Apache Kafka
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Kafka skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 342 192 303
Rank change year-on-year -150 +111 -104
Permanent jobs citing Kafka 615 831 623
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.52% 1.67% 0.84%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 5.19% 9.92% 3.87%
Number of salaries quoted 364 296 391
10th Percentile £55,000 £51,625 £42,500
25th Percentile £63,500 £66,250 £53,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £85,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +21.43% -15.15%
75th Percentile £97,480 £113,750 £98,750
90th Percentile £115,000 £142,500 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £72,500 £67,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.41% +22.73% -22.07%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills 11,841 8,373 16,095
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 10.03% 16.86% 21.69%
Number of salaries quoted 8,380 5,332 9,999
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,750 £40,000
25th Percentile £51,250 £51,250 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year - +3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £87,250 £87,500 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £115,000 £110,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year - +4.35% -4.17%

Kafka
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Kafka relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Kafka job vacancy trend in the UK

Kafka
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Kafka.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Kafka

Kafka
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Kafka over the 6 months to 5 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Kafka in the UK

Kafka
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Kafka within the UK over the 6 months to 5 October 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -128 557 £80,000 -5.88% 958
London -44 334 £85,000 -19.05% 687
UK excluding London -232 258 £72,500 +7.41% 409
Work from Home -221 119 £77,250 -14.17% 403
North of England -108 91 £67,500 -3.57% 137
North West -85 66 £75,000 +7.14% 86
South East -56 50 £69,000 -1.43% 69
South West -71 37 £85,000 +17.24% 33
Midlands -87 32 £85,000 +25.93% 22
West Midlands -32 31 £85,000 +51.11% 18
Wales - 27 £70,000 - 10
North East -46 22 £61,250 +28.95% 17
East of England -35 21 £72,500 +1.40% 22
Scotland -86 12 £50,000 -16.67% 70
Yorkshire -44 9 £66,805 -10.93% 34
East Midlands -80 1 £71,500 +5.93% 4
Northern Ireland -88 1 - - 46

