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 27 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 101 138
Rank change year-on-year -44 +37 +10
Contract jobs citing Kafka 1,015 850 682
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 2.58% 1.70%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.95% 11.43% 7.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 619 549 478
10th Percentile £376 £385 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £473
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -11.54%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £710
90th Percentile £800 £815 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £465 £492
% change year-on-year +7.53% -5.39% -18.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 4 9
10th Percentile £56.55 £43.38 £22.55
25th Percentile £64.00 £49.56 £27.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £59.25 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.14% +111.61% -64.10%
75th Percentile £85.00 £67.49 £38.75
90th Percentile £90.00 £74.22 £45.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.25 £78.70 £28.00
% change year-on-year -9.47% +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 10,203 7,436 8,697
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.32% 22.56% 21.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,668 5,024 5,943
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £505 £550
Median % change year-on-year +3.96% -8.18% -
75th Percentile £631 £638 £665
90th Percentile £738 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 161 249
10th Percentile £29.07 £30.25 £22.70
25th Percentile £45.00 £39.25 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £54.88 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.45% +4.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £74.26 £67.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.81 £80.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £58.30
% change year-on-year +13.04% -1.37% -0.49%

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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 -38 862 £550 - 316
London -29 507 £575 -8.00% 226
UK excluding London -33 386 £500 +7.53% 133
Work from Home -57 279 £551 -4.26% 118
North of England -16 175 £465 - 37
Yorkshire -5 80 £498 -0.50% 14
North West -32 76 £429 -7.74% 12
South East -45 66 £513 +17.82% 42
Scotland -16 55 £450 -4.26% 18
Midlands -52 42 £500 +17.51% 7
South West -25 30 £500 -9.09% 21
North East -18 28 £463 +0.05% 11
West Midlands -47 26 £500 - 6
East of England -4 23 £550 +10.00% 5
East Midlands -15 16 £459 +26.48% 1
Northern Ireland -1 3 - - 3
Wales -12 2 £313 - 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
1 136 (13.40%) Apache Spark
2 74 (7.29%) Apache
3 61 (6.01%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (1.67%) Confluence
5 6 (0.59%) Apache Pulsar
5 6 (0.59%) Camunda
5 6 (0.59%) CMS
5 6 (0.59%) WebSphere
6 4 (0.39%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.30%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.30%) Mule
8 2 (0.20%) Apache Pig
8 2 (0.20%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.20%) JBoss
8 2 (0.20%) MQSeries
8 2 (0.20%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.20%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 8 (0.79%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.20%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.099%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.099%) Maya
3 1 (0.099%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.099%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.20%) Bloomberg AIM
2 2 (0.20%) Endur
2 2 (0.20%) Fidessa
2 2 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.099%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.099%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.099%) R3 Corda
3 1 (0.099%) SAP IS-U
3 1 (0.099%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 607 (59.80%) AWS
2 318 (31.33%) Azure
3 204 (20.10%) GCP
4 147 (14.48%) GitHub
5 104 (10.25%) Serverless
6 102 (10.05%) GitHub Actions
7 81 (7.98%) AWS Lambda
8 79 (7.78%) Amazon S3
9 73 (7.19%) OpenShift
10 69 (6.80%) Amazon EKS
11 63 (6.21%) Azure DevOps
12 58 (5.71%) Snowflake
