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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 148 102 148
Rank change year-on-year -46 +46 -1
Contract jobs citing Kafka 995 829 710
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.89% 2.56% 1.64%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.68% 11.35% 7.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 588 537 506
10th Percentile £379 £400 £400
25th Percentile £425 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £564
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -13.27%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £700
90th Percentile £800 £825 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £470 £493
% change year-on-year +5.32% -4.67% -17.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 5 9
10th Percentile £56.65 £44.75 £22.55
25th Percentile £64.50 £53.00 £27.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £62.50 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +123.21% -64.10%
75th Percentile £90.00 £78.70 £38.75
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.73 £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 10,274 7,307 9,274
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.52% 22.58% 21.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,737 4,933 6,359
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £651
90th Percentile £738 £762 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 279 155 281
10th Percentile £30.00 £29.14 £22.75
25th Percentile £50.00 £36.40 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £74.63 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.43 £79.48 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £58.30
% change year-on-year +4.00% +7.20% -6.72%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -33 856 £550 -1.79% 265
London -30 523 £588 -6.00% 167
UK excluding London -58 351 £495 +5.32% 168
Work from Home -56 277 £568 -1.22% 99
North of England -25 166 £455 -2.99% 36
Yorkshire -3 77 £480 -12.73% 7
North West -30 74 £430 -8.42% 24
South East -40 57 £519 +17.23% 44
Scotland -25 48 £450 -4.76% 13
Midlands -52 41 £500 +11.11% 10
South West -19 27 £500 -9.09% 54
West Midlands -62 25 £500 - 7
North East -19 24 £425 -8.11% 5
East of England -25 17 £550 +10.00% 6
East Midlands -14 16 £459 +28.43% 3
Northern Ireland 0 3 - - 4
Wales -12 2 £313 - 3

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
1 137 (13.77%) Apache Spark
2 73 (7.34%) Apache
3 61 (6.13%) Apache Airflow
4 19 (1.91%) Confluence
5 7 (0.70%) Camunda
6 6 (0.60%) Ethereum
6 6 (0.60%) Hyperledger
6 6 (0.60%) WebSphere
7 5 (0.50%) Apache Pulsar
8 4 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.30%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.30%) CMS
9 3 (0.30%) Mule
9 3 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.20%) Apache Pig
10 2 (0.20%) IBM HTTP Server
10 2 (0.20%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.20%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 8 (0.80%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.20%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.10%) Maya
3 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.30%) Bloomberg AIM
2 3 (0.30%) Fidessa
3 2 (0.20%) Endur
3 2 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.10%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.10%) R3 Corda
4 1 (0.10%) SAP IS-U
4 1 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 584 (58.69%) AWS
2 309 (31.06%) Azure
3 195 (19.60%) GCP
4 139 (13.97%) GitHub
5 114 (11.46%) Serverless
6 99 (9.95%) GitHub Actions
7 89 (8.94%) AWS Lambda
8 88 (8.84%) Amazon S3
9 69 (6.93%) OpenShift
10 65 (6.53%) Azure DevOps
11 62 (6.23%) Amazon EKS
12 59 (5.93%) Snowflake
13 50 (5.03%) Power Platform
14 46 (4.62%) Amazon ECS
14 46 (4.62%) dbt
15 39 (3.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 39 (3.92%) Amazon SQS
16 37 (3.72%) AWS CloudFormation
