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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 113 159
Rank change year-on-year -17 +46 -20
Contract jobs citing Kafka 927 695 651
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 2.39% 1.53%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.89% 10.53% 7.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 565 453 479
10th Percentile £363 £400 £400
25th Percentile £420 £460 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.00% -17.85%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £475 £490
% change year-on-year -1.58% -2.96% -11.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 4 6
10th Percentile £48.38 £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% -59.62%
75th Percentile £90.00 £93.75 £38.94
90th Percentile £92.50 - £54.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £78.70 £31.50
% change year-on-year -11.05% +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 9,374 6,599 8,902
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.66% 22.70% 20.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,179 4,521 6,171
10th Percentile £360 £363 £350
25th Percentile £416 £423 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £624 £650 £650
90th Percentile £730 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 110 243
10th Percentile £32.50 £30.15 £21.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £50.27 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year - +36.84% -26.92%
75th Percentile £71.75 £68.56 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £82.19 £74.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year - +36.84% -26.36%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -24 803 £538 -8.12% 204
London -18 508 £600 -7.69% 123
UK excluding London -30 291 £468 -1.58% 106
Work from Home -7 290 £600 - 103
North of England -35 131 £453 -9.50% 39
Yorkshire -17 65 £460 -23.33% 10
North West -39 55 £449 -10.30% 20
South East -35 47 £488 +1.99% 36
Midlands -46 45 £500 +37.93% 6
Scotland -8 36 £450 -4.26% 6
South West -10 29 £525 +2.44% 13
West Midlands -46 26 £514 -6.55% 4
East Midlands -23 19 £407 +14.40% 2
North East -9 18 £450 -2.70% 9
East of England -23 15 £550 +74.60% 1
Wales -7 1 £250 - 1

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 (13.92%) Apache Spark
2 68 (7.34%) Apache
3 47 (5.07%) Apache Airflow
4 22 (2.37%) Confluence
5 6 (0.65%) Camunda
5 6 (0.65%) Ethereum
5 6 (0.65%) Hyperledger
6 5 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.54%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.54%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.32%) Apache Pulsar
7 3 (0.32%) MQSeries
7 3 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
8 2 (0.22%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.22%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.22%) WebSphere Portal
9 1 (0.11%) Apache Pig
Applications
1 4 (0.43%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.22%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.11%) Maya
Business Applications
1 4 (0.43%) Bloomberg AIM
1 4 (0.43%) Fidessa
2 3 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.22%) Actimize
3 2 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 2 (0.22%) Shopify
3 2 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
4 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 545 (58.79%) AWS
2 266 (28.69%) Azure
3 158 (17.04%) GCP
4 145 (15.64%) GitHub
5 121 (13.05%) Serverless
6 104 (11.22%) Amazon S3
7 103 (11.11%) GitHub Actions
8 90 (9.71%) AWS Lambda
9 73 (7.87%) Amazon EKS
10 64 (6.90%) Azure DevOps
10 64 (6.90%) Power Platform
11 61 (6.58%) OpenShift
12 56 (6.04%) AWS CloudFormation
13 49 (5.29%) Amazon ECS
14 46 (4.96%) Snowflake
15 44 (4.75%) Amazon SQS
16 41 (4.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 39 (4.21%) Amazon Kinesis
18 37 (3.99%) dbt
19 36 (3.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.05%) Firewall
