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 21 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 108 161
Rank change year-on-year -15 +53 -26
Contract jobs citing Kafka 946 729 656
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.16% 2.49% 1.48%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 10.12% 10.94% 7.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 608 451 506
10th Percentile £362 £375 £400
25th Percentile £416 £457 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £565 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% +2.73% -15.38%
75th Percentile £663 £738 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £462 £470 £495
% change year-on-year -1.70% -4.95% -13.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 4 4
10th Percentile £49.60 £51.09 £25.71
25th Percentile £64.50 £68.84 £31.68
Median hourly rate £70.00 £85.60 £38.60
Median % change year-on-year -18.22% +121.79% -48.54%
75th Percentile £84.50 £93.75 £50.59
90th Percentile £93.00 - £61.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.72 £78.70 £35.00
% change year-on-year -11.41% +124.86% -55.13%

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 9,352 6,661 8,960
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.33% 22.71% 20.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,252 4,486 6,245
10th Percentile £358 £363 £338
25th Percentile £414 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -6.67%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £496 £495
% change year-on-year +0.91% +0.10% -2.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 96 203
10th Percentile £35.13 £26.25 £20.77
25th Percentile £52.50 £39.06 £39.92
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £48.72
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +28.28% -25.05%
75th Percentile £73.46 £68.19 £64.38
90th Percentile £81.00 £82.53 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.72
% change year-on-year - +33.42% -25.05%

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 21 March 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 21 March 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 21 March 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 -14 831 £550 -5.98% 196
London -13 532 £600 -5.88% 122
Work from Home +7 351 £600 -2.04% 90
UK excluding London -39 268 £462 -1.70% 104
North of England -40 116 £465 -7.00% 32
South East -17 65 £433 -14.36% 37
North West -26 57 £475 +4.91% 21
Yorkshire -26 50 £463 -33.93% 7
Midlands -36 48 £500 +40.45% 6
West Midlands -40 32 £550 -8.33% 4
South West -13 28 £550 -12.00% 14
Scotland -11 23 £475 +9.83% 5
East Midlands -29 16 £402 +12.92% 2
North East -7 15 £450 -16.99% 4
East of England -31 7 £475 +49.37% 11
Wales -9 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
1 117 (12.37%) Apache Spark
2 61 (6.45%) Apache
3 45 (4.76%) Apache Airflow
4 32 (3.38%) Confluence
5 6 (0.63%) Ethereum
5 6 (0.63%) Hyperledger
5 6 (0.63%) Palantir Foundry
6 5 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.53%) OpenStack
7 4 (0.42%) Camunda
8 3 (0.32%) MQSeries
8 3 (0.32%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.21%) Apache Pulsar
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.21%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.11%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.11%) CMS
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 1 (0.11%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 5 (0.53%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.21%) 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 (0.42%) Bloomberg AIM
1 4 (0.42%) Fidessa
1 4 (0.42%) Oracle 11i
2 3 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
3 2 (0.21%) Actimize
3 2 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.21%) Shopify
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
4 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 588 (62.16%) AWS
2 264 (27.91%) Azure
3 169 (17.86%) GitHub
4 166 (17.55%) GCP
