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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 142 110 151
Rank change year-on-year -32 +41 -9
Contract jobs citing Kafka 930 728 694
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.88% 2.48% 1.59%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.62% 10.83% 7.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 552 475 511
10th Percentile £381 £400 £400
25th Percentile £425 £458 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £675
90th Percentile £800 £825 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £475 £490
% change year-on-year -0.53% -3.06% -14.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 3 8
10th Percentile £60.38 £47.14 £22.44
25th Percentile £64.75 £58.98 £25.94
Median hourly rate £70.00 £78.70 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.05% +181.07% -64.10%
75th Percentile £90.00 £86.23 £36.31
90th Percentile £92.50 £90.74 £48.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £78.70 £28.00
% change year-on-year -11.05% +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 9,670 6,720 9,188
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.54% 22.88% 21.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,358 4,600 6,346
10th Percentile £363 £358 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -3.26% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 122 263
10th Percentile £30.77 £29.35 £22.10
25th Percentile £51.56 £42.14 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £60.00 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +21.21% -23.85%
75th Percentile £73.46 £68.00 £68.38
90th Percentile £81.25 £81.32 £74.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.25 £55.00
% change year-on-year +2.77% +15.00% -15.38%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -26 800 £550 -2.65% 146
London -22 506 £594 -6.86% 85
UK excluding London -46 304 £473 -0.53% 91
Work from Home -36 279 £575 - 101
North of England -37 136 £458 -8.50% 29
Yorkshire -18 69 £464 -15.68% 5
North West -41 54 £461 -7.80% 19
South East -49 51 £488 +8.33% 26
Scotland -21 45 £450 -4.76% 10
Midlands -56 39 £491 +9.17% 2
South West -9 24 £500 -9.09% 10
West Midlands -48 21 £500 - 1
North East -9 20 £425 -8.05% 5
East Midlands -23 18 £407 +14.40% 1
East of England -17 16 £550 +33.92% 5
Northern Ireland -3 1 - - 6
Wales -13 1 £250 - 5

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 (13.76%) Apache Spark
2 65 (6.99%) Apache
3 51 (5.48%) Apache Airflow
4 13 (1.40%) Confluence
5 7 (0.75%) Camunda
6 6 (0.65%) Ethereum
6 6 (0.65%) Hyperledger
7 5 (0.54%) WebSphere
8 4 (0.43%) Apache Pulsar
8 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.22%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.22%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.22%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.22%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.22%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.22%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.11%) JBoss
10 1 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 5 (0.54%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.22%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.11%) Maya
Business Applications
1 4 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.32%) Bloomberg AIM
2 3 (0.32%) Fidessa
3 2 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 2 (0.22%) Shopify
3 2 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.11%) Endur
4 1 (0.11%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.11%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 553 (59.46%) AWS
2 272 (29.25%) Azure
3 167 (17.96%) GCP
4 141 (15.16%) GitHub
5 122 (13.12%) Serverless
6 105 (11.29%) GitHub Actions
7 94 (10.11%) Amazon S3
8 91 (9.78%) AWS Lambda
9 66 (7.10%) Amazon EKS
9 66 (7.10%) OpenShift
10 61 (6.56%) Power Platform
11 59 (6.34%) Azure DevOps
12 50 (5.38%) Snowflake
13 47 (5.05%) AWS CloudFormation
14 45 (4.84%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 45 (4.84%) Amazon ECS
