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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 143 99 144
Rank change year-on-year -44 +45 0
Contract jobs citing Kafka 976 792 704
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.90% 2.58% 1.63%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 9.72% 11.30% 7.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 576 511 508
10th Percentile £378 £400 £400
25th Percentile £425 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -15.38%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £700
90th Percentile £800 £825 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £470 £493
% change year-on-year +1.06% -4.67% -17.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 4 9
10th Percentile £56.60 £45.85 £22.55
25th Percentile £64.25 £55.75 £27.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £70.60 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.85% +152.14% -64.10%
75th Percentile £90.00 £82.46 £38.75
90th Percentile £95.00 £89.24 £45.95
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 10,036 7,006 9,256
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.53% 22.78% 21.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,579 4,748 6,340
10th Percentile £363 £352 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 143 282
10th Percentile £30.00 £27.81 £22.53
25th Percentile £51.25 £36.40 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £74.26 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.81 £74.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £58.30
% change year-on-year +4.00% +7.20% -6.72%

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1 July 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 -35 847 £550 - 273
London -26 520 £588 -6.00% 179
UK excluding London -51 341 £475 +1.06% 131
Work from Home -52 275 £575 +1.32% 120
North of England -26 163 £447 -4.69% 36
Yorkshire -8 74 £465 -15.45% 6
North West -29 74 £430 -8.42% 23
South East -44 56 £513 +17.82% 35
Scotland -16 46 £450 -4.76% 12
Midlands -57 39 £500 +11.11% 15
South West -18 26 £500 -9.09% 19
North East -14 24 £425 -8.11% 7
West Midlands -50 23 £500 - 8
East of England -14 17 £550 +10.00% 3
East Midlands -12 16 £459 +28.43% 7
Northern Ireland -3 2 - - 5
Wales -12 2 £313 - 7

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
1 131 (13.42%) Apache Spark
2 67 (6.86%) Apache
3 58 (5.94%) Apache Airflow
4 16 (1.64%) Confluence
5 7 (0.72%) Camunda
6 6 (0.61%) Ethereum
6 6 (0.61%) Hyperledger
7 5 (0.51%) Apache Pulsar
7 5 (0.51%) WebSphere
8 4 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.20%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.20%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.20%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.20%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.20%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 8 (0.82%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.20%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.10%) Maya
Business Applications
1 4 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.31%) Bloomberg AIM
2 3 (0.31%) Fidessa
3 2 (0.20%) Endur
3 2 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.10%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.10%) R3 Corda
4 1 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.10%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 570 (58.40%) AWS
2 293 (30.02%) Azure
3 185 (18.95%) GCP
4 135 (13.83%) GitHub
5 118 (12.09%) Serverless
6 99 (10.14%) GitHub Actions
7 91 (9.32%) AWS Lambda
8 90 (9.22%) Amazon S3
9 69 (7.07%) OpenShift
10 63 (6.45%) Amazon EKS
11 61 (6.25%) Azure DevOps
12 59 (6.05%) Snowflake
13 52 (5.33%) Power Platform
14 45 (4.61%) Amazon ECS
14 45 (4.61%) dbt
15 41 (4.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 38 (3.89%) AWS CloudFormation
17 37 (3.79%) Amazon SQS
18 29 (2.97%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 27 (2.77%) Amazon Kinesis
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.54%) HTTP