5 128 (13.53%) Serverless
6 120 (12.68%) Amazon S3
7 119 (12.58%) GitHub Actions
8 93 (9.83%) AWS Lambda
9 79 (8.35%) Amazon EKS
10 71 (7.51%) AWS CloudFormation
11 60 (6.34%) OpenShift
12 57 (6.03%) Power Platform
13 56 (5.92%) Amazon ECS
14 51 (5.39%) Amazon SQS
15 47 (4.97%) Azure DevOps
16 42 (4.44%) Amazon Kinesis
16 42 (4.44%) Azure Data Factory
17 39 (4.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 37 (3.91%) Amazon EC2
18 37 (3.91%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.01%) Firewall
2 15 (1.59%) HTTP
3 11 (1.16%) SSL
4 10 (1.06%) DNS
5 6 (0.63%) FTP
5 6 (0.63%) Kerberos
5 6 (0.63%) SMS
5 6 (0.63%) SSH
6 4 (0.42%) TCP/IP
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%) Internet
9 1 (0.11%) NAS
9 1 (0.11%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (20.93%) PostgreSQL
2 141 (14.90%) MongoDB
2 141 (14.90%) NoSQL
3 81 (8.56%) Apache Cassandra
4 71 (7.51%) Relational Database
5 64 (6.77%) Data Warehouse
6 60 (6.34%) Data Lake
7 50 (5.29%) Big Data
8 49 (5.18%) Elasticsearch
9 47 (4.97%) DynamoDB
10 45 (4.76%) Power BI
11 42 (4.44%) Redis
12 41 (4.33%) Amazon RDS
12 41 (4.33%) SQL Server
13 36 (3.81%) Amazon Athena
13 36 (3.81%) Flink
13 36 (3.81%) Hadoop
14 34 (3.59%) MySQL
15 33 (3.49%) Amazon Redshift
16 32 (3.38%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 161 (17.02%) Jenkins
2 134 (14.16%) GitLab
3 109 (11.52%) Git
4 81 (8.56%) JUnit
5 64 (6.77%) JIRA
6 33 (3.49%) Mockito
7 30 (3.17%) Cucumber
8 22 (2.33%) Gradle
9 21 (2.22%) JMeter
10 19 (2.01%) Gatling
10 19 (2.01%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (1.37%) Maven
12 11 (1.16%) Artifactory
12 11 (1.16%) REST Assured
13 10 (1.06%) CircleCI
13 10 (1.06%) Postman
13 10 (1.06%) Selenium
14 9 (0.95%) Jaeger
15 7 (0.74%) Liquibase
15 7 (0.74%) SonarQube
General
1 267 (28.22%) Finance
2 191 (20.19%) Social Skills
3 129 (13.64%) Banking
4 76 (8.03%) Analytical Skills
5 70 (7.40%) Public Sector
6 58 (6.13%) Front Office
7 38 (4.02%) Investment Banking
8 23 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
9 18 (1.90%) Financial Institution
10 10 (1.06%) Marketing
11 9 (0.95%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (0.85%) Law
12 8 (0.85%) Telecoms
13 6 (0.63%) Retail
14 4 (0.42%) Aerospace
14 4 (0.42%) Billing
14 4 (0.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (0.42%) Military
15 3 (0.32%) Automotive
15 3 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 347 (36.68%) Developer
2 254 (26.85%) Senior
3 174 (18.39%) Java Developer
4 146 (15.43%) Data Engineer
5 122 (12.90%) Lead
6 120 (12.68%) Senior Developer
7 104 (10.99%) Software Engineer
8 94 (9.94%) Architect
9 64 (6.77%) Senior Java Developer
10 52 (5.50%) Java Engineer
11 46 (4.86%) DevOps Engineer
12 45 (4.76%) AWS Architect
12 45 (4.76%) Full-Stack Developer
13 39 (4.12%) Kafka Developer
14 38 (4.02%) AWS Engineer
15 37 (3.91%) Senior Data Engineer
16 36 (3.81%) Solutions Architect
17 34 (3.59%) AWS Developer
18 33 (3.49%) Developer/Software Engineer
19 32 (3.38%) Kafka Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (22.62%) Spring
2 190 (20.08%) Spring Boot
3 123 (13.00%) REST
4 107 (11.31%) Node.js
5 105 (11.10%) React
6 96 (10.15%) gRPC
7 91 (9.62%) RESTful
8 82 (8.67%) RabbitMQ
9 47 (4.97%) AngularJS
10 46 (4.86%) GraphQL
11 41 (4.33%) Middleware
12 40 (4.23%) JSON
12 40 (4.23%) OpenTelemetry
13 38 (4.02%) PySpark
14 34 (3.59%) Redux
15 31 (3.28%) Keycloak
15 31 (3.28%) OAuth
16 28 (2.96%) OAuth2
17 26 (2.75%) Apache Avro
17 26 (2.75%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 153 (16.17%) Distributed Systems
2 134 (14.16%) Cloud Native
3 50 (5.29%) Fixed Income
4 46 (4.86%) Management Information System
5 35 (3.70%) Product Ownership
6 23 (2.43%) Data Structures
6 23 (2.43%) Hybrid Cloud
7 21 (2.22%) Derivative
7 21 (2.22%) Equities
8 19 (2.01%) Onboarding
9 15 (1.59%) Market Risk
10 14 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
11 13 (1.37%) Algorithms
12 12 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
