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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 102 139
Rank change year-on-year -44 +37 +19
Contract jobs citing Kafka 1,019 836 671
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.91% 2.54% 1.72%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 10.08% 11.29% 7.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 629 536 467
10th Percentile £370 £385 £400
25th Percentile £425 £452 £478
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £723
90th Percentile £775 £778 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £469 £490
% change year-on-year +1.28% -4.29% -18.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 3 9
10th Percentile £56.40 £54.65 £22.55
25th Percentile £65.00 £57.13 £27.00
Median hourly rate £71.25 £62.50 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.00% +123.21% -64.10%
75th Percentile £88.75 £71.23 £38.75
90th Percentile £90.00 £75.71 £45.95
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 10,110 7,404 8,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 18.94% 22.46% 22.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,592 4,974 5,801
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £501 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% -9.00% -
75th Percentile £638 £631 £663
90th Percentile £738 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £469 £500
% change year-on-year +6.61% -6.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 173 241
10th Percentile £28.04 £29.40 £22.50
25th Percentile £41.28 £40.75 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £54.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.37% -1.82% -8.33%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £81.01 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £58.91
% change year-on-year +18.18% -6.63% +0.54%

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 12 August 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 12 August 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 12 August 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 -40 863 £550 - 883
London -40 515 £575 -8.00% 672
UK excluding London -25 378 £475 +1.28% 295
Work from Home -66 262 £550 -4.35% 345
North of England -13 178 £465 -0.85% 84
Yorkshire +7 86 £475 -5.10% 29
North West -34 72 £430 -8.32% 40
South East -39 61 £513 +17.82% 70
Scotland -22 54 £430 -8.51% 48
Midlands -54 36 £500 +17.51% 27
South West -27 28 £500 -9.09% 40
North East -20 27 £426 -8.49% 15
East of England 0 25 £513 - 8
West Midlands -45 21 £514 +2.80% 20
East Midlands -10 15 £470 +28.07% 7
Northern Ireland +5 4 - - 16
Wales -11 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
1 132 (12.95%) Apache Spark
2 72 (7.07%) Apache
3 61 (5.99%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (1.77%) Confluence
5 9 (0.88%) Camunda
6 6 (0.59%) CMS
6 6 (0.59%) OpenStack
6 6 (0.59%) WebSphere
7 4 (0.39%) Apache Pulsar
7 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.29%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.29%) Mule
8 3 (0.29%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.20%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.20%) JBoss
9 2 (0.20%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.20%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.20%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 7 (0.69%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.20%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.098%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.098%) Maya
3 1 (0.098%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.098%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (0.20%) Endur
2 2 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.098%) Actimize
3 1 (0.098%) Bloomberg AIM
3 1 (0.098%) Fidessa
3 1 (0.098%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.098%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.098%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.098%) SAP IS-U
3 1 (0.098%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 600 (58.88%) AWS
2 337 (33.07%) Azure
3 207 (20.31%) GCP
4 167 (16.39%) GitHub
5 121 (11.87%) GitHub Actions
6 106 (10.40%) Serverless
