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 30 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 114 118 180
Rank change year-on-year +4 +62 -69
Contract jobs citing Kafka 878 756 657
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.45% 2.08% 1.43%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 10.82% 9.59% 6.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 578 450 503
10th Percentile £363 £383 £450
25th Percentile £425 £489 £503
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £655 £725 £775
90th Percentile £738 £810 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £475 £525
% change year-on-year -4.79% -9.52% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 5 8
10th Percentile £37.63 £26.04 £57.45
25th Percentile £43.25 £27.00 £72.50
Median hourly rate £59.25 £37.50 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.00% -51.61% +5.80%
75th Percentile £68.44 £87.50 £80.70
90th Percentile £90.00 £91.25 £87.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £56.50 £71.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -20.98% -2.05%

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 8,116 7,886 10,146
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.64% 21.75% 22.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,381 4,967 7,238
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £720 £780 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 117 183
10th Percentile £30.55 £22.00 £32.60
25th Percentile £43.00 £36.75 £46.18
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £54.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +19.27% -13.26%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.90 £74.18 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £65.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -1.54% +23.81% -19.23%

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 30 November 2025.

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 30 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Kafka in the UK

Kafka
Top 15 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 30 November 2025. 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 +10 767 £550 -11.58% 151
London +7 504 £600 -5.33% 96
Work from Home +36 318 £588 +6.82% 87
UK excluding London +16 259 £452 -4.79% 124
North of England -23 98 £473 -17.47% 16
North West -2 57 £435 -11.33% 9
South East +7 56 £434 -12.02% 66
Scotland +30 52 £450 +20.00% 7
Midlands -1 44 £500 +17.65% 11
Yorkshire -28 36 £586 -9.81% 5
West Midlands -5 27 £540 +27.06% 8
South West +17 20 £550 -15.38% 16
East Midlands -5 17 £420 +17.98% 3
North East -4 7 £575 -7.89% 2
East of England -26 1 £538 +69.83% 4