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 97 (15.77%) Apache Spark
2 48 (7.80%) Apache
3 47 (7.64%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (2.76%) Confluence
5 6 (0.98%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.81%) Apache Pig
7 4 (0.65%) Apache Pulsar
7 4 (0.65%) BizTalk Server
7 4 (0.65%) Camunda
7 4 (0.65%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.49%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.49%) Apache Solr
9 2 (0.33%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.33%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.33%) CMS
9 2 (0.33%) JBoss
9 2 (0.33%) Luigi
9 2 (0.33%) Tornado
10 1 (0.16%) NServiceBus
10 1 (0.16%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 11 (1.79%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.16%) Actimize
2 1 (0.16%) Bloomberg TOMS
2 1 (0.16%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 372 (60.49%) AWS
2 246 (40.00%) Azure
3 106 (17.24%) GCP
4 89 (14.47%) AWS CloudFormation
5 87 (14.15%) Serverless
6 67 (10.89%) GitHub
7 60 (9.76%) Amazon S3
8 56 (9.11%) AWS Lambda
9 49 (7.97%) Amazon SQS
10 40 (6.50%) Azure Data Factory
11 31 (5.04%) Power Platform
12 30 (4.88%) Amazon EKS
13 28 (4.55%) Amazon EMR
13 28 (4.55%) Amazon Kinesis
14 27 (4.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 26 (4.23%) Amazon ECS
15 26 (4.23%) Cloud Computing
16 24 (3.90%) Azure Service Bus
16 24 (3.90%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (3.90%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 31 (5.04%) MQTT
2 9 (1.46%) DNS
2 9 (1.46%) Internet
3 6 (0.98%) BGP
3 6 (0.98%) IPsec
3 6 (0.98%) Network Security
3 6 (0.98%) VPN
4 4 (0.65%) 4G
4 4 (0.65%) 5G
4 4 (0.65%) HTTP
5 3 (0.49%) SSH
5 3 (0.49%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.33%) AMQP
6 2 (0.33%) WAN
7 1 (0.16%) ATM
7 1 (0.16%) Broadband
7 1 (0.16%) LAN
7 1 (0.16%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (25.37%) NoSQL
2 118 (19.19%) PostgreSQL
3 104 (16.91%) MongoDB
4 60 (9.76%) Relational Database
5 52 (8.46%) MySQL
6 46 (7.48%) Big Data
7 41 (6.67%) Data Warehouse
8 39 (6.34%) Redis
9 38 (6.18%) Elasticsearch
10 35 (5.69%) Data Lake
11 30 (4.88%) SQL Server
12 29 (4.72%) Power BI
13 28 (4.55%) Amazon RDS
14 24 (3.90%) Hadoop
15 23 (3.74%) Flink
16 20 (3.25%) DynamoDB
17 17 (2.76%) Azure SQL Database
17 17 (2.76%) Metadata
17 17 (2.76%) Tableau
18 15 (2.44%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 107 (17.40%) Git
2 97 (15.77%) GitLab
3 72 (11.71%) Jenkins
4 54 (8.78%) Cucumber
5 17 (2.76%) JIRA
6 15 (2.44%) Selenium
7 9 (1.46%) JUnit
8 8 (1.30%) Claude Code
9 7 (1.14%) Maven
10 6 (0.98%) CircleCI
11 5 (0.81%) Bitbucket
11 5 (0.81%) Poetry
11 5 (0.81%) Postman
12 4 (0.65%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 4 (0.65%) Gatling
12 4 (0.65%) Mockito
12 4 (0.65%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.65%) SonarQube
13 2 (0.33%) git-flow
13 2 (0.33%) minitest
General
1 193 (31.38%) Finance
2 128 (20.81%) Social Skills
3 80 (13.01%) Banking
4 69 (11.22%) Public Sector
5 63 (10.24%) Analytical Skills
6 44 (7.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 26 (4.23%) Financial Institution
8 19 (3.09%) Marketing
9 17 (2.76%) Law
10 16 (2.60%) Front Office
10 16 (2.60%) Retail
11 15 (2.44%) Publishing
12 10 (1.63%) Military
13 7 (1.14%) Investment Banking
14 6 (0.98%) Advertising
14 6 (0.98%) Games
14 6 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.98%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.81%) Aviation
16 4 (0.65%) Billing
Job Titles
1 191 (31.06%) Senior
2 144 (23.41%) Developer
3 105 (17.07%) Data Engineer
4 92 (14.96%) Java Engineer
4 92 (14.96%) Software Engineer
5 73 (11.87%) Lead
6 63 (10.24%) Architect
7 60 (9.76%) Java Developer
8 53 (8.62%) Senior Developer
9 52 (8.46%) Principal Engineer
10 42 (6.83%) Senior Software Engineer
11 39 (6.34%) Senior Java Engineer
12 38 (6.18%) Senior Data Engineer
13 34 (5.53%) Principal Java Engineer
13 34 (5.53%) Python Engineer
14 24 (3.90%) Backend Developer
15 23 (3.74%) Kafka Engineer
16 22 (3.58%) AWS Engineer
16 22 (3.58%) Solutions Architect
17 21 (3.41%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 222 (36.10%) Spring
2 203 (33.01%) Spring Boot
3 151 (24.55%) Terraform
4 118 (19.19%) RESTful
5 111 (18.05%) RabbitMQ
6 110 (17.89%) REST