17 31 (3.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 29 (2.91%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.71%) HTTP
2 11 (1.11%) Firewall
3 10 (1.01%) Network Security
4 7 (0.70%) MQTT
4 7 (0.70%) SSL
5 6 (0.60%) DNS
6 5 (0.50%) NAS
6 5 (0.50%) SAN
7 4 (0.40%) Internet
8 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.20%) NaaS
9 2 (0.20%) OpenVPN
9 2 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.20%) WAN
10 1 (0.10%) 4G
10 1 (0.10%) 5G
10 1 (0.10%) Broadband
10 1 (0.10%) FIX Connectivity
10 1 (0.10%) MIMO
10 1 (0.10%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (18.39%) PostgreSQL
2 163 (16.38%) MongoDB
3 128 (12.86%) NoSQL
4 106 (10.65%) Relational Database
5 70 (7.04%) Big Data
6 62 (6.23%) Data Warehouse
7 59 (5.93%) SQL Server
8 54 (5.43%) Data Lake
9 45 (4.52%) Elasticsearch
10 43 (4.32%) Power BI
11 40 (4.02%) Redis
12 39 (3.92%) Hadoop
13 37 (3.72%) Flink
14 35 (3.52%) Apache Cassandra
14 35 (3.52%) MySQL
15 31 (3.12%) BigQuery
16 30 (3.02%) Metadata
17 29 (2.91%) DynamoDB
18 26 (2.61%) Amazon Athena
18 26 (2.61%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 165 (16.58%) Jenkins
2 132 (13.27%) Git
3 122 (12.26%) GitLab
4 71 (7.14%) JUnit
5 56 (5.63%) Mockito
6 47 (4.72%) JIRA
7 38 (3.82%) Gradle
8 31 (3.12%) Selenium
9 25 (2.51%) Cucumber
10 23 (2.31%) REST Assured
11 18 (1.81%) Gatling
11 18 (1.81%) Maven
12 17 (1.71%) Liquibase
12 17 (1.71%) Postman
13 15 (1.51%) Serenity BDD
13 15 (1.51%) SonarQube
14 9 (0.90%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.70%) JMeter
16 6 (0.60%) Snyk
17 5 (0.50%) Artifactory
General
1 268 (26.93%) Finance
2 192 (19.30%) Social Skills
3 133 (13.37%) Banking
4 95 (9.55%) Public Sector
5 90 (9.05%) Analytical Skills
6 48 (4.82%) Front Office
7 36 (3.62%) Investment Banking
8 26 (2.61%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (2.61%) Retail
9 20 (2.01%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.51%) Law
11 14 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 12 (1.21%) Telecoms
13 10 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
14 9 (0.90%) Billing
14 9 (0.90%) Publishing
15 8 (0.80%) Military
16 7 (0.70%) Automotive
16 7 (0.70%) Games
16 7 (0.70%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 325 (32.66%) Developer
2 199 (20.00%) Senior
3 168 (16.88%) Java Developer
4 151 (15.18%) Data Engineer
5 125 (12.56%) Architect
6 116 (11.66%) Lead
7 99 (9.95%) Software Engineer
8 82 (8.24%) Senior Developer
9 77 (7.74%) Java Engineer
10 51 (5.13%) Senior Java Developer
10 51 (5.13%) Solutions Architect
11 47 (4.72%) AWS Architect
12 42 (4.22%) DevOps Engineer
13 39 (3.92%) Full-Stack Developer
14 36 (3.62%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 33 (3.32%) Java Software Engineer
15 33 (3.32%) Kafka Engineer
15 33 (3.32%) Lead Developer
15 33 (3.32%) Principal Engineer
16 31 (3.12%) Backend Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 253 (25.43%) Spring
2 238 (23.92%) Spring Boot
3 151 (15.18%) REST
4 137 (13.77%) React
5 136 (13.67%) RESTful
6 106 (10.65%) RabbitMQ
7 87 (8.74%) Node.js
8 66 (6.63%) GraphQL
9 61 (6.13%) JSON
10 53 (5.33%) Redux
11 50 (5.03%) OpenTelemetry
12 40 (4.02%) AngularJS
12 40 (4.02%) Swagger
13 39 (3.92%) OpenAPI
14 38 (3.82%) OAuth
15 37 (3.72%) gRPC
15 37 (3.72%) Middleware
16 35 (3.52%) PySpark
17 34 (3.42%) Apache Avro
18 32 (3.22%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 187 (18.79%) Distributed Systems
2 179 (17.99%) Cloud Native
3 40 (4.02%) Product Ownership
4 39 (3.92%) Fixed Income
5 38 (3.82%) Data Structures
6 30 (3.02%) Management Information System
7 29 (2.91%) Algorithms
8 28 (2.81%) Enterprise Software
9 24 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
9 24 (2.41%) Onboarding
10 18 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (1.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 16 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
12 15 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
12 15 (1.51%) Equities
13 14 (1.41%) Clustering
13 14 (1.41%) Public Cloud