2 12 (1.23%) Firewall
3 10 (1.02%) Network Security
4 7 (0.72%) MQTT
4 7 (0.72%) SSL
5 6 (0.61%) DNS
6 5 (0.51%) NAS
6 5 (0.51%) SAN
7 4 (0.41%) Internet
8 3 (0.31%) SMS
8 3 (0.31%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.20%) NaaS
9 2 (0.20%) OpenVPN
9 2 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.20%) WAN
10 1 (0.10%) 4G
10 1 (0.10%) 5G
10 1 (0.10%) FIX Connectivity
10 1 (0.10%) MIMO
10 1 (0.10%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 182 (18.65%) PostgreSQL
2 162 (16.60%) MongoDB
3 129 (13.22%) NoSQL
4 101 (10.35%) Relational Database
5 65 (6.66%) Big Data
6 62 (6.35%) Data Warehouse
7 59 (6.05%) SQL Server
8 53 (5.43%) Data Lake
9 43 (4.41%) Power BI
10 42 (4.30%) Elasticsearch
11 41 (4.20%) Redis
12 38 (3.89%) Apache Cassandra
13 35 (3.59%) Flink
13 35 (3.59%) MySQL
14 34 (3.48%) Hadoop
15 31 (3.18%) BigQuery
15 31 (3.18%) DynamoDB
16 29 (2.97%) Metadata
17 27 (2.77%) Amazon Athena
18 25 (2.56%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 160 (16.39%) Jenkins
2 130 (13.32%) Git
3 120 (12.30%) GitLab
4 70 (7.17%) JUnit
5 55 (5.64%) Mockito
6 45 (4.61%) JIRA
7 36 (3.69%) Gradle
8 31 (3.18%) Selenium
9 25 (2.56%) Cucumber
10 23 (2.36%) REST Assured
11 19 (1.95%) Gatling
12 17 (1.74%) Liquibase
12 17 (1.74%) Postman
13 16 (1.64%) Maven
14 15 (1.54%) Serenity BDD
15 14 (1.43%) SonarQube
16 7 (0.72%) Cypress.io
16 7 (0.72%) JMeter
17 6 (0.61%) Snyk
18 5 (0.51%) Jaeger
General
1 266 (27.25%) Finance
2 182 (18.65%) Social Skills
3 133 (13.63%) Banking
4 95 (9.73%) Public Sector
5 85 (8.71%) Analytical Skills
6 48 (4.92%) Front Office
7 37 (3.79%) Investment Banking
8 27 (2.77%) Documentation Skills
9 23 (2.36%) Retail
10 21 (2.15%) Financial Institution
11 14 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.43%) Law
12 10 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.02%) Telecoms
13 9 (0.92%) Marketing
13 9 (0.92%) Publishing
14 8 (0.82%) Military
15 7 (0.72%) Automotive
15 7 (0.72%) Corporate Banking
15 7 (0.72%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 318 (32.58%) Developer
2 199 (20.39%) Senior
3 165 (16.91%) Java Developer
4 153 (15.68%) Data Engineer
5 117 (11.99%) Architect
6 116 (11.89%) Lead
7 99 (10.14%) Software Engineer
8 84 (8.61%) Senior Developer
9 78 (7.99%) Java Engineer
10 52 (5.33%) Senior Java Developer
11 50 (5.12%) AWS Architect
12 45 (4.61%) Solutions Architect
13 39 (4.00%) DevOps Engineer
14 38 (3.89%) Full-Stack Developer
15 36 (3.69%) Developer/Software Engineer
16 33 (3.38%) Lead Developer
17 32 (3.28%) Java Software Engineer
17 32 (3.28%) Kafka Engineer
17 32 (3.28%) Principal Engineer
18 31 (3.18%) Senior Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 246 (25.20%) Spring
2 235 (24.08%) Spring Boot
3 144 (14.75%) REST
4 132 (13.52%) RESTful
5 130 (13.32%) React
6 104 (10.66%) RabbitMQ
7 85 (8.71%) Node.js
8 67 (6.86%) GraphQL
9 57 (5.84%) JSON
10 54 (5.53%) OpenTelemetry
11 52 (5.33%) Redux
12 42 (4.30%) gRPC
13 39 (4.00%) AngularJS
13 39 (4.00%) Middleware
13 39 (4.00%) OAuth
14 38 (3.89%) Swagger
15 37 (3.79%) OpenAPI
16 36 (3.69%) Apache Avro
17 35 (3.59%) PySpark
18 33 (3.38%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 188 (19.26%) Distributed Systems
2 173 (17.73%) Cloud Native
3 39 (4.00%) Fixed Income
4 37 (3.79%) Data Structures
4 37 (3.79%) Product Ownership
5 34 (3.48%) Management Information System
6 27 (2.77%) Algorithms
6 27 (2.77%) Enterprise Software
7 24 (2.46%) Onboarding
8 20 (2.05%) Legacy Systems
9 17 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
10 16 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
11 15 (1.54%) Equities
11 15 (1.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 14 (1.43%) Clustering
12 14 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.43%) Derivative
12 14 (1.43%) Public Cloud
13 12 (1.23%) Virtual Team
14 11 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 97 (9.94%) Linux
2 55 (5.64%) Unix
3 25 (2.56%) Windows
4 10 (1.02%) Mac OS X