7 65 (10.57%) Node.js
8 60 (9.76%) React
9 42 (6.83%) PySpark
10 41 (6.67%) .NET
10 41 (6.67%) Hibernate
11 37 (6.02%) JPA
12 31 (5.04%) Swagger
13 30 (4.88%) FastAPI
13 30 (4.88%) OpenAPI
14 27 (4.39%) Keycloak
15 20 (3.25%) AngularJS
15 20 (3.25%) Elastic Stack
15 20 (3.25%) Middleware
16 19 (3.09%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 204 (33.17%) Cloud Native
2 178 (28.94%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (8.94%) Product Ownership
4 51 (8.29%) Enterprise Software
5 50 (8.13%) Public Cloud
6 44 (7.15%) e-Learning
7 40 (6.50%) Onboarding
8 29 (4.72%) Legacy Systems
9 21 (3.41%) Virtual Team
10 20 (3.25%) Self-Motivation
11 19 (3.09%) Hybrid Cloud
12 17 (2.76%) AI Agents
13 15 (2.44%) Data Structures
13 15 (2.44%) Distributed Architecture
14 14 (2.28%) Algorithms
14 14 (2.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 14 (2.28%) Greenfield Project
14 14 (2.28%) Replication
15 12 (1.95%) Media Streaming
15 12 (1.95%) Podcast
Operating Systems
1 47 (7.64%) Linux
2 7 (1.14%) Unix
2 7 (1.14%) Windows
3 4 (0.65%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.33%) Android
4 2 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 355 (57.72%) CI/CD
2 297 (48.29%) Microservices
3 294 (47.80%) Agile
4 286 (46.50%) Event-Driven
5 237 (38.54%) DevOps
6 206 (33.50%) Software Engineering
7 202 (32.85%) Infrastructure as Code
8 175 (28.46%) AI
9 174 (28.29%) Mentoring
10 159 (25.85%) Observability
11 154 (25.04%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 152 (24.72%) Containerisation
13 143 (23.25%) Test Automation
14 119 (19.35%) Data Pipeline
14 119 (19.35%) Problem-Solving
15 116 (18.86%) Roadmaps
16 111 (18.05%) Continuous Improvement
17 109 (17.72%) Analytics
18 91 (14.80%) Data Modelling
19 87 (14.15%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 326 (53.01%) Java
2 244 (39.67%) Python
3 201 (32.68%) SQL
4 74 (12.03%) TypeScript
5 71 (11.54%) JavaScript
6 40 (6.50%) C#
7 36 (5.85%) Go
8 30 (4.88%) Scala
9 21 (3.41%) Bash
10 19 (3.09%) Kotlin
11 15 (2.44%) Groovy
11 15 (2.44%) PowerShell
12 14 (2.28%) Ruby
13 11 (1.79%) PHP
14 10 (1.63%) RPG
14 10 (1.63%) Rust
15 7 (1.14%) C
16 6 (0.98%) C++
16 6 (0.98%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.98%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 134 (21.79%) Security Cleared
2 104 (16.91%) SC Cleared
3 65 (10.57%) AWS Certification
3 65 (10.57%) Degree
4 47 (7.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 36 (5.85%) Azure Certification
6 34 (5.53%) DV Cleared
7 33 (5.37%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.30%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (0.81%) Master's Degree
9 5 (0.81%) PhD
9 5 (0.81%) TOGAF Certification
10 4 (0.65%) MBA
11 3 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 2 (0.33%) OCP
12 2 (0.33%) Oracle Certification
13 1 (0.16%) GIAC
13 1 (0.16%) HND
13 1 (0.16%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (10.89%) Data Quality
2 42 (6.83%) QA
3 12 (1.95%) Accessibility
3 12 (1.95%) GDPR
4 7 (1.14%) WCAG
5 6 (0.98%) ISO 20022
6 3 (0.49%) NIST
6 3 (0.49%) NIST 800
6 3 (0.49%) PCI DSS
6 3 (0.49%) PSD2
6 3 (0.49%) SLA
7 2 (0.33%) Basel III
7 2 (0.33%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.16%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.16%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.16%) SEPA
System Software
1 222 (36.10%) Docker
2 1 (0.16%) HDFS
2 1 (0.16%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 262 (42.60%) Kubernetes
2 60 (9.76%) Prometheus
3 56 (9.11%) Grafana
4 30 (4.88%) Ansible
5 14 (2.28%) Argo
6 9 (1.46%) Rancher
7 7 (1.14%) Kibana
8 6 (0.98%) Hadoop YARN
9 5 (0.81%) Podman
9 5 (0.81%) Puppet
10 3 (0.49%) Cilium
10 3 (0.49%) Packer
11 2 (0.33%) Control-M
11 2 (0.33%) Istio
11 2 (0.33%) kaniko
12 1 (0.16%) Kustomize
12 1 (0.16%) logstash
12 1 (0.16%) QRadar
12 1 (0.16%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 59 (9.59%) Databricks
2 56 (9.11%) Microsoft
3 30 (4.88%) Splunk
4 29 (4.72%) Oracle
5 26 (4.23%) Dynatrace
6 25 (4.07%) IBM
7 17 (2.76%) Google
8 13 (2.11%) MuleSoft
9 11 (1.79%) ServiceNow
10 10 (1.63%) OpenAI
11 8 (1.30%) Atlassian
11 8 (1.30%) Confluent
12 7 (1.14%) Informatica
13 6 (0.98%) HP
13 6 (0.98%) SAP
13 6 (0.98%) Talend
14 5 (0.81%) HubSpot
14 5 (0.81%) Solace
15 4 (0.65%) Adobe
15 4 (0.65%) NVIDIA