17 (1.66%) Financial Institution
11 16 (1.56%) Front Office
12 15 (1.46%) Law
13 12 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
14 10 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
15 9 (0.88%) Billing
15 9 (0.88%) Publishing
16 8 (0.78%) Games
17 7 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
17 7 (0.68%) Military
17 7 (0.68%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 312 (30.38%) Developer
2 205 (19.96%) Senior
3 172 (16.75%) Java Developer
4 143 (13.92%) Architect
5 137 (13.34%) Data Engineer
6 101 (9.83%) Lead
7 71 (6.91%) Java Engineer
8 68 (6.62%) Software Engineer
9 66 (6.43%) Senior Developer
10 62 (6.04%) Solutions Architect
11 58 (5.65%) DevOps Engineer
12 39 (3.80%) Full-Stack Developer
13 38 (3.70%) Senior Data Engineer
13 38 (3.70%) Senior Java Developer
14 37 (3.60%) Python Engineer
15 36 (3.51%) AWS Architect
15 36 (3.51%) AWS Engineer
15 36 (3.51%) Kafka Engineer
16 35 (3.41%) Python Developer
17 33 (3.21%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 269 (26.19%) Spring
1 269 (26.19%) Spring Boot
2 221 (21.52%) REST
2 221 (21.52%) Terraform
3 145 (14.12%) RESTful
4 133 (12.95%) React
5 123 (11.98%) RabbitMQ
6 72 (7.01%) JSON
7 57 (5.55%) OAuth
8 52 (5.06%) OpenTelemetry
9 51 (4.97%) PySpark
10 50 (4.87%) Node.js
11 47 (4.58%) HTML
12 45 (4.38%) .NET
13 44 (4.28%) GraphQL
14 43 (4.19%) Swagger
15 41 (3.99%) OAuth2
15 41 (3.99%) OpenAPI
16 40 (3.89%) Elastic Stack
16 40 (3.89%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 222 (21.62%) Cloud Native
2 209 (20.35%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (5.36%) Product Ownership
4 45 (4.38%) Data Structures
5 40 (3.89%) Enterprise Software
6 35 (3.41%) Onboarding
7 30 (2.92%) Self-Motivation
8 29 (2.82%) Algorithms
9 27 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
10 25 (2.43%) AI Agents
11 22 (2.14%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 21 (2.04%) Management Information System
13 20 (1.95%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 20 (1.95%) Replication
14 18 (1.75%) Greenfield Project
15 16 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
15 16 (1.56%) Public Cloud
16 15 (1.46%) Equities
17 13 (1.27%) Distributed Architecture
18 12 (1.17%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 130 (12.66%) Linux
2 68 (6.62%) Unix
3 28 (2.73%) Windows
4 10 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.58%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.49%) Mac OS X
7 3 (0.29%) VMS
8 2 (0.19%) Android
8 2 (0.19%) Debian
8 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.19%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.097%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.097%) CentOS
9 1 (0.097%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 559 (54.43%) CI/CD
2 409 (39.82%) Microservices
3 399 (38.85%) Event-Driven
4 371 (36.12%) DevOps
5 364 (35.44%) Agile
6 278 (27.07%) Event-Driven Architecture
7 268 (26.10%) Observability
8 221 (21.52%) Containerisation
9 219 (21.32%) Test Automation
10 215 (20.93%) Infrastructure as Code
11 188 (18.31%) Software Engineering
12 184 (17.92%) Data Pipeline
13 168 (16.36%) AI
14 155 (15.09%) Data Modelling
15 141 (13.73%) Problem-Solving
16 136 (13.24%) ETL
17 134 (13.05%) Analytics
18 123 (11.98%) Continuous Improvement
19 122 (11.88%) Data Engineering
20 121 (11.78%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 450 (43.82%) Java
2 357 (34.76%) Python
3 341 (33.20%) SQL
4 100 (9.74%) TypeScript
5 97 (9.44%) JavaScript
6 80 (7.79%) Bash
7 61 (5.94%) C#
8 47 (4.58%) Go
9 41 (3.99%) Scala
10 35 (3.41%) PowerShell
11 29 (2.82%) PL/SQL
12 23 (2.24%) Shell Script
13 20 (1.95%) Kotlin
14 12 (1.17%) Search Processing Language
15 10 (0.97%) Bicep
15 10 (0.97%) Groovy
16 9 (0.88%) C++
16 9 (0.88%) Rust
17 7 (0.68%) PHP
18 6 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 245 (23.86%) Security Cleared
2 195 (18.99%) SC Cleared
3 59 (5.74%) Degree
4 35 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
5 34 (3.31%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (1.75%) DV Cleared
7 11 (1.07%) AWS Certification
8 10 (0.97%) ISTQB
8 10 (0.97%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.78%) Azure Certification
10 7 (0.68%) SnowPro
11 6 (0.58%) ISEB
12 5 (0.49%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.39%) DBS Check
14 3 (0.29%) PhD
14 3 (0.29%) TOGAF Certification
15 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
16 1 (0.097%) ITIL Certification
16 1 (0.097%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (9.44%) Data Quality
2 64 (6.23%) QA
3 43 (4.19%) Accessibility
4 30 (2.92%) ISO 20022
5 29 (2.82%) GDPR
6 12 (1.17%) SEPA
7 8 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
8 6 (0.58%) WCAG
9 5 (0.49%) ISO 15022
10 4 (0.39%) SLA
11 3 (0.29%) NIST
11 3 (0.29%) PSD2
12 2 (0.19%) Basel III
12 2 (0.19%) EMIR
12 2 (0.19%) IFRS
12 2 (0.19%) IFRS 17
12 2 (0.19%) MiFID
12 2 (0.19%) Solvency II
13 1 (0.097%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 370 (36.03%) Docker
2 9 (0.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (0.68%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 6 (0.58%) etcd
5 3 (0.29%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.19%) Apache Flume
6 2 (0.19%) HDFS
7 1 (0.097%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 457 (44.50%) Kubernetes
2 133 (12.95%) Grafana
3 121 (11.78%) Prometheus
4 69 (6.72%) Ansible
5 31 (3.02%) Argo
6 25 (2.43%) Control-M
7 12 (1.17%) Istio
7 12 (1.17%) Kibana
7 12 (1.17%) Kustomize
8 11 (1.07%) Puppet
9 10 (0.97%) Podman
10 8 (0.78%) logstash
11 7 (0.68%) Fluentd
12 5 (0.49%) Check_MK
12 5 (0.49%) HP Fortify
12 5 (0.49%) Rancher
13 3 (0.29%) Bosun
13 3 (0.29%) Consul
13 3 (0.29%) NetBackup
13 3 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 114 (11.10%) Oracle
2 99 (9.64%) Databricks
3 62 (6.04%) Splunk
4 55 (5.36%) Google
4 55 (5.36%) Microsoft
5 51 (4.97%) IBM
6 34 (3.31%) Dynatrace
7 33 (3.21%) Informatica
8 32 (3.12%) Confluent
9 18 (1.75%) MuleSoft
10 17 (1.66%) Salesforce
11 16 (1.56%) SAP
12 15 (1.46%) OpenAI
12 15 (1.46%) Solace
13 13 (1.27%) VMware
14 11 (1.07%) TIBCO
15 10 (0.97%) Red Hat
16 9 (0.88%) New Relic
17 8 (0.78%) Veracode
18 7 (0.68%) WSO2