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 68 (7.74%) Apache Spark
2 50 (5.69%) Apache
3 41 (4.67%) Apache Airflow
4 37 (4.21%) Confluence
5 10 (1.14%) Mule
6 8 (0.91%) Anypoint
7 7 (0.80%) MQSeries
8 6 (0.68%) Camunda
8 6 (0.68%) CMS
9 5 (0.57%) JBoss
9 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.57%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.34%) Luigi
10 3 (0.34%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.34%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.23%) SharePoint
11 2 (0.23%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.23%) WebLogic
12 1 (0.11%) CICS
12 1 (0.11%) SAS
Applications
1 4 (0.46%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.23%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.23%) Sketch
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (0.46%) Fidessa
1 4 (0.46%) Oracle 11i
2 2 (0.23%) Actimize
2 2 (0.23%) SAP BRIM
3 1 (0.11%) Bloomberg AIM
3 1 (0.11%) Endur
3 1 (0.11%) Exchequer
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.11%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 442 (50.34%) AWS
2 215 (24.49%) Azure
3 126 (14.35%) GitHub
4 120 (13.67%) GCP
5 94 (10.71%) Serverless
6 80 (9.11%) GitHub Actions
7 66 (7.52%) Amazon S3
7 66 (7.52%) AWS Lambda
8 48 (5.47%) AWS CloudFormation
9 47 (5.35%) OpenShift
10 45 (5.13%) Azure DevOps
11 44 (5.01%) Amazon EKS
12 37 (4.21%) Amazon ECS
13 36 (4.10%) Amazon SQS
14 33 (3.76%) Amazon Kinesis
14 33 (3.76%) Azure Data Factory
15 32 (3.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 28 (3.19%) Snowflake
17 27 (3.08%) Amazon EC2
18 19 (2.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.25%) SSL
2 10 (1.14%) HTTP
3 8 (0.91%) DNS
4 7 (0.80%) AMQP
4 7 (0.80%) DSL
5 6 (0.68%) Firewall
5 6 (0.68%) Kerberos
6 5 (0.57%) SSH
7 4 (0.46%) FTP
7 4 (0.46%) MQTT
8 2 (0.23%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.23%) VPN
9 1 (0.11%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 176 (20.05%) PostgreSQL
2 175 (19.93%) MongoDB
3 129 (14.69%) NoSQL
4 74 (8.43%) Apache Cassandra
5 72 (8.20%) Relational Database
6 60 (6.83%) Big Data
7 51 (5.81%) Redis
8 43 (4.90%) SQL Server
9 41 (4.67%) Amazon RDS
10 38 (4.33%) DB2
11 37 (4.21%) Data Warehouse
12 36 (4.10%) DynamoDB
12 36 (4.10%) Elasticsearch
13 34 (3.87%) Hadoop
14 31 (3.53%) Data Lake
15 25 (2.85%) Metadata
16 20 (2.28%) Amazon Redshift
17 19 (2.16%) MySQL
18 18 (2.05%) Oracle Database
18 18 (2.05%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 174 (19.82%) Jenkins
2 119 (13.55%) GitLab
3 110 (12.53%) Git
4 107 (12.19%) JUnit
5 59 (6.72%) JIRA
6 48 (5.47%) Mockito
7 29 (3.30%) Cucumber
8 24 (2.73%) Gradle
8 24 (2.73%) JMeter
9 23 (2.62%) Sonatype Nexus
10 21 (2.39%) Maven
10 21 (2.39%) SonarQube
11 14 (1.59%) Artifactory
12 12 (1.37%) Liquibase
13 11 (1.25%) Gatling
13 11 (1.25%) SoapUI
13 11 (1.25%) Subversion
14 7 (0.80%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 7 (0.80%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.80%) TeamCity
General
1 244 (27.79%) Finance
1 244 (27.79%) Social Skills
2 138 (15.72%) Banking
3 101 (11.50%) Analytical Skills
4 73 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 67 (7.63%) Investment Banking
6 49 (5.58%) Front Office
7 12 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (0.80%) Military
11 6 (0.68%) Financial Institution
11 6 (0.68%) Retail
12 5 (0.57%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.46%) Aerospace
13 4 (0.46%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.34%) Back Office
14 3 (0.34%) Law
14 3 (0.34%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.34%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 359 (40.89%) Developer
2 240 (27.33%) Senior
3 221 (25.17%) Java Developer
4 122 (13.90%) Senior Developer
5 87 (9.91%) Data Engineer
6 84 (9.57%) Software Engineer
7 81 (9.23%) Lead
7 81 (9.23%) Senior Java Developer
8 66 (7.52%) Architect
9 63 (7.18%) DevOps Engineer
10 40 (4.56%) Platform Engineer
11 39 (4.44%) AWS Engineer
11 39 (4.44%) Kafka Developer
12 37 (4.21%) AWS Developer
12 37 (4.21%) Python Engineer
13 36 (4.10%) Full-Stack Developer
13 36 (4.10%) Kafka Engineer
14 31 (3.53%) Java Engineer
15 30 (3.42%) SQL Developer
16 28 (3.19%) Investment Banking Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 205 (23.35%) Spring
2 146 (16.63%) Spring Boot
3 105 (11.96%) REST
4 102 (11.62%) React
5 100 (11.39%) gRPC
6 90 (10.25%) RabbitMQ
7 79 (9.00%) RESTful
8 52 (5.92%) Node.js
9 48 (5.47%) JMS
10 47 (5.35%) ActiveMQ
11 42 (4.78%) AngularJS
12 39 (4.44%) .NET
13 35 (3.99%) GraphQL
13 35 (3.99%) Hibernate
13 35 (3.99%) Keycloak
