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 24 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 103 166
Rank change year-on-year -24 +63 -31
Contract jobs citing Kafka 939 746 634
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 2.53% 1.45%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.99% 11.15% 7.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 582 485 467
10th Percentile £363 £401 £379
25th Percentile £413 £463 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £534
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% +7.68% -17.85%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £478 £485
% change year-on-year -2.72% -1.44% -8.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 4 6
10th Percentile £40.00 £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% -58.82%
75th Percentile £87.25 £93.75 £38.94
90th Percentile £91.50 - £54.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.72 £78.70 £31.50
% change year-on-year -11.41% +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 9,401 6,689 8,955
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 20.23% 22.64% 20.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,243 4,578 6,228
10th Percentile £358 £363 £334
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £726 £775 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 265 109 212
10th Percentile £35.00 £27.08 £20.77
25th Percentile £52.50 £51.06 £37.63
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year - +40.75% -28.95%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £83.17 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year - +36.84% -25.78%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 24 April 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 -29 814 £530 -11.67% 125
London -20 511 £600 -7.69% 87
Work from Home -7 322 £600 -4.00% 65
UK excluding London -32 290 £465 -2.72% 77
North of England -48 124 £455 -13.33% 14
Yorkshire -19 61 £458 -32.22%
South East -26 56 £441 -13.27% 31
North West -47 53 £455 -9.00% 10
Midlands -23 51 £500 +37.93% 4
South West -16 31 £550 -12.00% 13
Scotland -4 30 £463 -1.60% 7
West Midlands -34 29 £525 -12.50% 4
East Midlands -23 22 £425 +19.05%
North East -10 16 £450 -3.23% 4
East of England -31 12 £500 +57.14% 5
Wales -13 1 £250 -

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
1 128 (13.63%) Apache Spark
2 65 (6.92%) Apache
3 46 (4.90%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (2.45%) 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%) MQSeries
6 5 (0.53%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.53%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
8 2 (0.21%) Apache Pulsar
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%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.32%) Chatbot
1 3 (0.32%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.21%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.11%) Maya
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.11%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (0.43%) Bloomberg AIM
1 4 (0.43%) Fidessa
2 3 (0.32%) Oracle 11i
2 3 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.21%) Actimize
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 Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 569 (60.60%) AWS
2 273 (29.07%) Azure
3 164 (17.47%) GCP
4 148 (15.76%) GitHub
5 123 (13.10%) Serverless
6 115 (12.25%) Amazon S3
7 105 (11.18%) GitHub Actions
8 92 (9.80%) AWS Lambda
9 79 (8.41%) Amazon EKS
10 65 (6.92%) AWS CloudFormation
11 63 (6.71%) OpenShift
12 61 (6.50%) Power Platform
13 58 (6.18%) Azure DevOps
14 50 (5.32%) Amazon ECS
15 47 (5.01%) Snowflake
16 43 (4.58%) Amazon Kinesis
16 43 (4.58%) Amazon SQS
17 41 (4.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 40 (4.26%) Azure Data Factory