15 41 (4.41%) dbt
16 38 (4.09%) Amazon SQS
17 35 (3.76%) Amazon Kinesis
18 31 (3.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.83%) Firewall
2 13 (1.40%) HTTP
3 10 (1.08%) DNS
4 8 (0.86%) Network Security
5 6 (0.65%) MQTT
5 6 (0.65%) SMS
5 6 (0.65%) SSL
6 5 (0.54%) NAS
6 5 (0.54%) SAN
6 5 (0.54%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.22%) Internet
7 2 (0.22%) NaaS
7 2 (0.22%) OpenVPN
7 2 (0.22%) Reverse Proxy
7 2 (0.22%) WAN
8 1 (0.11%) 4G
8 1 (0.11%) 5G
8 1 (0.11%) Broadband
8 1 (0.11%) FIX Connectivity
8 1 (0.11%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 187 (20.11%) PostgreSQL
2 150 (16.13%) MongoDB
3 122 (13.12%) NoSQL
4 85 (9.14%) Relational Database
5 61 (6.56%) Big Data
6 54 (5.81%) Data Warehouse
7 52 (5.59%) Data Lake
8 51 (5.48%) SQL Server
9 49 (5.27%) Power BI
9 49 (5.27%) Redis
10 44 (4.73%) Apache Cassandra
10 44 (4.73%) Elasticsearch
11 37 (3.98%) DynamoDB
11 37 (3.98%) Flink
12 35 (3.76%) MySQL
13 34 (3.66%) Amazon Athena
14 32 (3.44%) Hadoop
15 29 (3.12%) Amazon RDS
15 29 (3.12%) Amazon Redshift
15 29 (3.12%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 143 (15.38%) Jenkins
2 125 (13.44%) Git
3 124 (13.33%) GitLab
4 62 (6.67%) JUnit
5 50 (5.38%) JIRA
6 44 (4.73%) Mockito
7 31 (3.33%) Gradle
8 29 (3.12%) Selenium
9 23 (2.47%) REST Assured
10 20 (2.15%) Cucumber
10 20 (2.15%) Gatling
11 17 (1.83%) Liquibase
12 15 (1.61%) Serenity BDD
13 14 (1.51%) Maven
13 14 (1.51%) Postman
14 11 (1.18%) SonarQube
15 9 (0.97%) Jaeger
16 7 (0.75%) JMeter
16 7 (0.75%) Snyk
17 5 (0.54%) Cypress.io
General
1 253 (27.20%) Finance
2 174 (18.71%) Social Skills
3 125 (13.44%) Banking
4 82 (8.82%) Public Sector
5 77 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
6 45 (4.84%) Front Office
7 35 (3.76%) Investment Banking
8 26 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
9 24 (2.58%) Financial Institution
10 20 (2.15%) Retail
11 14 (1.51%) Law
12 12 (1.29%) Marketing
13 11 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (1.08%) Telecoms
15 9 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 9 (0.97%) Publishing
16 8 (0.86%) Corporate Banking
17 7 (0.75%) Automotive
17 7 (0.75%) Military
17 7 (0.75%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 300 (32.26%) Developer
2 195 (20.97%) Senior
3 154 (16.56%) Data Engineer
3 154 (16.56%) Java Developer
4 117 (12.58%) Lead
5 111 (11.94%) Architect
6 92 (9.89%) Software Engineer
7 84 (9.03%) Senior Developer
8 72 (7.74%) Java Engineer
9 55 (5.91%) AWS Architect
10 48 (5.16%) Senior Java Developer
11 45 (4.84%) DevOps Engineer
12 40 (4.30%) Solutions Architect
13 39 (4.19%) Full-Stack Developer
14 33 (3.55%) Developer/Software Engineer
14 33 (3.55%) Principal Engineer
15 32 (3.44%) Lead Developer
16 30 (3.23%) Data Architect
16 30 (3.23%) Senior Data Engineer
17 29 (3.12%) Kafka Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 229 (24.62%) Spring
2 216 (23.23%) Spring Boot
3 136 (14.62%) REST
4 123 (13.23%) RESTful
5 119 (12.80%) React
6 93 (10.00%) Node.js
7 90 (9.68%) RabbitMQ
8 60 (6.45%) GraphQL
9 59 (6.34%) OpenTelemetry
10 50 (5.38%) gRPC
11 48 (5.16%) JSON
12 43 (4.62%) Middleware
12 43 (4.62%) Redux
13 42 (4.52%) Apache Avro
14 39 (4.19%) OAuth
14 39 (4.19%) PySpark
15 38 (4.09%) AngularJS
16 37 (3.98%) Swagger
17 36 (3.87%) OpenAPI
18 34 (3.66%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 175 (18.82%) Distributed Systems
2 165 (17.74%) Cloud Native
3 41 (4.41%) Management Information System
4 39 (4.19%) Fixed Income
5 36 (3.87%) Product Ownership
6 24 (2.58%) Data Structures
7 21 (2.26%) Onboarding
8 19 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (1.61%) Derivative
10 15 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
11 14 (1.51%) Algorithms
11 14 (1.51%) Clustering
11 14 (1.51%) Equities
12 13 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (1.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 11 (1.18%) Public Cloud
13 11 (1.18%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 10 (1.08%) CMDB