14 34 (3.87%) JSON
15 33 (3.76%) OAuth
16 31 (3.53%) Middleware
17 30 (3.42%) Apache NiFi
17 30 (3.42%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 116 (13.21%) Distributed Systems
2 87 (9.91%) Cloud Native
3 44 (5.01%) Equities
4 39 (4.44%) Data Structures
5 30 (3.42%) Management Information System
6 29 (3.30%) Fixed Income
7 28 (3.19%) Product Ownership
8 26 (2.96%) Replication
9 22 (2.51%) Derivative
10 21 (2.39%) Market Risk
11 13 (1.48%) Distributed Computing
12 12 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
12 12 (1.37%) PKI
13 11 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
14 10 (1.14%) Algorithms
14 10 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
15 9 (1.03%) Legacy Applications
15 9 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
15 9 (1.03%) Onboarding
16 8 (0.91%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 166 (18.91%) Linux
2 78 (8.88%) Unix
3 22 (2.51%) Windows
4 13 (1.48%) Mac OS X
5 12 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (0.80%) CentOS
7 5 (0.57%) AIX
8 1 (0.11%) Debian
8 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.11%) VMS
8 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.11%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 363 (41.34%) Microservices
2 359 (40.89%) Agile
3 350 (39.86%) CI/CD
4 251 (28.59%) Software Engineering
5 243 (27.68%) DevOps
6 208 (23.69%) Problem-Solving
7 166 (18.91%) Containerisation
8 135 (15.38%) Event-Driven
9 131 (14.92%) Infrastructure as Code
10 128 (14.58%) TDD
11 125 (14.24%) Open Source
12 122 (13.90%) Observability
13 119 (13.55%) Test Automation
14 104 (11.85%) Data Pipeline
15 102 (11.62%) SDLC
16 93 (10.59%) Analytics
17 92 (10.48%) Scrum
18 84 (9.57%) Data Engineering
18 84 (9.57%) Mentoring
19 83 (9.45%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 437 (49.77%) Java
2 322 (36.67%) Python
3 243 (27.68%) SQL
4 131 (14.92%) Go
5 65 (7.40%) JavaScript
6 63 (7.18%) C#
7 58 (6.61%) Shell Script
8 50 (5.69%) C++
9 47 (5.35%) Bash
10 39 (4.44%) TypeScript
11 32 (3.64%) Scala
12 14 (1.59%) Perl
13 12 (1.37%) PL/SQL
14 9 (1.03%) Groovy
15 8 (0.91%) Korn
15 8 (0.91%) T-SQL
16 7 (0.80%) DataWeave
17 6 (0.68%) R
17 6 (0.68%) Rust
18 5 (0.57%) RPG IV
Qualifications
1 173 (19.70%) Security Cleared
2 151 (17.20%) SC Cleared
3 49 (5.58%) Degree
4 32 (3.64%) Computer Science Degree
5 26 (2.96%) DV Cleared
6 23 (2.62%) Azure Certification
6 23 (2.62%) BPSS Clearance
7 18 (2.05%) AWS Certification
8 16 (1.82%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.80%) OCP
9 7 (0.80%) Oracle Certification
10 5 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 5 (0.57%) Numerate Degree
11 2 (0.23%) CBAP
11 2 (0.23%) CSPO
11 2 (0.23%) IBM Certification
11 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.23%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.11%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.11%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (6.15%) Data Quality
2 40 (4.56%) QA
3 22 (2.51%) GDPR
4 10 (1.14%) NCSC
5 6 (0.68%) WCAG
6 5 (0.57%) HIPAA
6 5 (0.57%) HL7
6 5 (0.57%) MiFID
7 4 (0.46%) SEPA
8 3 (0.34%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.34%) Def Stans
8 3 (0.34%) EMIR
8 3 (0.34%) SLA
9 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.23%) ISO 20022
9 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.23%) Section 508
10 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.11%) NIST
System Software
1 299 (34.05%) Docker
2 8 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (0.57%) HDFS
4 3 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.23%) Active Directory
6 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 343 (39.07%) Kubernetes
2 180 (20.50%) Terraform
3 93 (10.59%) Grafana
4 82 (9.34%) Prometheus
5 72 (8.20%) Ansible
6 20 (2.28%) Argo
7 17 (1.94%) Progress Chef
8 15 (1.71%) Packer
9 9 (1.03%) logstash
10 7 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
10 7 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (0.68%) Kibana
12 5 (0.57%) Kustomize
12 5 (0.57%) Puppet
12 5 (0.57%) Rancher
13 4 (0.46%) Fluentd
13 4 (0.46%) Hadoop YARN
13 4 (0.46%) Istio
14 3 (0.34%) linkerd
14 3 (0.34%) Oozie
Vendors
1 78 (8.88%) Oracle
2 50 (5.69%) Splunk
3 40 (4.56%) Databricks
4 38 (4.33%) Microsoft
5 34 (3.87%) Sybase
6 31 (3.53%) IBM
7 30 (3.42%) Google
8 29 (3.30%) Confluent
9 24 (2.73%) Dynatrace
10 20 (2.28%) VMware
11 17 (1.94%) Cloudera
12 16 (1.82%) Red Hat
13 15 (1.71%) MuleSoft
14 14 (1.59%) CA Agile Central
15 13 (1.48%) Foundry
15 13 (1.48%) Palantir
16 12 (1.37%) ServiceNow
16 12 (1.37%) TIBCO
17 10 (1.14%) Informatica
17 10 (1.14%) SAP