19 38 (4.05%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.13%) Firewall
2 17 (1.81%) HTTP
3 12 (1.28%) SSL
4 9 (0.96%) DNS
5 6 (0.64%) FTP
5 6 (0.64%) SMS
5 6 (0.64%) SSH
6 5 (0.53%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.32%) VPN
8 2 (0.21%) Kerberos
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%) Internet
9 1 (0.11%) MQTT
9 1 (0.11%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 194 (20.66%) PostgreSQL
2 132 (14.06%) MongoDB
3 124 (13.21%) NoSQL
4 70 (7.45%) Relational Database
5 62 (6.60%) Apache Cassandra
6 60 (6.39%) Big Data
6 60 (6.39%) Data Lake
7 58 (6.18%) Data Warehouse
8 50 (5.32%) Elasticsearch
9 49 (5.22%) Power BI
10 47 (5.01%) Redis
10 47 (5.01%) SQL Server
11 44 (4.69%) DynamoDB
12 40 (4.26%) Flink
13 37 (3.94%) Amazon Athena
14 36 (3.83%) Hadoop
15 35 (3.73%) MySQL
16 34 (3.62%) Amazon RDS
16 34 (3.62%) Amazon Redshift
16 34 (3.62%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 144 (15.34%) Jenkins
2 127 (13.53%) GitLab
3 115 (12.25%) Git
4 63 (6.71%) JUnit
5 56 (5.96%) JIRA
6 36 (3.83%) Mockito
7 24 (2.56%) Cucumber
8 19 (2.02%) Gradle
9 14 (1.49%) Gatling
9 14 (1.49%) JMeter
10 11 (1.17%) Maven
10 11 (1.17%) Postman
10 11 (1.17%) REST Assured
10 11 (1.17%) Selenium
10 11 (1.17%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (1.06%) CircleCI
11 10 (1.06%) Jaeger
12 8 (0.85%) Artifactory
13 7 (0.75%) Liquibase
14 6 (0.64%) Serenity BDD
General
1 266 (28.33%) Finance
2 184 (19.60%) Social Skills
3 116 (12.35%) Banking
4 73 (7.77%) Public Sector
5 71 (7.56%) Analytical Skills
6 51 (5.43%) Front Office
7 31 (3.30%) Investment Banking
8 28 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
9 18 (1.92%) Financial Institution
10 12 (1.28%) Telecoms
11 10 (1.06%) Marketing
12 9 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (0.75%) Law
13 7 (0.75%) Publishing
13 7 (0.75%) Retail
14 6 (0.64%) Automotive
15 4 (0.43%) Billing
15 4 (0.43%) Corporate Banking
15 4 (0.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 3 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 331 (35.25%) Developer
2 217 (23.11%) Senior
3 162 (17.25%) Java Developer
4 155 (16.51%) Data Engineer
5 115 (12.25%) Lead
6 109 (11.61%) Architect
7 99 (10.54%) Senior Developer
8 91 (9.69%) Software Engineer
9 54 (5.75%) Java Engineer
10 53 (5.64%) AWS Architect
11 52 (5.54%) Senior Java Developer
12 49 (5.22%) Full-Stack Developer
13 48 (5.11%) DevOps Engineer
14 42 (4.47%) Solutions Architect
15 40 (4.26%) AWS Engineer
16 36 (3.83%) Kafka Developer
16 36 (3.83%) Senior Data Engineer
17 33 (3.51%) Developer/Software Engineer
17 33 (3.51%) Kafka Engineer
18 32 (3.41%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 209 (22.26%) Spring
2 187 (19.91%) Spring Boot
3 117 (12.46%) REST
4 114 (12.14%) Node.js
5 103 (10.97%) React
6 102 (10.86%) RESTful
7 74 (7.88%) gRPC
8 72 (7.67%) RabbitMQ
9 52 (5.54%) OpenTelemetry
10 48 (5.11%) GraphQL
10 48 (5.11%) JSON
11 42 (4.47%) AngularJS
11 42 (4.47%) Middleware
12 41 (4.37%) PySpark
13 39 (4.15%) Apache Avro
14 36 (3.83%) OAuth
15 35 (3.73%) Redux
16 30 (3.19%) OAuth2
17 28 (2.98%) WireMock
18 26 (2.77%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 154 (16.40%) Distributed Systems
2 134 (14.27%) Cloud Native
3 50 (5.32%) Management Information System
4 49 (5.22%) Fixed Income
5 37 (3.94%) Product Ownership
6 23 (2.45%) Data Structures
7 21 (2.24%) Hybrid Cloud
8 20 (2.13%) Equities
8 20 (2.13%) Onboarding
9 17 (1.81%) Derivative
10 16 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
12 14 (1.49%) Algorithms
13 12 (1.28%) Clustering
13 12 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
14 11 (1.17%) Market Risk
14 11 (1.17%) Replication
15 9 (0.96%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 9 (0.96%) Hedge funds
