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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 100 136
Rank change year-on-year -45 +36 +24
Contract jobs citing Kafka 1,059 846 686
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 2.56% 1.79%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 8.95% 10.05% 7.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 662 550 468
10th Percentile £375 £383 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £482
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -2.55% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £725
90th Percentile £735 £750 £803
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +6.38% -4.08% -21.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 5 7
10th Percentile £46.63 £42.35 £24.34
25th Percentile £56.63 £53.00 £26.20
Median hourly rate £74.75 £62.50 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.60% +123.21% -64.10%
75th Percentile £87.75 £78.70 £33.88
90th Percentile £92.50 £97.48 £39.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 £78.70 £28.00
% change year-on-year -2.16% +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 11,830 8,415 9,456
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.71% 25.51% 24.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,757 5,661 6,332
10th Percentile £375 £356 £359
25th Percentile £435 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £634 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 182 187
10th Percentile £29.07 £31.25 £25.60
25th Percentile £45.94 £40.88 £43.00
Median hourly rate £67.00 £52.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +27.62% -14.77% +0.57%
75th Percentile £76.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £74.75 £74.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.75 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +23.18% -15.38% +8.33%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 -44 894 £550 - 496
London -38 534 £563 -6.25% 352
UK excluding London -38 388 £500 +6.38% 217
Work from Home -59 264 £530 -7.83% 242
North of England -22 187 £500 +5.26% 73
Yorkshire -1 95 £500 -14.71% 28
North West -45 73 £537 +15.48% 37
South East -36 63 £460 +5.75% 54
Scotland -51 51 £425 -10.05% 32
Midlands -53 38 £500 +13.51% 11
East of England -5 28 £500 -2.44% 5
South West -24 28 £500 -9.09% 29
North East -29 24 £425 -8.55% 8
West Midlands -42 23 £548 +9.50% 9
East Midlands -16 15 £447 +7.71% 2
Northern Ireland +3 4 - - 12
Wales - 1 £375 - 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
1 134 (12.65%) Apache Spark
2 74 (6.99%) Apache Airflow
3 70 (6.61%) Apache
4 24 (2.27%) Confluence
5 16 (1.51%) Camunda
6 7 (0.66%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 6 (0.57%) CMS
7 6 (0.57%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.47%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.38%) Apache Pulsar
9 4 (0.38%) PowerExchange
9 4 (0.38%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.28%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.28%) MQSeries
10 3 (0.28%) Mule
11 2 (0.19%) Apache Pig
11 2 (0.19%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.19%) JBoss
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 7 (0.66%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.19%) Mingle
3 1 (0.094%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.094%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.28%) Finacle
1 3 (0.28%) FLEXCUBE
1 3 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
1 3 (0.28%) Temenos T24
2 2 (0.19%) Endur
2 2 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.19%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.094%) Actimize
3 1 (0.094%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.094%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.094%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.094%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.094%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 609 (57.51%) AWS
2 384 (36.26%) Azure
3 249 (23.51%) GCP
4 179 (16.90%) GitHub
5 123 (11.61%) GitHub Actions
6 101 (9.54%) Serverless
7 82 (7.74%) AWS Lambda