2 14 (1.51%) HTTP
3 13 (1.40%) SSL
4 9 (0.97%) DNS
5 6 (0.65%) SMS
6 5 (0.54%) FTP
6 5 (0.54%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.32%) SSH
7 3 (0.32%) VPN
8 2 (0.22%) MQTT
8 2 (0.22%) NaaS
8 2 (0.22%) OpenVPN
8 2 (0.22%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.22%) WAN
9 1 (0.11%) 4G
9 1 (0.11%) 5G
9 1 (0.11%) Broadband
9 1 (0.11%) Kerberos
9 1 (0.11%) MIMO
9 1 (0.11%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (20.39%) PostgreSQL
2 145 (15.64%) MongoDB
3 123 (13.27%) NoSQL
4 83 (8.95%) Relational Database
5 61 (6.58%) Big Data
6 56 (6.04%) Data Lake
7 54 (5.83%) Data Warehouse
8 53 (5.72%) Apache Cassandra
8 53 (5.72%) SQL Server
9 51 (5.50%) Power BI
9 51 (5.50%) Redis
10 44 (4.75%) Elasticsearch
11 39 (4.21%) Flink
12 38 (4.10%) DynamoDB
13 37 (3.99%) Amazon Athena
14 36 (3.88%) Hadoop
15 33 (3.56%) MySQL
16 31 (3.34%) Amazon Redshift
16 31 (3.34%) Metadata
17 30 (3.24%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 146 (15.75%) Jenkins
2 134 (14.46%) GitLab
3 124 (13.38%) Git
4 60 (6.47%) JUnit
5 58 (6.26%) JIRA
6 42 (4.53%) Mockito
7 25 (2.70%) Gradle
8 20 (2.16%) Selenium
9 19 (2.05%) Cucumber
10 18 (1.94%) Gatling
11 17 (1.83%) REST Assured
12 14 (1.51%) Liquibase
13 13 (1.40%) Maven
14 12 (1.29%) Postman
15 11 (1.19%) Serenity BDD
16 10 (1.08%) Jaeger
17 8 (0.86%) CircleCI
17 8 (0.86%) SonarQube
18 7 (0.76%) JMeter
18 7 (0.76%) Snyk
General
1 255 (27.51%) Finance
2 164 (17.69%) Social Skills
3 116 (12.51%) Banking
4 76 (8.20%) Analytical Skills
5 75 (8.09%) Public Sector
6 47 (5.07%) Front Office
7 31 (3.34%) Investment Banking
8 26 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
9 23 (2.48%) Financial Institution
10 13 (1.40%) Telecoms
11 11 (1.19%) Marketing
12 10 (1.08%) Law
13 9 (0.97%) Publishing
13 9 (0.97%) Retail
14 7 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (0.65%) Automotive
15 6 (0.65%) Corporate Banking
16 5 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 5 (0.54%) Military
17 4 (0.43%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 313 (33.76%) Developer
2 208 (22.44%) Senior
3 158 (17.04%) Data Engineer
4 145 (15.64%) Java Developer
5 112 (12.08%) Lead
6 109 (11.76%) Architect
7 96 (10.36%) Senior Developer
8 90 (9.71%) Software Engineer
9 60 (6.47%) Java Engineer
10 54 (5.83%) AWS Architect
11 49 (5.29%) Senior Java Developer
12 44 (4.75%) Full-Stack Developer
13 43 (4.64%) DevOps Engineer
14 40 (4.31%) Solutions Architect
15 35 (3.78%) Senior Data Engineer
16 33 (3.56%) Developer/Software Engineer
17 32 (3.45%) Data Architect
17 32 (3.45%) Full-Stack Engineer
18 30 (3.24%) Principal Engineer
19 29 (3.13%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (23.09%) Spring
2 198 (21.36%) Spring Boot
3 126 (13.59%) REST
4 113 (12.19%) RESTful
5 110 (11.87%) React
6 107 (11.54%) Node.js
7 79 (8.52%) RabbitMQ
8 61 (6.58%) gRPC
9 58 (6.26%) OpenTelemetry
10 52 (5.61%) GraphQL
11 49 (5.29%) JSON
12 45 (4.85%) Middleware
13 44 (4.75%) PySpark
14 43 (4.64%) Apache Avro
15 39 (4.21%) Redux
16 38 (4.10%) AngularJS
17 35 (3.78%) OAuth
18 34 (3.67%) OpenAPI
18 34 (3.67%) Swagger
19 30 (3.24%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 161 (17.37%) Distributed Systems
2 143 (15.43%) Cloud Native
3 45 (4.85%) Management Information System
4 43 (4.64%) Fixed Income
5 33 (3.56%) Product Ownership
6 26 (2.80%) Data Structures
7 20 (2.16%) Onboarding
8 19 (2.05%) Equities
9 17 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (1.62%) Algorithms
12 14 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.40%) Derivative
14 12 (1.29%) Clustering
14 12 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
15 11 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 11 (1.19%) Hedge funds
15 11 (1.19%) SWIFT Messaging Network
16 10 (1.08%) Replication
17 9 (0.97%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 100 (10.79%) Linux