13 49 (4.83%) Amazon SQS
14 47 (4.63%) Amazon ECS
15 46 (4.53%) dbt
16 42 (4.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 42 (4.14%) Power Platform
17 35 (3.45%) AWS CloudFormation
18 29 (2.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 26 (2.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.67%) HTTP
2 11 (1.08%) Firewall
3 10 (0.99%) Network Security
4 8 (0.79%) DNS
5 7 (0.69%) MQTT
5 7 (0.69%) SSL
6 4 (0.39%) NAS
6 4 (0.39%) SAN
7 3 (0.30%) Internet
7 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.20%) NaaS
8 2 (0.20%) OpenVPN
8 2 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.20%) WAN
9 1 (0.099%) 4G
9 1 (0.099%) 5G
9 1 (0.099%) FIX Connectivity
9 1 (0.099%) MIMO
9 1 (0.099%) SSH
9 1 (0.099%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 184 (18.13%) PostgreSQL
2 168 (16.55%) MongoDB
3 128 (12.61%) NoSQL
4 109 (10.74%) Relational Database
5 69 (6.80%) Big Data
6 61 (6.01%) Data Warehouse
6 61 (6.01%) SQL Server
7 54 (5.32%) Data Lake
8 44 (4.33%) Redis
9 42 (4.14%) MySQL
10 39 (3.84%) Hadoop
10 39 (3.84%) Power BI
11 38 (3.74%) Flink
12 36 (3.55%) Apache Cassandra
12 36 (3.55%) Elasticsearch
13 34 (3.35%) Metadata
14 32 (3.15%) BigQuery
14 32 (3.15%) DynamoDB
15 25 (2.46%) Amazon Redshift
15 25 (2.46%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 181 (17.83%) Jenkins
2 141 (13.89%) Git
3 130 (12.81%) GitLab
4 70 (6.90%) JUnit
5 61 (6.01%) Mockito
6 46 (4.53%) Gradle
7 40 (3.94%) JIRA
8 33 (3.25%) Selenium
9 27 (2.66%) Cucumber
10 24 (2.36%) Maven
10 24 (2.36%) REST Assured
11 20 (1.97%) Gatling
12 18 (1.77%) SonarQube
13 17 (1.67%) Liquibase
14 15 (1.48%) Serenity BDD
15 13 (1.28%) Postman
16 10 (0.99%) Cypress.io
17 8 (0.79%) Bitbucket
18 6 (0.59%) Claude Code
18 6 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 270 (26.60%) Finance
2 184 (18.13%) Social Skills
3 140 (13.79%) Banking
4 103 (10.15%) Public Sector
5 95 (9.36%) Analytical Skills
6 48 (4.73%) Front Office
7 34 (3.35%) Investment Banking
8 29 (2.86%) Retail
9 23 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
10 19 (1.87%) Financial Institution
11 16 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (1.48%) Law
13 14 (1.38%) Telecoms
14 11 (1.08%) Billing
15 10 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
16 9 (0.89%) Military
16 9 (0.89%) Publishing
17 8 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
18 7 (0.69%) Automotive
18 7 (0.69%) Games
Job Titles
1 332 (32.71%) Developer
2 193 (19.01%) Senior
3 174 (17.14%) Java Developer
4 143 (14.09%) Architect
5 141 (13.89%) Data Engineer
6 113 (11.13%) Lead
7 95 (9.36%) Software Engineer
8 79 (7.78%) Senior Developer
9 78 (7.68%) Java Engineer
10 58 (5.71%) Solutions Architect
11 49 (4.83%) Senior Java Developer
12 47 (4.63%) DevOps Engineer
13 41 (4.04%) AWS Architect
14 38 (3.74%) Data Architect
14 38 (3.74%) Full-Stack Developer
15 36 (3.55%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 36 (3.55%) Lead Developer
16 35 (3.45%) Java Software Engineer
17 34 (3.35%) Python Engineer
18 33 (3.25%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 251 (24.73%) Spring
2 239 (23.55%) Spring Boot
3 168 (16.55%) REST
4 148 (14.58%) React
5 139 (13.69%) RESTful
6 116 (11.43%) RabbitMQ
7 85 (8.37%) Node.js
8 71 (7.00%) GraphQL
9 69 (6.80%) JSON
10 58 (5.71%) Redux
11 56 (5.52%) OpenTelemetry
12 49 (4.83%) OAuth
13 43 (4.24%) Swagger
14 42 (4.14%) OpenAPI
15 39 (3.84%) PySpark
16 38 (3.74%) OAuth2
17 36 (3.55%) Middleware
18 35 (3.45%) AngularJS
19 33 (3.25%) Apache Avro
20 32 (3.15%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 208 (20.49%) Distributed Systems
2 189 (18.62%) Cloud Native
3 43 (4.24%) Data Structures
4 39 (3.84%) Fixed Income
5 36 (3.55%) Product Ownership
6 32 (3.15%) Algorithms
7 30 (2.96%) Enterprise Software
8 26 (2.56%) Management Information System
9 25 (2.46%) Onboarding
10 24 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
10 24 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
11 19 (1.87%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 18 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
13 17 (1.67%) AI Agents
13 17 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
14 16 (1.58%) Public Cloud
15 14 (1.38%) Equities
