Kafka Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Apache Kafka
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Kafka skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 441 190 328
Rank change year-on-year -251 +138 -54
Permanent jobs citing Kafka 252 502 361
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.29% 1.45% 0.67%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.44% 10.73% 3.49%
Number of salaries quoted 178 121 194
10th Percentile £53,750 £45,000 -
25th Percentile £62,094 £52,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £67,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.41% +22.73% -22.07%
75th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £97,500 £79,925
UK median annual salary £80,000 £82,500 £70,000
% change year-on-year -3.03% +17.86% -15.15%

All Software Libraries and Frameworks
UK excluding London

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 in the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills 7,318 4,679 10,351
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 8.51% 13.55% 19.11%
Number of salaries quoted 5,630 2,827 6,120
10th Percentile £40,000 £33,750 £36,250
25th Percentile £47,500 £45,000 £44,738
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £77,500 £73,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £93,750 £85,700 £82,500
UK median annual salary £67,500 £68,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -1.46% +5.38% -3.70%

Kafka
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Kafka job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Kafka
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Kafka.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Kafka

Kafka
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Kafka in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 26 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Kafka in the UK excluding London

Kafka
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Kafka within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 26 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North of England -117 89 £67,500 -3.57% 155
North West -80 67 £75,000 +7.14% 100
South East -50 48 £68,250 -3.53% 67
South West -76 35 £85,000 +25.93% 51
Midlands -86 31 £85,000 +25.93% 36
West Midlands -35 30 £85,000 +51.11% 24
Wales - 27 £70,000 - 7
East of England -31 20 £72,500 +1.40% 22
North East -50 18 £65,000 +36.84% 18
Scotland -86 13 £50,000 -13.04% 65
Yorkshire -45 8 £66,805 -10.93% 37
East Midlands -70 1 £71,500 +5.93% 12
Northern Ireland -97 1 - - 35
Kafka
UK