5 7 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.51%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.31%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.20%) Android
8 2 (0.20%) Debian
8 2 (0.20%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.20%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 2 (0.20%) VMS
8 2 (0.20%) zOS
9 1 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.10%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 449 (46.00%) CI/CD
2 364 (37.30%) Microservices
3 327 (33.50%) Agile
4 298 (30.53%) DevOps
5 297 (30.43%) Event-Driven
6 220 (22.54%) Observability
7 211 (21.62%) Containerisation
8 200 (20.49%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 194 (19.88%) Software Engineering
10 185 (18.95%) Data Pipeline
11 158 (16.19%) Test Automation
12 157 (16.09%) Infrastructure as Code
12 157 (16.09%) Problem-Solving
13 156 (15.98%) Data Modelling
14 150 (15.37%) Analytics
15 145 (14.86%) Data Engineering
16 144 (14.75%) ETL
17 138 (14.14%) AI
18 117 (11.99%) TDD
19 105 (10.76%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 453 (46.41%) Java
2 341 (34.94%) Python
3 302 (30.94%) SQL
4 119 (12.19%) TypeScript
5 85 (8.71%) Go
6 83 (8.50%) JavaScript
7 58 (5.94%) C#
8 50 (5.12%) Bash
9 31 (3.18%) Scala
10 25 (2.56%) PowerShell
11 17 (1.74%) PL/SQL
12 16 (1.64%) Rust
13 14 (1.43%) Kotlin
13 14 (1.43%) Shell Script
14 13 (1.33%) C++
15 11 (1.13%) Bicep
16 10 (1.02%) Groovy
16 10 (1.02%) Search Processing Language
17 7 (0.72%) PHP
18 6 (0.61%) Perl
Qualifications
1 207 (21.21%) Security Cleared
2 161 (16.50%) SC Cleared
3 50 (5.12%) Degree
4 28 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (1.95%) AWS Certification
6 18 (1.84%) DV Cleared
7 17 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (1.33%) Master's Degree
9 9 (0.92%) Azure Certification
10 8 (0.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 7 (0.72%) SnowPro
12 3 (0.31%) DBS Check
12 3 (0.31%) ITIL Certification
12 3 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
13 2 (0.20%) AWS Certified Developer
13 2 (0.20%) PhD
13 2 (0.20%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.10%) CISSP
14 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Certification
14 1 (0.10%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (10.55%) Data Quality
2 52 (5.33%) QA
3 40 (4.10%) Accessibility
4 38 (3.89%) GDPR
5 16 (1.64%) ISO 20022
6 7 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (0.72%) SEPA
7 6 (0.61%) NIST
8 5 (0.51%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.41%) WCAG
10 2 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.20%) EMIR
10 2 (0.20%) IFRS
10 2 (0.20%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.20%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.20%) ISO 8583
10 2 (0.20%) MiFID
10 2 (0.20%) NCSC
10 2 (0.20%) PSD2
10 2 (0.20%) Solvency II
System Software
1 323 (33.09%) Docker
2 6 (0.61%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 6 (0.61%) etcd
3 2 (0.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.10%) Apache Flume
4 1 (0.10%) HDFS
4 1 (0.10%) OpenSSH
4 1 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 392 (40.16%) Kubernetes
2 196 (20.08%) Terraform
3 121 (12.40%) Prometheus
4 117 (11.99%) Grafana
5 61 (6.25%) Ansible
6 19 (1.95%) Argo
7 10 (1.02%) Control-M
7 10 (1.02%) Kibana
8 9 (0.92%) Istio
8 9 (0.92%) Puppet
9 8 (0.82%) Podman
10 7 (0.72%) Fluentd
11 6 (0.61%) Kustomize
12 5 (0.51%) logstash
12 5 (0.51%) Rancher
13 4 (0.41%) Kiali
14 3 (0.31%) NetBackup
15 2 (0.20%) CA Wily
15 2 (0.20%) Consul
15 2 (0.20%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 80 (8.20%) Databricks
2 69 (7.07%) Oracle
3 63 (6.45%) Splunk
4 41 (4.20%) Microsoft
5 39 (4.00%) Google
6 25 (2.56%) Confluent
6 25 (2.56%) Informatica
7 17 (1.74%) Dynatrace
7 17 (1.74%) IBM
8 14 (1.43%) Solace
9 13 (1.33%) Salesforce
10 10 (1.02%) MuleSoft
10 10 (1.02%) OpenAI
11 9 (0.92%) Sybase
11 9 (0.92%) Talend
12 8 (0.82%) Red Hat
12 8 (0.82%) ServiceNow
13 7 (0.72%) SAP
14 6 (0.61%) AppDynamics
14 6 (0.61%) Pega