15 9 (0.96%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 112 (11.93%) Linux
2 56 (5.96%) Unix
3 34 (3.62%) Windows
4 9 (0.96%) Mac OS X
5 5 (0.53%) AIX
6 4 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.43%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.32%) VMS
7 3 (0.32%) zOS
8 2 (0.21%) Debian
8 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.21%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.11%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 424 (45.15%) CI/CD
2 320 (34.08%) Microservices
3 306 (32.59%) Agile
4 276 (29.39%) DevOps
5 219 (23.32%) Event-Driven
6 202 (21.51%) Observability
6 202 (21.51%) Software Engineering
7 199 (21.19%) Containerisation
8 172 (18.32%) Data Pipeline
9 165 (17.57%) Infrastructure as Code
10 164 (17.47%) Problem-Solving
11 163 (17.36%) Analytics
12 154 (16.40%) Data Engineering
13 152 (16.19%) Data Modelling
14 148 (15.76%) ETL
15 143 (15.23%) Event-Driven Architecture
16 128 (13.63%) Test Automation
17 116 (12.35%) Full-Stack Development
18 102 (10.86%) Data Governance
19 96 (10.22%) AI
Programming Languages
1 434 (46.22%) Java
2 334 (35.57%) Python
3 271 (28.86%) SQL
4 119 (12.67%) Go
5 96 (10.22%) TypeScript
6 95 (10.12%) JavaScript
7 58 (6.18%) C#
8 44 (4.69%) Bash
9 31 (3.30%) Scala
10 18 (1.92%) C++
10 18 (1.92%) PowerShell
10 18 (1.92%) Rust
11 17 (1.81%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.28%) Bicep
13 9 (0.96%) PL/SQL
14 7 (0.75%) Groovy
14 7 (0.75%) Perl
14 7 (0.75%) Search Processing Language
15 5 (0.53%) Korn
16 4 (0.43%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 213 (22.68%) Security Cleared
2 174 (18.53%) SC Cleared
3 44 (4.69%) Degree
4 32 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (2.13%) AWS Certification
5 20 (2.13%) Azure Certification
6 16 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 15 (1.60%) DV Cleared
8 13 (1.38%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.75%) SnowPro
10 4 (0.43%) OCP
10 4 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Certification
13 1 (0.11%) PMI Certification
13 1 (0.11%) PMP
13 1 (0.11%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (11.82%) Data Quality
2 47 (5.01%) GDPR
3 46 (4.90%) QA
4 22 (2.34%) Accessibility
5 13 (1.38%) ISO 20022
6 9 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 9 (0.96%) NIST
7 8 (0.85%) NCSC
8 7 (0.75%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.53%) SEPA
10 4 (0.43%) HL7
10 4 (0.43%) SLA
10 4 (0.43%) WCAG
11 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
11 3 (0.32%) MiFID
12 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.21%) PSD2
13 1 (0.11%) NIST 800
13 1 (0.11%) PMO
System Software
1 320 (34.08%) Docker
2 6 (0.64%) etcd
2 6 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.32%) HDFS
4 2 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.11%) Apache Flume
5 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 378 (40.26%) Kubernetes
2 208 (22.15%) Terraform
3 120 (12.78%) Grafana
4 117 (12.46%) Prometheus
5 60 (6.39%) Ansible
6 32 (3.41%) Argo
7 10 (1.06%) Fluentd
7 10 (1.06%) Istio
7 10 (1.06%) Kibana
8 9 (0.96%) Kiali
9 8 (0.85%) linkerd
9 8 (0.85%) logstash
9 8 (0.85%) Rancher
10 7 (0.75%) Puppet
11 6 (0.64%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.53%) Podman
13 2 (0.21%) CA Wily
13 2 (0.21%) Packer
13 2 (0.21%) Sysdig
13 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 92 (9.80%) Databricks
2 72 (7.67%) Splunk
3 71 (7.56%) Oracle
4 50 (5.32%) Microsoft
5 42 (4.47%) Google
6 35 (3.73%) Confluent
7 25 (2.66%) Informatica
8 22 (2.34%) IBM
9 15 (1.60%) Dynatrace
9 15 (1.60%) VMware
10 14 (1.49%) Red Hat
11 12 (1.28%) ServiceNow
11 12 (1.28%) Talend
12 10 (1.06%) Solace
13 9 (0.96%) AppDynamics
13 9 (0.96%) Salesforce
14 7 (0.75%) Bloomberg
14 7 (0.75%) Cloudera
14 7 (0.75%) PagerDuty
14 7 (0.75%) SAP