14 10 (1.08%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 88 (9.46%) Linux
2 55 (5.91%) Unix
3 30 (3.23%) Windows
4 8 (0.86%) Mac OS X
5 6 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.54%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.32%) VMS
8 2 (0.22%) Debian
8 2 (0.22%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.22%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 2 (0.22%) zOS
9 1 (0.11%) Android
9 1 (0.11%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 425 (45.70%) CI/CD
2 350 (37.63%) Microservices
3 297 (31.94%) Agile
4 280 (30.11%) DevOps
5 273 (29.35%) Event-Driven
6 223 (23.98%) Observability
7 202 (21.72%) Containerisation
8 187 (20.11%) Software Engineering
9 185 (19.89%) Event-Driven Architecture
10 166 (17.85%) Data Pipeline
11 160 (17.20%) Infrastructure as Code
12 159 (17.10%) Data Modelling
13 146 (15.70%) Analytics
13 146 (15.70%) Problem-Solving
13 146 (15.70%) Test Automation
14 143 (15.38%) Data Engineering
15 134 (14.41%) ETL
16 105 (11.29%) AI
16 105 (11.29%) Full-Stack Development
17 100 (10.75%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 426 (45.81%) Java
2 322 (34.62%) Python
3 292 (31.40%) SQL
4 117 (12.58%) TypeScript
5 92 (9.89%) Go
6 87 (9.35%) JavaScript
7 55 (5.91%) C#
8 44 (4.73%) Bash
9 26 (2.80%) Scala
10 19 (2.04%) PowerShell
10 19 (2.04%) Rust
11 15 (1.61%) C++
12 14 (1.51%) Shell Script
13 13 (1.40%) Bicep
14 10 (1.08%) PL/SQL
14 10 (1.08%) Search Processing Language
15 8 (0.86%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.75%) Groovy
16 7 (0.75%) PHP
17 6 (0.65%) Perl
Qualifications
1 198 (21.29%) Security Cleared
2 155 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 51 (5.48%) Degree
4 26 (2.80%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (1.83%) AWS Certification
5 17 (1.83%) DV Cleared
6 15 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (1.29%) Master's Degree
8 8 (0.86%) Azure Certification
9 7 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.75%) SnowPro
10 3 (0.32%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.22%) AWS Certified Developer
11 2 (0.22%) Postgraduate
11 2 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.11%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
12 1 (0.11%) CISSP
12 1 (0.11%) PhD
12 1 (0.11%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (10.86%) Data Quality
2 52 (5.59%) QA
3 39 (4.19%) GDPR
4 32 (3.44%) Accessibility
5 19 (2.04%) ISO 20022
6 10 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 10 (1.08%) NIST
7 8 (0.86%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.75%) SEPA
9 5 (0.54%) NCSC
10 4 (0.43%) SLA
10 4 (0.43%) WCAG
11 3 (0.32%) ISO 8583
11 3 (0.32%) PSD2
12 2 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.22%) EMIR
12 2 (0.22%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.22%) MiFID
13 1 (0.11%) Basel III
13 1 (0.11%) HL7
System Software
1 316 (33.98%) Docker
2 6 (0.65%) etcd
3 2 (0.22%) Apache ZooKeeper
3 2 (0.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.11%) Apache Flume
4 1 (0.11%) HDFS
4 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 371 (39.89%) Kubernetes
2 195 (20.97%) Terraform
3 127 (13.66%) Grafana
4 126 (13.55%) Prometheus
5 57 (6.13%) Ansible
6 23 (2.47%) Argo
7 12 (1.29%) Istio
8 10 (1.08%) Kibana
9 8 (0.86%) Kiali
9 8 (0.86%) Puppet
10 7 (0.75%) Fluentd
10 7 (0.75%) Podman
11 6 (0.65%) Kustomize
11 6 (0.65%) linkerd
12 5 (0.54%) logstash
12 5 (0.54%) Rancher
13 3 (0.32%) NetBackup
14 2 (0.22%) CA Wily
14 2 (0.22%) Control-M
14 2 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 86 (9.25%) Databricks
2 73 (7.85%) Splunk
3 64 (6.88%) Oracle
4 40 (4.30%) Microsoft
5 36 (3.87%) Google
6 29 (3.12%) Confluent
7 23 (2.47%) Informatica
8 17 (1.83%) IBM
9 14 (1.51%) Dynatrace
10 12 (1.29%) Salesforce
11 11 (1.18%) Red Hat
11 11 (1.18%) ServiceNow
12 10 (1.08%) Solace
13 9 (0.97%) MuleSoft
13 9 (0.97%) Talend
14 8 (0.86%) Sybase
15 7 (0.75%) AppDynamics
16 6 (0.65%) Pega
16 6 (0.65%) Tenable
16 6 (0.65%) VMware