Kafka
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 24 (9.52%) Apache Spark
2 17 (6.75%) Apache
3 10 (3.97%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (1.98%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.19%) Anypoint
5 3 (1.19%) BizTalk Server
5 3 (1.19%) Confluence
6 2 (0.79%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.79%) JBoss
6 2 (0.79%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 162 (64.29%) AWS
2 122 (48.41%) Azure
3 57 (22.62%) GCP
4 43 (17.06%) Serverless
5 36 (14.29%) AWS CloudFormation
6 34 (13.49%) Amazon SQS
7 33 (13.10%) GitHub
8 29 (11.51%) AWS Lambda
9 28 (11.11%) Amazon S3
10 24 (9.52%) Amazon ECS
11 19 (7.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 18 (7.14%) Azure Data Factory
13 17 (6.75%) Azure Service Bus
14 16 (6.35%) Amazon EKS
15 15 (5.95%) Amazon EventBridge
16 12 (4.76%) GitHub Copilot
17 11 (4.37%) GitHub Actions
18 10 (3.97%) Datadog
19 8 (3.17%) AWS KMS
19 8 (3.17%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 29 (11.51%) MQTT
2 5 (1.98%) Network Security
3 3 (1.19%) Internet
4 2 (0.79%) 4G
4 2 (0.79%) 5G
4 2 (0.79%) DNS
4 2 (0.79%) HTTP
4 2 (0.79%) SSH
4 2 (0.79%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.40%) ATM
5 1 (0.40%) Firewall
5 1 (0.40%) LAN
5 1 (0.40%) SSL
5 1 (0.40%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (26.19%) MongoDB
2 53 (21.03%) PostgreSQL
3 44 (17.46%) NoSQL
4 31 (12.30%) MySQL
5 18 (7.14%) SQL Server
6 15 (5.95%) Elasticsearch
6 15 (5.95%) Relational Database
7 14 (5.56%) Big Data
7 14 (5.56%) Data Lake
8 13 (5.16%) Flink
9 12 (4.76%) Redis
10 9 (3.57%) DynamoDB
11 8 (3.17%) Amazon RDS
12 7 (2.78%) Data Warehouse
13 6 (2.38%) Amazon Redshift
13 6 (2.38%) DocumentDB
14 4 (1.59%) Power BI
14 4 (1.59%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 4 (1.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 4 (1.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 60 (23.81%) Git
2 33 (13.10%) GitLab
3 25 (9.92%) Jenkins
4 8 (3.17%) JIRA
5 5 (1.98%) Selenium
6 4 (1.59%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (1.59%) Bitbucket
6 4 (1.59%) Cucumber
7 3 (1.19%) JUnit
7 3 (1.19%) Postman
7 3 (1.19%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.79%) Gatling
8 2 (0.79%) JMeter
8 2 (0.79%) minitest
8 2 (0.79%) RSpec
9 1 (0.40%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.40%) ERwin
9 1 (0.40%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.40%) Karma Test Runner
9 1 (0.40%) Maven
General
1 44 (17.46%) Public Sector
2 42 (16.67%) Social Skills
3 34 (13.49%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (8.73%) Finance
5 18 (7.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 17 (6.75%) Banking
7 12 (4.76%) Publishing
8 7 (2.78%) Law
9 4 (1.59%) Advertising
9 4 (1.59%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.59%) Games
9 4 (1.59%) Marketing
10 3 (1.19%) iGaming
10 3 (1.19%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.79%) Automotive
11 2 (0.79%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.40%) Billing
12 1 (0.40%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.40%) Military
12 1 (0.40%) Retail
Job Titles
1 83 (32.94%) Developer
2 77 (30.56%) Senior
3 51 (20.24%) Data Engineer
4 39 (15.48%) Java Developer
5 37 (14.68%) Lead
6 32 (12.70%) Software Engineer
7 31 (12.30%) Senior Developer
8 26 (10.32%) Architect
9 24 (9.52%) Senior Data Engineer
10 17 (6.75%) Kafka Engineer
10 17 (6.75%) Python Engineer
11 15 (5.95%) Python Developer
12 13 (5.16%) Azure Data Engineer
12 13 (5.16%) Azure Engineer
12 13 (5.16%) Senior Python Developer
13 12 (4.76%) Backend Developer
13 12 (4.76%) Elasticsearch Engineer
13 12 (4.76%) Python Data Engineer
14 11 (4.37%) DevOps Engineer
14 11 (4.37%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (34.52%) Spring
2 81 (32.14%) Spring Boot
3 76 (30.16%) Terraform
4 66 (26.19%) RESTful
5 62 (24.60%) RabbitMQ
6 52 (20.63%) REST
7 34 (13.49%) Node.js
8 32 (12.70%) Hibernate
9 31 (12.30%) React
10 30 (11.90%) JPA
11 23 (9.13%) FastAPI
12 20 (7.94%) OpenAPI
12 20 (7.94%) Swagger
13 16 (6.35%) .NET
14 15 (5.95%) Keycloak
14 15 (5.95%) PySpark
15 10 (3.97%) Apache NiFi
16 9 (3.57%) Elastic Stack
16 9 (3.57%) JWT
16 9 (3.57%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 77 (30.56%) Cloud Native
2 61 (24.21%) Distributed Systems
3 37 (14.68%) Product Ownership
4 22 (8.73%) Enterprise Software
5 18 (7.14%) Hybrid Cloud
6 17 (6.75%) Self-Motivation
7 14 (5.56%) Virtual Team
8 12 (4.76%) Media Streaming
8 12 (4.76%) Podcast
9 10 (3.97%) Onboarding
10 8 (3.17%) Distributed Computing
10 8 (3.17%) Legacy Systems
11 7 (2.78%) Greenfield Project
11 7 (2.78%) IoT
11 7 (2.78%) Robotics
12 6 (2.38%) Data Structures
12 6 (2.38%) Mainframe
13 5 (1.98%) AI Agents
13 5 (1.98%) Algorithms
14 4 (1.59%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 25 (9.92%) Linux
2 5 (1.98%) Windows
3 1 (0.40%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (57.94%) CI/CD
2 133 (52.78%) Agile
3 120 (47.62%) DevOps
4 113 (44.84%) Microservices
5 110 (43.65%) Event-Driven
6 85 (33.73%) Containerisation
6 85 (33.73%) Software Engineering
7 80 (31.75%) Mentoring
8 79 (31.35%) Infrastructure as Code
9 74 (29.37%) Observability
10 64 (25.40%) Problem-Solving
11 62 (24.60%) AI
12 53 (21.03%) Continuous Improvement
12 53 (21.03%) Scrum
13 51 (20.24%) Roadmaps
14 50 (19.84%) Data Pipeline
15 47 (18.65%) Analytics
15 47 (18.65%) Technical Leadership
16 45 (17.86%) API Design
17 44 (17.46%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 128 (50.79%) Java
2 115 (45.63%) Python
3 66 (26.19%) SQL
4 43 (17.06%) TypeScript
5 36 (14.29%) JavaScript
6 20 (7.94%) Go
7 10 (3.97%) C#
7 10 (3.97%) PowerShell
8 9 (3.57%) Rust
9 8 (3.17%) Ruby
9 8 (3.17%) Scala
10 7 (2.78%) Bash
11 6 (2.38%) Groovy
11 6 (2.38%) Kotlin
12 4 (1.59%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.59%) T-SQL
13 3 (1.19%) C++
13 3 (1.19%) DataWeave
13 3 (1.19%) PHP
14 2 (0.79%) C
Qualifications
1 68 (26.98%) Security Cleared
2 50 (19.84%) SC Cleared
3 26 (10.32%) Degree
4 18 (7.14%) Azure Certification
4 18 (7.14%) DV Cleared
5 17 (6.75%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.78%) AWS Certification
6 7 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.98%) Master's Degree
8 4 (1.59%) MBA
9 3 (1.19%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.79%) TOGAF Certification
11 1 (0.40%) HND
11 1 (0.40%) OCP
11 1 (0.40%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (11.51%) QA
2 21 (8.33%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.78%) Accessibility
4 6 (2.38%) WCAG
5 3 (1.19%) GDPR
5 3 (1.19%) NIST
5 3 (1.19%) NIST 800
6 2 (0.79%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.40%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.40%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.40%) PSD2
System Software
1 110 (43.65%) Docker
2 1 (0.40%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 130 (51.59%) Kubernetes
2 29 (11.51%) Grafana
3 25 (9.92%) Prometheus
4 16 (6.35%) Ansible
5 7 (2.78%) Argo
6 6 (2.38%) Puppet
7 5 (1.98%) Kibana
7 5 (1.98%) Podman
8 1 (0.40%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 23 (9.13%) Splunk
2 21 (8.33%) Microsoft
3 20 (7.94%) Databricks
4 13 (5.16%) Dynatrace
5 9 (3.57%) Google
6 8 (3.17%) Oracle
7 7 (2.78%) Atlassian
7 7 (2.78%) OpenAI
8 6 (2.38%) Confluent
8 6 (2.38%) HubSpot
8 6 (2.38%) MuleSoft
9 4 (1.59%) Adobe
9 4 (1.59%) Informatica
9 4 (1.59%) NVIDIA
10 3 (1.19%) Tenable
10 3 (1.19%) webMethods
11 2 (0.79%) Sparx
11 2 (0.79%) VMware
12 1 (0.40%) Yahoo!
12 1 (0.40%) YouTube