8 77 (7.27%) Amazon S3
9 75 (7.08%) Azure DevOps
9 75 (7.08%) Snowflake
10 72 (6.80%) Amazon EKS
11 66 (6.23%) OpenShift
12 55 (5.19%) dbt
13 49 (4.63%) Amazon SQS
14 43 (4.06%) Power Platform
15 41 (3.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 39 (3.68%) Amazon ECS
17 35 (3.31%) Azure Data Factory
18 31 (2.93%) Google Kubernetes Engine
19 30 (2.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 30 (2.83%) HTTP
2 19 (1.79%) DNS
3 12 (1.13%) Network Security
4 9 (0.85%) Firewall
5 8 (0.76%) TCP/IP
6 7 (0.66%) MQTT
6 7 (0.66%) SSL
7 6 (0.57%) SAN
7 6 (0.57%) SSH
8 4 (0.38%) 4G
8 4 (0.38%) 5G
8 4 (0.38%) NAS
9 3 (0.28%) Internet
10 2 (0.19%) Kerberos
11 1 (0.094%) Broadband
11 1 (0.094%) MIMO
11 1 (0.094%) RTP
11 1 (0.094%) VPN
11 1 (0.094%) WAN
11 1 (0.094%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 188 (17.75%) PostgreSQL
2 163 (15.39%) MongoDB
3 137 (12.94%) NoSQL
4 96 (9.07%) Relational Database
5 74 (6.99%) Data Warehouse
6 68 (6.42%) SQL Server
7 59 (5.57%) Big Data
8 53 (5.00%) Redis
9 49 (4.63%) Data Lake
9 49 (4.63%) MySQL
10 42 (3.97%) Power BI
11 41 (3.87%) Elasticsearch
12 40 (3.78%) BigQuery
13 38 (3.59%) Flink
14 33 (3.12%) Metadata
15 28 (2.64%) Hadoop
16 27 (2.55%) Amazon Redshift
17 26 (2.46%) Apache Cassandra
17 26 (2.46%) Delta Lake
17 26 (2.46%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 213 (20.11%) Jenkins
2 183 (17.28%) Git
3 160 (15.11%) GitLab
4 77 (7.27%) JUnit
5 70 (6.61%) Gradle
6 65 (6.14%) Mockito
7 49 (4.63%) JIRA
7 49 (4.63%) Selenium
8 43 (4.06%) Maven
9 32 (3.02%) SonarQube
10 30 (2.83%) Cucumber
11 25 (2.36%) REST Assured
12 23 (2.17%) Postman
13 19 (1.79%) Liquibase
14 18 (1.70%) JMeter
15 17 (1.61%) Bitbucket
16 16 (1.51%) Gatling
17 13 (1.23%) Cypress.io
18 12 (1.13%) LoadRunner
18 12 (1.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 257 (24.27%) Finance
2 206 (19.45%) Social Skills
3 157 (14.83%) Banking
4 110 (10.39%) Analytical Skills
5 101 (9.54%) Public Sector
6 36 (3.40%) Retail
7 24 (2.27%) Investment Banking
8 22 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 18 (1.70%) Front Office
9 18 (1.70%) Telecoms
10 17 (1.61%) Financial Institution
11 15 (1.42%) Law
12 11 (1.04%) Documentation Skills
13 10 (0.94%) Publishing
14 9 (0.85%) Billing
14 9 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
15 8 (0.76%) Games
15 8 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (0.76%) Marketing
15 8 (0.76%) Military
Job Titles
1 327 (30.88%) Developer
2 222 (20.96%) Senior
3 179 (16.90%) Java Developer
4 150 (14.16%) Architect
5 137 (12.94%) Data Engineer
6 98 (9.25%) Lead
7 72 (6.80%) Java Engineer
8 70 (6.61%) Senior Developer
9 65 (6.14%) Software Engineer
10 61 (5.76%) Solutions Architect
11 59 (5.57%) DevOps Engineer
12 42 (3.97%) Full-Stack Developer
13 41 (3.87%) Senior Data Engineer
13 41 (3.87%) Senior Java Developer
14 37 (3.49%) Python Developer
14 37 (3.49%) Python Engineer
15 36 (3.40%) Kafka Engineer
16 35 (3.31%) AWS Engineer
17 34 (3.21%) AWS Architect
18 33 (3.12%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 284 (26.82%) Spring
2 283 (26.72%) Spring Boot
3 238 (22.47%) REST
4 224 (21.15%) Terraform
5 152 (14.35%) RESTful
6 136 (12.84%) React
7 129 (12.18%) RabbitMQ
8 75 (7.08%) JSON
9 57 (5.38%) OAuth
10 52 (4.91%) Node.js
10 52 (4.91%) PySpark
11 51 (4.82%) OpenTelemetry
12 50 (4.72%) HTML
13 48 (4.53%) GraphQL
13 48 (4.53%) Swagger
14 46 (4.34%) .NET
14 46 (4.34%) OpenAPI
15 41 (3.87%) Middleware
16 40 (3.78%) XML
17 39 (3.68%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 235 (22.19%) Cloud Native
2 216 (20.40%) Distributed Systems
3 62 (5.85%) Product Ownership
4 46 (4.34%) Data Structures
5 43 (4.06%) Enterprise Software
6 36 (3.40%) Onboarding
7 30 (2.83%) AI Agents
7 30 (2.83%) Self-Motivation
8 29 (2.74%) Algorithms
9 27 (2.55%) Legacy Systems
10 26 (2.46%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 23 (2.17%) Replication
12 21 (1.98%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 20 (1.89%) Greenfield Project
13 20 (1.89%) Management Information System
14 16 (1.51%) Distributed Architecture
14 16 (1.51%) Public Cloud