14 13 (1.31%) Virtual Team
15 12 (1.21%) AI Agents
15 12 (1.21%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 97 (9.75%) Linux
2 54 (5.43%) Unix
3 26 (2.61%) Windows
4 10 (1.01%) Mac OS X
5 7 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.50%) 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 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.10%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 464 (46.63%) CI/CD
2 371 (37.29%) Microservices
3 339 (34.07%) Agile
4 312 (31.36%) Event-Driven
5 310 (31.16%) DevOps
6 224 (22.51%) Containerisation
7 223 (22.41%) Observability
8 210 (21.11%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 195 (19.60%) Software Engineering
10 194 (19.50%) Data Pipeline
11 163 (16.38%) Infrastructure as Code
12 161 (16.18%) Problem-Solving
13 160 (16.08%) Test Automation
14 154 (15.48%) Analytics
14 154 (15.48%) Data Modelling
15 149 (14.97%) Data Engineering
16 148 (14.87%) ETL
17 146 (14.67%) AI
18 119 (11.96%) TDD
19 106 (10.65%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 464 (46.63%) Java
2 351 (35.28%) Python
3 306 (30.75%) SQL
4 123 (12.36%) TypeScript
5 90 (9.05%) JavaScript
6 84 (8.44%) Go
7 58 (5.83%) C#
8 50 (5.03%) Bash
9 36 (3.62%) Scala
10 26 (2.61%) PowerShell
11 17 (1.71%) PL/SQL
12 16 (1.61%) Kotlin
13 14 (1.41%) Shell Script
14 13 (1.31%) Rust
15 12 (1.21%) C++
16 11 (1.11%) Bicep
17 10 (1.01%) Groovy
17 10 (1.01%) Search Processing Language
18 7 (0.70%) PHP
19 6 (0.60%) Perl
Qualifications
1 217 (21.81%) Security Cleared
2 170 (17.09%) SC Cleared
3 51 (5.13%) Degree
4 29 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
5 21 (2.11%) DV Cleared
6 19 (1.91%) AWS Certification
7 18 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
8 16 (1.61%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 8 (0.80%) Azure Certification
10 7 (0.70%) SnowPro
11 3 (0.30%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.30%) PhD
11 3 (0.30%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.20%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.20%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.20%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.10%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
13 1 (0.10%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (10.45%) Data Quality
2 52 (5.23%) QA
3 41 (4.12%) Accessibility
4 39 (3.92%) GDPR
5 17 (1.71%) ISO 20022
6 8 (0.80%) SEPA
7 7 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.50%) NIST
9 4 (0.40%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.30%) SLA
10 3 (0.30%) WCAG
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%) ISO 15022
11 2 (0.20%) MiFID
11 2 (0.20%) NCSC
11 2 (0.20%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.10%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 328 (32.96%) Docker
2 6 (0.60%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 6 (0.60%) etcd
3 2 (0.20%) Apache Flume
3 2 (0.20%) HDFS
3 2 (0.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.10%) OpenSSH
4 1 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 405 (40.70%) Kubernetes
2 198 (19.90%) Terraform
3 122 (12.26%) Prometheus
4 118 (11.86%) Grafana
5 61 (6.13%) Ansible
6 19 (1.91%) Argo
7 11 (1.11%) Control-M
7 11 (1.11%) Kibana
8 9 (0.90%) Istio
8 9 (0.90%) Puppet
9 8 (0.80%) Kustomize
9 8 (0.80%) Podman
10 7 (0.70%) Fluentd
11 6 (0.60%) logstash
12 5 (0.50%) Rancher
13 3 (0.30%) NetBackup
14 2 (0.20%) CA Wily
14 2 (0.20%) CloudHub
14 2 (0.20%) Consul
14 2 (0.20%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 80 (8.04%) Databricks
2 73 (7.34%) Oracle
3 61 (6.13%) Splunk
4 48 (4.82%) Microsoft
5 42 (4.22%) Google
6 26 (2.61%) Informatica
7 24 (2.41%) Confluent
8 16 (1.61%) IBM
9 15 (1.51%) Dynatrace
9 15 (1.51%) Salesforce
9 15 (1.51%) Solace
10 14 (1.41%) MuleSoft
11 10 (1.01%) OpenAI
11 10 (1.01%) Sybase
12 9 (0.90%) SAP
12 9 (0.90%) Talend
13 8 (0.80%) Red Hat
13 8 (0.80%) ServiceNow
14 6 (0.60%) AppDynamics
14 6 (0.60%) Pega