7 82 (8.05%) AWS Lambda
8 76 (7.46%) Amazon S3
9 73 (7.16%) Amazon EKS
10 69 (6.77%) Azure DevOps
11 68 (6.67%) OpenShift
12 64 (6.28%) Snowflake
13 52 (5.10%) Amazon SQS
14 48 (4.71%) dbt
15 46 (4.51%) Amazon ECS
16 42 (4.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 41 (4.02%) Power Platform
18 31 (3.04%) AWS CloudFormation
18 31 (3.04%) Azure Data Factory
19 27 (2.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 21 (2.06%) HTTP
2 14 (1.37%) DNS
3 11 (1.08%) Firewall
4 10 (0.98%) Network Security
5 7 (0.69%) MQTT
5 7 (0.69%) SSL
6 5 (0.49%) SAN
6 5 (0.49%) TCP/IP
7 4 (0.39%) NAS
7 4 (0.39%) SSH
8 3 (0.29%) 4G
8 3 (0.29%) 5G
8 3 (0.29%) Internet
9 2 (0.20%) NaaS
9 2 (0.20%) OpenVPN
9 2 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.20%) WAN
10 1 (0.098%) Broadband
10 1 (0.098%) MIMO
10 1 (0.098%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (18.16%) PostgreSQL
2 158 (15.51%) MongoDB
3 132 (12.95%) NoSQL
4 100 (9.81%) Relational Database
5 63 (6.18%) Big Data
5 63 (6.18%) Data Warehouse
6 60 (5.89%) SQL Server
7 51 (5.00%) Data Lake
8 45 (4.42%) Redis
9 39 (3.83%) Elasticsearch
9 39 (3.83%) MySQL
9 39 (3.83%) Power BI
10 37 (3.63%) Flink
11 35 (3.43%) Apache Cassandra
12 34 (3.34%) Metadata
13 33 (3.24%) BigQuery
13 33 (3.24%) Hadoop
14 31 (3.04%) DynamoDB
15 26 (2.55%) Delta Lake
15 26 (2.55%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 202 (19.82%) Jenkins
2 165 (16.19%) Git
3 137 (13.44%) GitLab
4 72 (7.07%) JUnit
5 60 (5.89%) Mockito
6 55 (5.40%) Gradle
7 45 (4.42%) JIRA
8 44 (4.32%) Selenium
9 32 (3.14%) Cucumber
10 31 (3.04%) Maven
11 22 (2.16%) SonarQube
12 20 (1.96%) Postman
12 20 (1.96%) REST Assured
13 18 (1.77%) Gatling
13 18 (1.77%) Liquibase
14 14 (1.37%) JMeter
15 12 (1.18%) Bitbucket
16 11 (1.08%) Cypress.io
17 10 (0.98%) Serenity BDD
18 9 (0.88%) SoapUI
General
1 256 (25.12%) Finance
2 181 (17.76%) Social Skills
3 141 (13.84%) Banking
4 103 (10.11%) Analytical Skills
5 98 (9.62%) Public Sector
6 42 (4.12%) Front Office
7 33 (3.24%) Retail
8 27 (2.65%) Investment Banking
9 18 (1.77%) Financial Institution
9 18 (1.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 18 (1.77%) Telecoms
10 15 (1.47%) Law
11 14 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
12 12 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
13 11 (1.08%) Billing
14 9 (0.88%) Publishing
15 8 (0.79%) Games
15 8 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (0.79%) Military
16 7 (0.69%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 324 (31.80%) Developer
2 197 (19.33%) Senior
3 167 (16.39%) Java Developer
4 141 (13.84%) Architect
5 139 (13.64%) Data Engineer
6 107 (10.50%) Lead
7 85 (8.34%) Software Engineer
8 79 (7.75%) Java Engineer
9 69 (6.77%) Senior Developer
10 60 (5.89%) Solutions Architect
11 50 (4.91%) DevOps Engineer
12 40 (3.93%) Full-Stack Developer
13 39 (3.83%) AWS Architect
13 39 (3.83%) Senior Java Developer
14 37 (3.63%) Python Engineer
15 35 (3.43%) AWS Engineer
16 33 (3.24%) Kafka Engineer
16 33 (3.24%) Lead Developer
16 33 (3.24%) Senior Data Engineer
16 33 (3.24%) Senior Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (24.24%) Spring
2 235 (23.06%) Spring Boot
3 195 (19.14%) REST
4 149 (14.62%) React
5 144 (14.13%) RESTful
6 121 (11.87%) RabbitMQ
7 76 (7.46%) Node.js
8 68 (6.67%) JSON
9 67 (6.58%) GraphQL
10 54 (5.30%) OAuth
11 52 (5.10%) Redux
12 49 (4.81%) OpenTelemetry
13 46 (4.51%) PySpark
14 43 (4.22%) Swagger
15 42 (4.12%) OpenAPI
16 41 (4.02%) Middleware
17 40 (3.93%) .NET
17 40 (3.93%) OAuth2
18 38 (3.73%) XML
19 37 (3.63%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 196 (19.23%) Cloud Native
2 193 (18.94%) Distributed Systems
3 42 (4.12%) Data Structures
4 41 (4.02%) Product Ownership
5 34 (3.34%) Enterprise Software
6 31 (3.04%) Fixed Income
7 30 (2.94%) Algorithms
8 27 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
8 27 (2.65%) Onboarding
9 26 (2.55%) Self-Motivation
10 21 (2.06%) Management Information System
11 20 (1.96%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 19 (1.86%) AI Agents
13 18 (1.77%) Replication
14 17 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
14 17 (1.67%) Public Cloud
14 17 (1.67%) SWIFT Messaging Network