12 12 (1.27%) Legacy Applications
13 11 (1.16%) Clustering
13 11 (1.16%) Replication
14 10 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
15 9 (0.95%) Virtual Team
16 8 (0.85%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 122 (12.90%) Linux
2 60 (6.34%) Unix
3 33 (3.49%) Windows
4 7 (0.74%) Mac OS X
5 5 (0.53%) AIX
6 3 (0.32%) CentOS
6 3 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.32%) zOS
7 2 (0.21%) VMS
8 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.11%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 417 (44.08%) CI/CD
2 338 (35.73%) Microservices
3 326 (34.46%) Agile
4 275 (29.07%) DevOps
5 228 (24.10%) Software Engineering
6 201 (21.25%) Event-Driven
7 192 (20.30%) Observability
8 184 (19.45%) Containerisation
9 183 (19.34%) Problem-Solving
10 166 (17.55%) Analytics
11 160 (16.91%) Infrastructure as Code
12 153 (16.17%) Data Pipeline
13 149 (15.75%) Data Engineering
14 143 (15.12%) Data Modelling
15 139 (14.69%) ETL
16 132 (13.95%) Test Automation
17 125 (13.21%) Event-Driven Architecture
18 112 (11.84%) Full-Stack Development
19 110 (11.63%) Open Source
20 104 (10.99%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 452 (47.78%) Java
2 332 (35.10%) Python
3 282 (29.81%) SQL
4 146 (15.43%) Go
5 95 (10.04%) JavaScript
6 87 (9.20%) TypeScript
7 65 (6.87%) C#
8 38 (4.02%) Bash
9 31 (3.28%) Scala
10 27 (2.85%) C++
11 26 (2.75%) Shell Script
12 19 (2.01%) Rust
13 16 (1.69%) PowerShell
14 11 (1.16%) Bicep
15 9 (0.95%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.74%) Korn
16 7 (0.74%) Perl
17 6 (0.63%) Groovy
18 5 (0.53%) RPG
18 5 (0.53%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 211 (22.30%) Security Cleared
2 178 (18.82%) SC Cleared
3 47 (4.97%) Degree
4 32 (3.38%) BPSS Clearance
5 26 (2.75%) Azure Certification
6 22 (2.33%) AWS Certification
7 21 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
8 17 (1.80%) DV Cleared
9 13 (1.37%) Master's Degree
10 8 (0.85%) OCP
10 8 (0.85%) Oracle Certification
11 6 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.42%) SnowPro
13 3 (0.32%) AWS Certified Developer
13 3 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
14 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
14 1 (0.11%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.11%) PMP
14 1 (0.11%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (12.05%) Data Quality
2 50 (5.29%) QA
3 47 (4.97%) GDPR
4 20 (2.11%) Accessibility
5 10 (1.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (1.06%) NCSC
6 9 (0.95%) ISO 20022
7 8 (0.85%) NIST
8 7 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.53%) SEPA
10 4 (0.42%) SLA
11 3 (0.32%) Def Stans
11 3 (0.32%) HL7
11 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
11 3 (0.32%) WCAG
12 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.21%) MiFID
12 2 (0.21%) PSD2
13 1 (0.11%) SOC 2
System Software
1 330 (34.88%) Docker
2 6 (0.63%) etcd
2 6 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.21%) HDFS
3 2 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 380 (40.17%) Kubernetes
2 213 (22.52%) Terraform
3 116 (12.26%) Grafana
4 113 (11.95%) Prometheus
5 53 (5.60%) Ansible
6 25 (2.64%) Argo
7 10 (1.06%) Istio
8 9 (0.95%) Fluentd
8 9 (0.95%) Kiali
8 9 (0.95%) Progress Chef
9 8 (0.85%) linkerd
10 7 (0.74%) Rancher
11 5 (0.53%) Packer
11 5 (0.53%) Puppet
12 4 (0.42%) Kibana
12 4 (0.42%) logstash
12 4 (0.42%) Podman
13 2 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
13 2 (0.21%) rkt
13 2 (0.21%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 83 (8.77%) Databricks
2 76 (8.03%) Oracle
3 70 (7.40%) Splunk
4 44 (4.65%) Google
4 44 (4.65%) Microsoft
5 31 (3.28%) Confluent
6 25 (2.64%) IBM
6 25 (2.64%) Informatica
7 20 (2.11%) VMware
8 17 (1.80%) Dynatrace
9 14 (1.48%) Red Hat
9 14 (1.48%) Sybase
10 13 (1.37%) ServiceNow
11 10 (1.06%) Cloudera
11 10 (1.06%) Talend
12 8 (0.85%) AppDynamics
12 8 (0.85%) Atlassian
12 8 (0.85%) SAP
12 8 (0.85%) Solace
13 7 (0.74%) Bloomberg