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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 112 154
Rank change year-on-year -20 +42 -18
Contract jobs citing Kafka 937 711 658
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.95% 2.42% 1.54%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.96% 10.68% 7.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 572 465 487
10th Percentile £363 £400 £400
25th Percentile £420 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +1.85% -16.92%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £475 £490
% change year-on-year -1.58% -3.06% -10.91%
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 9,410 6,657 8,927
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.62% 22.65% 20.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,206 4,560 6,201
10th Percentile £363 £363 £350
25th Percentile £417 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £726 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 269 109 246
10th Percentile £32.50 £29.21 £21.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £50.00 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year - +36.84% -26.92%
75th Percentile £72.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.20 £82.27 £74.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year - +36.84% -26.92%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -18 809 £539 -7.11% 203
London -16 512 £600 -7.69% 125
UK excluding London -32 297 £468 -1.58% 106
Work from Home -13 292 £600 -2.04% 224
North of England -40 133 £455 -9.00% 36
Yorkshire -20 66 £460 -16.36% 9
North West -43 56 £450 -10.00% 19
South East -40 47 £488 +1.99% 36
Midlands -43 46 £495 +34.88% 7
Scotland -4 41 £450 -4.26% 8
South West -3 29 £538 +4.88% 13
West Midlands -42 26 £514 -6.55% 5
East Midlands -21 20 £402 +12.92% 2
North East -9 19 £450 -2.70% 8
East of England -22 15 £550 +71.14% 1
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
1 129 (13.77%) Apache Spark
2 68 (7.26%) Apache
3 47 (5.02%) Apache Airflow
4 22 (2.35%) 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%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.32%) Apache Pulsar
7 3 (0.32%) MQSeries
7 3 (0.32%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
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%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
9 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 4 (0.43%) Bloomberg AIM
1 4 (0.43%) Fidessa
2 3 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.21%) Actimize
3 2 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
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 11i
4 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 550 (58.70%) AWS
2 264 (28.18%) Azure
3 158 (16.86%) GCP
4 146 (15.58%) GitHub
5 124 (13.23%) Serverless
6 104 (11.10%) Amazon S3
7 101 (10.78%) GitHub Actions
8 93 (9.93%) AWS Lambda
9 74 (7.90%) Amazon EKS
10 65 (6.94%) Power Platform
11 63 (6.72%) Azure DevOps
12 62 (6.62%) OpenShift
13 55 (5.87%) AWS CloudFormation
14 48 (5.12%) Amazon ECS
15 47 (5.02%) Snowflake
16 44 (4.70%) Amazon SQS
17 40 (4.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 39 (4.16%) Amazon Kinesis
19 37 (3.95%) dbt
20 36 (3.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.92%) Firewall
2 14 (1.49%) 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%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.32%) NAS
7 3 (0.32%) SAN
7 3 (0.32%) SSH
7 3 (0.32%) VPN
8 2 (0.21%) MQTT
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%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 191 (20.38%) PostgreSQL
2 151 (16.12%) MongoDB
3 124 (13.23%) NoSQL
4 88 (9.39%) Relational Database
5 61 (6.51%) Big Data
6 57 (6.08%) Data Lake
7 54 (5.76%) Data Warehouse
8 53 (5.66%) Apache Cassandra
8 53 (5.66%) SQL Server
9 52 (5.55%) Power BI
10 51 (5.44%) Redis
11 44 (4.70%) Elasticsearch
12 39 (4.16%) Flink
13 38 (4.06%) DynamoDB
14 37 (3.95%) Amazon Athena
15 36 (3.84%) Hadoop
16 34 (3.63%) MySQL
17 31 (3.31%) Amazon RDS
17 31 (3.31%) Amazon Redshift
17 31 (3.31%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 144 (15.37%) Jenkins
2 134 (14.30%) GitLab
3 126 (13.45%) Git
4 60 (6.40%) JUnit
5 56 (5.98%) JIRA
6 42 (4.48%) Mockito
7 25 (2.67%) Gradle
8 24 (2.56%) Selenium
9 21 (2.24%) REST Assured
10 20 (2.13%) Gatling
11 19 (2.03%) Cucumber
12 14 (1.49%) Liquibase
12 14 (1.49%) Serenity BDD
13 13 (1.39%) Maven
14 12 (1.28%) Postman
15 10 (1.07%) Jaeger
16 8 (0.85%) SonarQube
17 7 (0.75%) JMeter
17 7 (0.75%) Snyk
18 6 (0.64%) CircleCI
General
1 257 (27.43%) Finance
2 167 (17.82%) Social Skills
3 118 (12.59%) Banking
4 79 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 78 (8.32%) Analytical Skills
6 47 (5.02%) Front Office
7 33 (3.52%) Investment Banking
8 24 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (2.56%) Financial Institution
9 12 (1.28%) Marketing
10 11 (1.17%) Telecoms
11 10 (1.07%) Law
12 9 (0.96%) Publishing
12 9 (0.96%) Retail
13 7 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
14 6 (0.64%) Automotive
14 6 (0.64%) Corporate Banking
15 5 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 5 (0.53%) Military