15 15 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
16 14 (1.37%) Equities
17 12 (1.18%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 115 (11.29%) Linux
2 60 (5.89%) Unix
3 25 (2.45%) Windows
4 9 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (0.69%) Mac OS X
6 5 (0.49%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.20%) Android
7 2 (0.20%) Debian
7 2 (0.20%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (0.20%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 2 (0.20%) VMS
8 1 (0.098%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.098%) CentOS
8 1 (0.098%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.098%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 512 (50.25%) CI/CD
2 382 (37.49%) Microservices
3 367 (36.02%) Agile
4 362 (35.53%) Event-Driven
5 347 (34.05%) DevOps
6 256 (25.12%) Event-Driven Architecture
7 238 (23.36%) Observability
8 225 (22.08%) Containerisation
9 199 (19.53%) Test Automation
10 192 (18.84%) Software Engineering
11 188 (18.45%) Data Pipeline
12 184 (18.06%) Infrastructure as Code
13 155 (15.21%) AI
14 149 (14.62%) Data Modelling
15 146 (14.33%) Problem-Solving
16 136 (13.35%) Analytics
17 132 (12.95%) ETL
18 124 (12.17%) Data Engineering
19 118 (11.58%) TDD
20 113 (11.09%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 457 (44.85%) Java
2 355 (34.84%) Python
3 318 (31.21%) SQL
4 122 (11.97%) TypeScript
5 109 (10.70%) JavaScript
6 69 (6.77%) Go
7 68 (6.67%) Bash
8 57 (5.59%) C#
9 37 (3.63%) Scala
10 33 (3.24%) PowerShell
11 24 (2.36%) PL/SQL
12 19 (1.86%) Shell Script
13 16 (1.57%) Kotlin
14 11 (1.08%) Rust
15 10 (0.98%) Groovy
15 10 (0.98%) Search Processing Language
16 9 (0.88%) Bicep
17 8 (0.79%) C++
18 7 (0.69%) PHP
19 6 (0.59%) Perl
Qualifications
1 239 (23.45%) Security Cleared
2 189 (18.55%) SC Cleared
3 50 (4.91%) Degree
4 28 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
5 26 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
6 20 (1.96%) DV Cleared
7 13 (1.28%) AWS Certification
8 10 (0.98%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.79%) Azure Certification
10 6 (0.59%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.59%) SnowPro
11 5 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (0.29%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.29%) PhD
14 2 (0.20%) ISEB
14 2 (0.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (0.20%) Postgraduate
15 1 (0.098%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (9.13%) Data Quality
2 60 (5.89%) QA
3 43 (4.22%) Accessibility
4 30 (2.94%) GDPR
5 25 (2.45%) ISO 20022
6 10 (0.98%) SEPA
7 8 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
8 6 (0.59%) WCAG
9 4 (0.39%) ISO 15022
9 4 (0.39%) NIST
9 4 (0.39%) SLA
10 2 (0.20%) EMIR
10 2 (0.20%) IFRS
10 2 (0.20%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.20%) MiFID
10 2 (0.20%) NCSC
10 2 (0.20%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.098%) HL7
11 1 (0.098%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 366 (35.92%) Docker
2 7 (0.69%) Apache ZooKeeper
3 6 (0.59%) etcd
4 3 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.20%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.20%) Apache Flume
5 2 (0.20%) HDFS
6 1 (0.098%) OpenSSH
6 1 (0.098%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 445 (43.67%) Kubernetes
2 203 (19.92%) Terraform
3 124 (12.17%) Grafana
4 114 (11.19%) Prometheus
5 60 (5.89%) Ansible
6 28 (2.75%) Argo
7 20 (1.96%) Control-M
8 12 (1.18%) Istio
8 12 (1.18%) Kibana
9 11 (1.08%) Podman
9 11 (1.08%) Puppet
10 9 (0.88%) Kustomize
11 7 (0.69%) Fluentd
11 7 (0.69%) logstash
12 5 (0.49%) Check_MK
12 5 (0.49%) Rancher
13 3 (0.29%) Bosun
13 3 (0.29%) HP Fortify
13 3 (0.29%) NetBackup
13 3 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 96 (9.42%) Oracle
2 88 (8.64%) Databricks
3 55 (5.40%) Splunk
4 51 (5.00%) Microsoft
5 50 (4.91%) Google
6 37 (3.63%) IBM
7 31 (3.04%) Confluent
7 31 (3.04%) Dynatrace
8 27 (2.65%) Informatica
9 17 (1.67%) MuleSoft
9 17 (1.67%) Salesforce
10 15 (1.47%) Solace
11 14 (1.37%) OpenAI
11 14 (1.37%) SAP
12 10 (0.98%) New Relic
12 10 (0.98%) Red Hat
13 9 (0.88%) ServiceNow
14 8 (0.79%) Sybase
14 8 (0.79%) TIBCO
15 7 (0.69%) VMware