15 15 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
15 15 (1.42%) Equities
16 12 (1.13%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 132 (12.46%) Linux
2 69 (6.52%) Unix
3 28 (2.64%) Windows
4 10 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.57%) Ubuntu
6 4 (0.38%) Mac OS X
7 3 (0.28%) VMS
8 2 (0.19%) Android
8 2 (0.19%) Debian
8 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.19%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.094%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.094%) CentOS
9 1 (0.094%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.094%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 583 (55.05%) CI/CD
2 427 (40.32%) Microservices
3 426 (40.23%) Event-Driven
4 385 (36.36%) DevOps
5 381 (35.98%) Agile
6 297 (28.05%) Event-Driven Architecture
7 280 (26.44%) Observability
8 237 (22.38%) Test Automation
9 230 (21.72%) Containerisation
10 222 (20.96%) Infrastructure as Code
11 195 (18.41%) Software Engineering
12 185 (17.47%) Data Pipeline
13 179 (16.90%) AI
14 151 (14.26%) Data Modelling
15 150 (14.16%) Problem-Solving
16 138 (13.03%) ETL
17 130 (12.28%) Analytics
18 127 (11.99%) Technical Leadership
19 126 (11.90%) Continuous Improvement
20 124 (11.71%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 468 (44.19%) Java
2 365 (34.47%) Python
3 352 (33.24%) SQL
4 106 (10.01%) TypeScript
5 100 (9.44%) JavaScript
6 79 (7.46%) Bash
7 62 (5.85%) C#
8 50 (4.72%) Go
9 46 (4.34%) Scala
10 32 (3.02%) PowerShell
11 29 (2.74%) PL/SQL
12 23 (2.17%) Kotlin
12 23 (2.17%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.94%) Groovy
13 10 (0.94%) Perl
13 10 (0.94%) Search Processing Language
14 9 (0.85%) C++
14 9 (0.85%) Rust
15 8 (0.76%) Bicep
16 7 (0.66%) PHP
Qualifications
1 251 (23.70%) Security Cleared
2 202 (19.07%) SC Cleared
3 63 (5.95%) Degree
4 40 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 38 (3.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 20 (1.89%) DV Cleared
7 11 (1.04%) Master's Degree
8 10 (0.94%) AWS Certification
8 10 (0.94%) Azure Certification
8 10 (0.94%) ISTQB
9 7 (0.66%) SnowPro
10 6 (0.57%) DBS Check
10 6 (0.57%) ISEB
11 5 (0.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 4 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 3 (0.28%) PhD
14 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
15 1 (0.094%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (8.78%) Data Quality
2 80 (7.55%) QA
3 42 (3.97%) Accessibility
4 34 (3.21%) ISO 20022
5 23 (2.17%) GDPR
6 14 (1.32%) SEPA
7 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.57%) WCAG
8 5 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
8 5 (0.47%) ISO 15022
8 5 (0.47%) SLA
9 4 (0.38%) PSD2
10 3 (0.28%) NIST
11 2 (0.19%) Basel III
11 2 (0.19%) EMIR
11 2 (0.19%) GRC
11 2 (0.19%) IFRS
11 2 (0.19%) IFRS 17
11 2 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.19%) Solvency II
System Software
1 381 (35.98%) Docker
2 11 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (0.76%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 4 (0.38%) etcd
5 3 (0.28%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.19%) Apache Flume
6 2 (0.19%) HDFS
7 1 (0.094%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 479 (45.23%) Kubernetes
2 138 (13.03%) Grafana
3 123 (11.61%) Prometheus
4 68 (6.42%) Ansible
5 30 (2.83%) Argo
6 25 (2.36%) Control-M
7 14 (1.32%) Kustomize
8 13 (1.23%) Kibana
9 12 (1.13%) Istio
10 11 (1.04%) Puppet
11 10 (0.94%) Podman
12 8 (0.76%) logstash
13 5 (0.47%) Check_MK
13 5 (0.47%) Fluentd
13 5 (0.47%) HP Fortify
14 4 (0.38%) Rancher
15 3 (0.28%) Bosun
15 3 (0.28%) Cilium
15 3 (0.28%) Consul
15 3 (0.28%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 121 (11.43%) Oracle
2 101 (9.54%) Databricks
3 59 (5.57%) Splunk
4 57 (5.38%) Microsoft
5 55 (5.19%) Google
5 55 (5.19%) IBM
6 35 (3.31%) Dynatrace
7 34 (3.21%) Confluent
8 32 (3.02%) Informatica
9 19 (1.79%) MuleSoft
10 18 (1.70%) OpenAI
10 18 (1.70%) Salesforce
11 16 (1.51%) Solace
12 15 (1.42%) SAP
12 15 (1.42%) VMware
13 12 (1.13%) TIBCO
14 10 (0.94%) Red Hat
15 9 (0.85%) New Relic
15 9 (0.85%) Sybase
15 9 (0.85%) Veracode