16 4 (0.43%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 315 (33.62%) Developer
2 207 (22.09%) Senior
3 159 (16.97%) Data Engineer
4 147 (15.69%) Java Developer
5 116 (12.38%) Lead
6 110 (11.74%) Architect
7 97 (10.35%) Senior Developer
8 90 (9.61%) Software Engineer
9 60 (6.40%) Java Engineer
10 54 (5.76%) AWS Architect
11 50 (5.34%) Senior Java Developer
12 44 (4.70%) Full-Stack Developer
13 43 (4.59%) DevOps Engineer
14 40 (4.27%) Solutions Architect
15 35 (3.74%) Senior Data Engineer
16 34 (3.63%) Principal Engineer
17 33 (3.52%) Developer/Software Engineer
18 32 (3.42%) Data Architect
19 31 (3.31%) Full-Stack Engineer
20 30 (3.20%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 218 (23.27%) Spring
2 202 (21.56%) Spring Boot
3 128 (13.66%) REST
4 115 (12.27%) RESTful
5 111 (11.85%) React
6 107 (11.42%) Node.js
7 79 (8.43%) RabbitMQ
8 60 (6.40%) gRPC
9 58 (6.19%) OpenTelemetry
10 55 (5.87%) GraphQL
11 50 (5.34%) JSON
12 45 (4.80%) Middleware
13 44 (4.70%) Apache Avro
13 44 (4.70%) PySpark
14 39 (4.16%) Redux
15 37 (3.95%) AngularJS
16 35 (3.74%) OAuth
17 34 (3.63%) OpenAPI
17 34 (3.63%) Swagger
18 30 (3.20%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 161 (17.18%) Distributed Systems
2 144 (15.37%) Cloud Native
3 45 (4.80%) Management Information System
4 43 (4.59%) Fixed Income
5 32 (3.42%) Product Ownership
6 27 (2.88%) Data Structures
7 20 (2.13%) Onboarding
8 19 (2.03%) Equities
9 17 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (1.60%) Algorithms
12 14 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.39%) Derivative
14 12 (1.28%) Clustering
15 11 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
15 11 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 11 (1.17%) Hedge funds
15 11 (1.17%) SWIFT Messaging Network
16 10 (1.07%) Replication
17 9 (0.96%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 100 (10.67%) Linux
2 57 (6.08%) Unix
3 34 (3.63%) Windows
4 9 (0.96%) 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
Processes & Methodologies
1 419 (44.72%) CI/CD
2 335 (35.75%) Microservices
3 295 (31.48%) Agile
4 284 (30.31%) DevOps
5 245 (26.15%) Event-Driven
6 213 (22.73%) Observability
7 195 (20.81%) Containerisation
8 191 (20.38%) Software Engineering
9 166 (17.72%) Data Pipeline
10 165 (17.61%) Data Modelling
11 159 (16.97%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 158 (16.86%) Analytics
13 157 (16.76%) Infrastructure as Code
14 150 (16.01%) Problem-Solving
15 149 (15.90%) Data Engineering
16 144 (15.37%) Test Automation
17 141 (15.05%) ETL
18 109 (11.63%) Full-Stack Development
19 99 (10.57%) AI
19 99 (10.57%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 424 (45.25%) Java
2 325 (34.69%) Python
3 281 (29.99%) SQL
4 110 (11.74%) TypeScript
5 104 (11.10%) Go
6 96 (10.25%) JavaScript
7 59 (6.30%) C#
8 43 (4.59%) Bash
9 29 (3.09%) Scala
10 19 (2.03%) PowerShell
11 18 (1.92%) Rust
12 17 (1.81%) C++
13 15 (1.60%) Shell Script
14 14 (1.49%) Bicep
15 10 (1.07%) Search Processing Language
16 9 (0.96%) PL/SQL
17 6 (0.64%) Groovy
17 6 (0.64%) Perl
18 5 (0.53%) PHP
18 5 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 217 (23.16%) Security Cleared
2 173 (18.46%) SC Cleared
3 45 (4.80%) Degree
4 27 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 18 (1.92%) AWS Certification
6 17 (1.81%) DV Cleared
7 16 (1.71%) Azure Certification
8 13 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
9 12 (1.28%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 7 (0.75%) SnowPro
11 4 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.21%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.11%) CISSP
13 1 (0.11%) OCP
13 1 (0.11%) Oracle Certification
13 1 (0.11%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (11.42%) Data Quality
2 48 (5.12%) QA
3 45 (4.80%) GDPR
4 28 (2.99%) Accessibility
5 17 (1.81%) ISO 20022
6 10 (1.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (0.96%) NIST
8 7 (0.75%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.75%) SEPA
9 6 (0.64%) NCSC
10 4 (0.43%) MiFID
10 4 (0.43%) SLA
10 4 (0.43%) WCAG
11 3 (0.32%) HL7
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%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 324 (34.58%) Docker
2 6 (0.64%) 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
1 366 (39.06%) Kubernetes
2 190 (20.28%) Terraform
3 128 (13.66%) Grafana
4 126 (13.45%) Prometheus
5 52 (5.55%) Ansible
6 28 (2.99%) Argo
7 11 (1.17%) Istio
7 11 (1.17%) Kibana
8 9 (0.96%) Kiali
9 7 (0.75%) Fluentd
9 7 (0.75%) linkerd
9 7 (0.75%) Rancher
10 6 (0.64%) logstash
10 6 (0.64%) Puppet
11 5 (0.53%) Podman
12 2 (0.21%) Amdocs OSS
12 2 (0.21%) CA Wily
12 2 (0.21%) Sysdig
12 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
13 1 (0.11%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 95 (10.14%) Databricks
2 77 (8.22%) Splunk
3 69 (7.36%) Oracle
4 46 (4.91%) Microsoft
5 35 (3.74%) Google
6 33 (3.52%) Confluent
7 22 (2.35%) Informatica
8 16 (1.71%) IBM
9 14 (1.49%) Dynatrace
10 13 (1.39%) Red Hat
11 12 (1.28%) Salesforce
11 12 (1.28%) ServiceNow
12 9 (0.96%) Solace
12 9 (0.96%) Talend
13 8 (0.85%) AppDynamics
13 8 (0.85%) VMware
14 7 (0.75%) MuleSoft
14 7 (0.75%) Pega
14 7 (0.75%) SAP
15 6 (0.64%) Bloomberg