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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 116 154
Rank change year-on-year -16 +38 -18
Contract jobs citing Kafka 941 695 660
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.96% 2.39% 1.55%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.94% 10.54% 7.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 574 457 487
10th Percentile £363 £396 £400
25th Percentile £421 £460 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +2.33% -17.31%
75th Percentile £650 £738 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £755
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £475 £490
% change year-on-year -0.53% -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 9,463 6,596 8,904
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.70% 22.64% 20.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,238 4,524 6,175
10th Percentile £360 £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 £727 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 108 245
10th Percentile £32.50 £29.20 £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 £72.50 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £82.36 £74.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year - +36.84% -26.36%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -17 813 £538 -8.12% 222
London -18 513 £600 -7.69% 131
UK excluding London -24 300 £473 -0.53% 115
Work from Home -6 293 £600 - 289
North of England -36 133 £455 -9.00% 39
Yorkshire -17 65 £460 -20.00% 10
North West -38 57 £453 -9.50% 22
Midlands -45 47 £498 +37.24% 9
South East -46 47 £488 +1.99% 41
Scotland -6 41 £450 -4.26% 7
South West -17 30 £538 +4.88% 14
West Midlands -46 27 £514 -6.55% 7
East Midlands -19 20 £402 +12.92% 2
North East -11 18 £450 -2.70% 7
East of England -23 15 £550 +72.85% 1
Wales -11 1 £250 - 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
1 130 (13.82%) Apache Spark
2 68 (7.23%) Apache
3 47 (4.99%) Apache Airflow
4 22 (2.34%) 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%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.53%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.32%) Apache Pulsar
7 3 (0.32%) MQSeries
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%) Apache Pig
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
1 553 (58.77%) AWS
2 267 (28.37%) Azure
3 159 (16.90%) GCP
4 148 (15.73%) GitHub
5 124 (13.18%) Serverless
6 105 (11.16%) Amazon S3
7 104 (11.05%) GitHub Actions
8 93 (9.88%) AWS Lambda
9 75 (7.97%) Amazon EKS
10 65 (6.91%) Power Platform
11 64 (6.80%) Azure DevOps
12 63 (6.70%) OpenShift
13 56 (5.95%) AWS CloudFormation
14 49 (5.21%) Amazon ECS
15 47 (4.99%) Snowflake
16 44 (4.68%) Amazon SQS
17 41 (4.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 39 (4.14%) Amazon Kinesis
19 37 (3.93%) dbt
20 36 (3.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.02%) Firewall
2 14 (1.49%) HTTP
3 13 (1.38%) 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%) 5G
9 1 (0.11%) Internet
9 1 (0.11%) MIMO
9 1 (0.11%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 191 (20.30%) PostgreSQL
2 150 (15.94%) MongoDB
3 124 (13.18%) NoSQL
4 88 (9.35%) Relational Database
5 62 (6.59%) Big Data
6 57 (6.06%) Data Lake
7 54 (5.74%) Data Warehouse
8 53 (5.63%) Apache Cassandra
8 53 (5.63%) SQL Server
9 52 (5.53%) Power BI
10 51 (5.42%) Redis
11 44 (4.68%) Elasticsearch
12 39 (4.14%) Flink
13 38 (4.04%) DynamoDB
14 37 (3.93%) Amazon Athena
15 36 (3.83%) Hadoop
16 34 (3.61%) MySQL
17 31 (3.29%) Amazon RDS
17 31 (3.29%) Amazon Redshift
17 31 (3.29%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 148 (15.73%) Jenkins
2 137 (14.56%) GitLab
3 126 (13.39%) Git
4 60 (6.38%) JUnit
5 58 (6.16%) JIRA
6 42 (4.46%) Mockito
7 25 (2.66%) Gradle
8 23 (2.44%) Selenium
9 20 (2.13%) Gatling
9 20 (2.13%) REST Assured
10 19 (2.02%) Cucumber
11 14 (1.49%) Liquibase
12 13 (1.38%) Maven
12 13 (1.38%) Serenity BDD
13 12 (1.28%) Postman
14 10 (1.06%) Jaeger
15 8 (0.85%) CircleCI
15 8 (0.85%) SonarQube
16 7 (0.74%) JMeter
16 7 (0.74%) Snyk
General
1 258 (27.42%) Finance
2 169 (17.96%) Social Skills
3 119 (12.65%) Banking
4 78 (8.29%) Analytical Skills
4 78 (8.29%) Public Sector
5 47 (4.99%) Front Office
6 33 (3.51%) Investment Banking
7 26 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (2.55%) Financial Institution
9 13 (1.38%) Telecoms
10 12 (1.28%) Marketing
11 10 (1.06%) Law
12 9 (0.96%) Publishing
12 9 (0.96%) Retail
13 7 (0.74%) 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
1 316 (33.58%) Developer
2 209 (22.21%) Senior
3 159 (16.90%) Data Engineer
4 147 (15.62%) Java Developer
5 115 (12.22%) Lead
6 110 (11.69%) Architect