16 13 (1.28%) Distributed Architecture
16 13 (1.28%) Replication
17 12 (1.18%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 106 (10.44%) Linux
2 58 (5.71%) Unix
3 28 (2.76%) Windows
4 10 (0.99%) Mac OS X
5 8 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.49%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.30%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.20%) Android
8 2 (0.20%) Debian
8 2 (0.20%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.20%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 2 (0.20%) VMS
8 2 (0.20%) zOS
9 1 (0.099%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.099%) CentOS
9 1 (0.099%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 486 (47.88%) CI/CD
2 389 (38.33%) Microservices
3 353 (34.78%) Agile
4 337 (33.20%) Event-Driven
5 325 (32.02%) DevOps
6 241 (23.74%) Observability
7 236 (23.25%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 227 (22.36%) Containerisation
9 195 (19.21%) Software Engineering
10 193 (19.01%) Data Pipeline
11 177 (17.44%) Infrastructure as Code
12 173 (17.04%) Test Automation
13 159 (15.67%) Problem-Solving
14 157 (15.47%) AI
15 155 (15.27%) Data Modelling
16 154 (15.17%) Analytics
17 145 (14.29%) ETL
18 141 (13.89%) Data Engineering
19 120 (11.82%) TDD
20 111 (10.94%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 471 (46.40%) Java
2 354 (34.88%) Python
3 311 (30.64%) SQL
4 127 (12.51%) TypeScript
5 93 (9.16%) JavaScript
6 79 (7.78%) Go
7 56 (5.52%) Bash
8 51 (5.02%) C#
9 36 (3.55%) Scala
10 25 (2.46%) PowerShell
11 22 (2.17%) PL/SQL
12 17 (1.67%) Kotlin
12 17 (1.67%) Shell Script
13 11 (1.08%) Bicep
13 11 (1.08%) Rust
14 10 (0.99%) C++
14 10 (0.99%) Groovy
14 10 (0.99%) Search Processing Language
15 7 (0.69%) PHP
16 6 (0.59%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 225 (22.17%) Security Cleared
2 171 (16.85%) SC Cleared
3 50 (4.93%) Degree
4 32 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
5 22 (2.17%) DV Cleared
6 21 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
7 16 (1.58%) AWS Certification
7 16 (1.58%) Master's Degree
8 8 (0.79%) Azure Certification
9 6 (0.59%) SnowPro
10 5 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (0.30%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.30%) PhD
11 3 (0.30%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.20%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.099%) ITIL Certification
13 1 (0.099%) PMI Certification
13 1 (0.099%) PMP
13 1 (0.099%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (9.95%) Data Quality
2 56 (5.52%) QA
3 47 (4.63%) Accessibility
4 32 (3.15%) GDPR
5 19 (1.87%) ISO 20022
6 10 (0.99%) SEPA
7 7 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.49%) WCAG
9 4 (0.39%) NIST
9 4 (0.39%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.30%) ISO 15022
10 3 (0.30%) SLA
11 2 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.20%) EMIR
11 2 (0.20%) IFRS
11 2 (0.20%) IFRS 17
11 2 (0.20%) MiFID
11 2 (0.20%) NCSC
11 2 (0.20%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.099%) NIST 800
System Software
1 347 (34.19%) Docker
2 6 (0.59%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 6 (0.59%) etcd
3 3 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.20%) Apache Flume
4 2 (0.20%) HDFS
5 1 (0.099%) OpenSSH
5 1 (0.099%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 427 (42.07%) Kubernetes
2 204 (20.10%) Terraform
3 123 (12.12%) Prometheus
4 121 (11.92%) Grafana
5 61 (6.01%) Ansible
6 26 (2.56%) Argo
7 15 (1.48%) Control-M
8 12 (1.18%) Kibana
9 11 (1.08%) Podman
10 10 (0.99%) Istio
10 10 (0.99%) Puppet
11 7 (0.69%) Fluentd
11 7 (0.69%) Kustomize
12 5 (0.49%) logstash
12 5 (0.49%) Rancher
13 4 (0.39%) Check_MK
14 3 (0.30%) Bosun
14 3 (0.30%) NetBackup
15 2 (0.20%) Amdocs OSS
15 2 (0.20%) CloudHub
Vendors
1 84 (8.28%) Oracle
2 80 (7.88%) Databricks
3 63 (6.21%) Splunk
4 49 (4.83%) Google
4 49 (4.83%) Microsoft
5 27 (2.66%) Confluent
5 27 (2.66%) Informatica
6 23 (2.27%) Dynatrace
7 21 (2.07%) IBM
8 16 (1.58%) MuleSoft
9 15 (1.48%) Salesforce
9 15 (1.48%) Solace
10 13 (1.28%) OpenAI
11 10 (0.99%) SAP
12 9 (0.89%) Red Hat
12 9 (0.89%) Talend
13 8 (0.79%) ServiceNow
13 8 (0.79%) Sybase
14 6 (0.59%) TIBCO
14 6 (0.59%) VMware