2 55 (5.93%) Unix
3 33 (3.56%) Windows
4 9 (0.97%) Mac OS X
5 4 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.43%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.32%) VMS
6 3 (0.32%) zOS
7 2 (0.22%) AIX
7 2 (0.22%) Debian
7 2 (0.22%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.22%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (0.22%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.11%) Android
8 1 (0.11%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.11%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 417 (44.98%) CI/CD
2 330 (35.60%) Microservices
3 297 (32.04%) Agile
4 282 (30.42%) DevOps
5 244 (26.32%) Event-Driven
6 211 (22.76%) Observability
7 195 (21.04%) Containerisation
8 193 (20.82%) Software Engineering
9 166 (17.91%) Data Pipeline
10 165 (17.80%) Data Modelling
11 159 (17.15%) Infrastructure as Code
12 158 (17.04%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 157 (16.94%) Analytics
14 149 (16.07%) Data Engineering
15 148 (15.97%) Problem-Solving
16 143 (15.43%) Test Automation
17 139 (14.99%) ETL
18 110 (11.87%) Full-Stack Development
19 99 (10.68%) Data Governance
20 98 (10.57%) AI
Programming Languages
1 418 (45.09%) Java
2 325 (35.06%) Python
3 279 (30.10%) SQL
4 108 (11.65%) TypeScript
5 106 (11.43%) Go
6 97 (10.46%) JavaScript
7 59 (6.36%) C#
8 43 (4.64%) Bash
9 29 (3.13%) Scala
10 19 (2.05%) PowerShell
11 18 (1.94%) Rust
12 17 (1.83%) C++
13 15 (1.62%) Shell Script
14 14 (1.51%) Bicep
15 10 (1.08%) Search Processing Language
16 9 (0.97%) PL/SQL
17 6 (0.65%) Groovy
18 5 (0.54%) Kotlin
18 5 (0.54%) PHP
18 5 (0.54%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 214 (23.09%) Security Cleared
2 171 (18.45%) SC Cleared
3 46 (4.96%) Degree
4 27 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
5 18 (1.94%) AWS Certification
5 18 (1.94%) DV Cleared
6 16 (1.73%) Azure Certification
7 14 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (1.40%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.76%) SnowPro
10 4 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.22%) AWS Certified Developer
11 2 (0.22%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.22%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.11%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
12 1 (0.11%) CISSP
12 1 (0.11%) OCP
12 1 (0.11%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (11.54%) Data Quality
2 50 (5.39%) QA
3 45 (4.85%) GDPR
4 26 (2.80%) Accessibility
5 17 (1.83%) ISO 20022
6 10 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (0.97%) NIST
8 7 (0.76%) NCSC
8 7 (0.76%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.76%) SEPA
9 4 (0.43%) MiFID
9 4 (0.43%) SLA
9 4 (0.43%) WCAG
10 3 (0.32%) HL7
10 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.22%) EMIR
11 2 (0.22%) ISO 15022
11 2 (0.22%) PSD2
12 1 (0.11%) PMO
System Software
1 322 (34.74%) Docker
2 6 (0.65%) etcd
3 3 (0.32%) HDFS
3 3 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.11%) Apache Flume
4 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 365 (39.37%) Kubernetes
2 194 (20.93%) Terraform
3 126 (13.59%) Grafana
4 123 (13.27%) Prometheus
5 54 (5.83%) Ansible
6 30 (3.24%) Argo
7 11 (1.19%) Istio
7 11 (1.19%) Kibana
8 9 (0.97%) Kiali
9 8 (0.86%) Fluentd
10 7 (0.76%) linkerd
10 7 (0.76%) logstash
10 7 (0.76%) Rancher
11 5 (0.54%) Podman
11 5 (0.54%) Puppet
12 2 (0.22%) Amdocs OSS
12 2 (0.22%) CA Wily
12 2 (0.22%) QRadar
12 2 (0.22%) Sysdig
12 2 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 95 (10.25%) Databricks
2 76 (8.20%) Splunk
3 69 (7.44%) Oracle
4 46 (4.96%) Microsoft
5 36 (3.88%) Google
6 33 (3.56%) Confluent
7 22 (2.37%) Informatica
8 16 (1.73%) IBM
9 14 (1.51%) Dynatrace
10 13 (1.40%) Red Hat
11 12 (1.29%) ServiceNow
12 11 (1.19%) Salesforce
13 9 (0.97%) Solace
13 9 (0.97%) Talend
14 8 (0.86%) AppDynamics
14 8 (0.86%) VMware
15 7 (0.76%) MuleSoft
15 7 (0.76%) Pega
15 7 (0.76%) SAP
16 6 (0.65%) Bloomberg