7 97 (10.31%) Senior Developer
8 90 (9.56%) Software Engineer
9 60 (6.38%) Java Engineer
10 54 (5.74%) AWS Architect
11 50 (5.31%) Senior Java Developer
12 44 (4.68%) DevOps Engineer
12 44 (4.68%) Full-Stack Developer
13 40 (4.25%) Solutions Architect
14 35 (3.72%) Senior Data Engineer
15 33 (3.51%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 33 (3.51%) Principal Engineer
16 32 (3.40%) Data Architect
16 32 (3.40%) Full-Stack Engineer
17 30 (3.19%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 219 (23.27%) Spring
2 203 (21.57%) Spring Boot
3 131 (13.92%) REST
4 116 (12.33%) RESTful
5 112 (11.90%) React
6 108 (11.48%) Node.js
7 82 (8.71%) RabbitMQ
8 61 (6.48%) gRPC
9 58 (6.16%) OpenTelemetry
10 54 (5.74%) GraphQL
11 51 (5.42%) JSON
12 45 (4.78%) Middleware
13 44 (4.68%) Apache Avro
13 44 (4.68%) PySpark
14 39 (4.14%) Redux
15 38 (4.04%) AngularJS
16 36 (3.83%) OAuth
17 34 (3.61%) OpenAPI
17 34 (3.61%) Swagger
18 31 (3.29%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 162 (17.22%) Distributed Systems
2 146 (15.52%) Cloud Native
3 45 (4.78%) Management Information System
4 43 (4.57%) Fixed Income
5 34 (3.61%) Product Ownership
6 27 (2.87%) Data Structures
7 20 (2.13%) Onboarding
8 19 (2.02%) Equities
9 17 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (1.59%) Algorithms
12 14 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.38%) Derivative
14 12 (1.28%) Clustering
14 12 (1.28%) 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 (1.06%) Replication
17 9 (0.96%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 101 (10.73%) Linux
2 57 (6.06%) Unix
3 35 (3.72%) 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
1 423 (44.95%) CI/CD
2 337 (35.81%) Microservices
3 298 (31.67%) Agile
4 287 (30.50%) DevOps
5 248 (26.35%) Event-Driven
6 214 (22.74%) Observability
7 198 (21.04%) Containerisation
8 193 (20.51%) Software Engineering
9 167 (17.75%) Data Pipeline
10 165 (17.53%) Data Modelling
11 161 (17.11%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 160 (17.00%) Infrastructure as Code
13 158 (16.79%) Analytics
14 151 (16.05%) Problem-Solving
15 150 (15.94%) Data Engineering
16 146 (15.52%) Test Automation
17 141 (14.98%) ETL
18 110 (11.69%) Full-Stack Development
19 100 (10.63%) AI
19 100 (10.63%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 424 (45.06%) Java
2 329 (34.96%) Python
3 281 (29.86%) SQL
4 110 (11.69%) TypeScript
5 106 (11.26%) Go
6 98 (10.41%) JavaScript
7 59 (6.27%) C#
8 43 (4.57%) Bash
9 29 (3.08%) Scala
10 19 (2.02%) PowerShell
11 18 (1.91%) Rust
12 17 (1.81%) C++
13 15 (1.59%) Shell Script
14 14 (1.49%) Bicep
15 10 (1.06%) 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 (23.06%) Security Cleared
2 174 (18.49%) SC Cleared
3 46 (4.89%) Degree
4 27 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 18 (1.91%) AWS Certification
5 18 (1.91%) DV Cleared
6 16 (1.70%) Azure Certification
7 14 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (1.38%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.74%) SnowPro
10 4 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
11 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.21%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.11%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
12 1 (0.11%) CISSP
12 1 (0.11%) OCP
12 1 (0.11%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (11.37%) Data Quality
2 50 (5.31%) QA
3 45 (4.78%) GDPR
4 28 (2.98%) Accessibility
5 17 (1.81%) ISO 20022
6 10 (1.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (0.96%) NIST
8 7 (0.74%) NCSC
8 7 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.74%) SEPA
9 4 (0.43%) MiFID
9 4 (0.43%) SLA
9 4 (0.43%) WCAG
10 3 (0.32%) HL7
10 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.21%) EMIR
11 2 (0.21%) ISO 15022
11 2 (0.21%) PSD2
12 1 (0.11%) PMO
System Software
1 327 (34.75%) 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
1 370 (39.32%) Kubernetes
2 195 (20.72%) Terraform
3 130 (13.82%) Grafana
4 126 (13.39%) Prometheus
5 55 (5.84%) Ansible
6 30 (3.19%) Argo
7 11 (1.17%) Istio
7 11 (1.17%) Kibana
8 9 (0.96%) Kiali
9 8 (0.85%) Fluentd
10 7 (0.74%) linkerd
10 7 (0.74%) logstash
10 7 (0.74%) Rancher
11 6 (0.64%) Puppet
12 5 (0.53%) Podman
13 2 (0.21%) Amdocs OSS
13 2 (0.21%) CA Wily
13 2 (0.21%) QRadar
13 2 (0.21%) Sysdig
13 2 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 96 (10.20%) Databricks
2 78 (8.29%) Splunk
3 69 (7.33%) Oracle
4 46 (4.89%) Microsoft
5 36 (3.83%) Google
6 33 (3.51%) Confluent
7 22 (2.34%) Informatica
8 16 (1.70%) IBM
9 14 (1.49%) Dynatrace
10 13 (1.38%) 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 (0.74%) MuleSoft
14 7 (0.74%) Pega
14 7 (0.74%) SAP
15 6 (0.64%) Bloomberg