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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 437 198 267
Rank change year-on-year -239 +69 +15
Permanent jobs citing Kafka 219 506 515
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.27% 1.45% 0.88%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.01% 10.19% 4.69%
Number of salaries quoted 155 124 224
10th Percentile £53,750 £44,125 £42,500
25th Percentile £62,376 £52,500 £44,178
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £67,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.41% +17.39% -17.86%
75th Percentile £85,000 £79,688 £68,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £97,500 £85,000
UK median annual salary £80,000 £82,500 £70,000
% change year-on-year -3.03% +17.86% -17.65%

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 7,265 4,965 10,985
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 9.04% 14.24% 18.85%
Number of salaries quoted 5,702 3,071 7,150
10th Percentile £38,750 £32,500 £35,000
25th Percentile £47,500 £43,750 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,500
Median % change year-on-year - +8.11% -7.50%
75th Percentile £75,437 £73,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £86,250 £80,000
UK median annual salary £67,500 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year - +3.85% -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 1 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 1 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 -132 66 £75,000 +11.11% 104
North West -93 50 £75,000 +11.11% 55
South East -63 43 £67,500 -6.90% 81
South West -74 34 £85,000 +30.77% 49
Midlands -89 26 £85,000 +23.64% 28
West Midlands -29 24 £85,000 +21.43% 19
Wales - 23 £70,000 - 4
East of England -18 20 £72,500 +1.40% 12
Scotland -89 14 £65,000 +13.04% 58
North East -55 11 £65,000 +36.84% 15
Yorkshire -41 5 £72,653 -3.13% 34
East Midlands -60 2 £71,500 +5.93% 9
Northern Ireland -92 1 - - 29
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 31 (14.16%) Apache Spark
2 18 (8.22%) Apache
3 17 (7.76%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (1.37%) Anypoint
4 3 (1.37%) BizTalk Server
5 2 (0.91%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.91%) CICS
5 2 (0.91%) Confluence
5 2 (0.91%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.46%) JBoss
6 1 (0.46%) PegaRULES
6 1 (0.46%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 1 (0.46%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 140 (63.93%) AWS
2 116 (52.97%) Azure
3 62 (28.31%) GCP
4 37 (16.89%) Serverless
5 32 (14.61%) AWS CloudFormation
5 32 (14.61%) GitHub
6 25 (11.42%) Amazon SQS
6 25 (11.42%) AWS Lambda
7 18 (8.22%) Amazon S3
8 17 (7.76%) Amazon ECS
9 16 (7.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 16 (7.31%) Amazon EventBridge
10 15 (6.85%) Snowflake
11 13 (5.94%) GitHub Copilot
12 12 (5.48%) Azure Service Bus
12 12 (5.48%) dbt
13 11 (5.02%) Azure Data Factory
13 11 (5.02%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (5.02%) Datadog
14 10 (4.57%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 24 (10.96%) MQTT
2 5 (2.28%) Network Security
3 2 (0.91%) Firewall
3 2 (0.91%) SSL
4 1 (0.46%) 4G
4 1 (0.46%) 5G
4 1 (0.46%) ATM
4 1 (0.46%) DNS
4 1 (0.46%) HTTP
4 1 (0.46%) LAN
4 1 (0.46%) SSH
4 1 (0.46%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.46%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (22.83%) MongoDB
2 42 (19.18%) PostgreSQL
3 37 (16.89%) NoSQL
4 26 (11.87%) MySQL
5 21 (9.59%) SQL Server
6 19 (8.68%) Elasticsearch
7 18 (8.22%) Data Lake
8 16 (7.31%) Relational Database
9 14 (6.39%) Big Data
9 14 (6.39%) Data Warehouse
9 14 (6.39%) Flink
10 12 (5.48%) Amazon Redshift
11 10 (4.57%) DynamoDB
11 10 (4.57%) Power BI
11 10 (4.57%) Redis
12 9 (4.11%) BigQuery
13 8 (3.65%) Amazon RDS
13 8 (3.65%) Looker
13 8 (3.65%) Tableau
14 7 (3.20%) Milvus
Development Applications
1 52 (23.74%) Git
2 24 (10.96%) Jenkins
3 22 (10.05%) GitLab
4 8 (3.65%) JIRA
5 7 (3.20%) MLflow
6 4 (1.83%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (1.83%) Bitbucket
6 4 (1.83%) IntelliJ
6 4 (1.83%) JUnit
6 4 (1.83%) Selenium
7 3 (1.37%) Eclipse
7 3 (1.37%) Postman
7 3 (1.37%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.91%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.91%) JMeter
8 2 (0.91%) minitest
8 2 (0.91%) RSpec
9 1 (0.46%) ERwin
9 1 (0.46%) Mockito
9 1 (0.46%) TeamCity
General
1 34 (15.53%) Analytical Skills
2 31 (14.16%) Social Skills
3 29 (13.24%) Public Sector
4 23 (10.50%) Finance
5 12 (5.48%) Banking
6 10 (4.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (3.20%) Law
8 5 (2.28%) Games
9 4 (1.83%) Advertising
9 4 (1.83%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.83%) Marketing
10 2 (0.91%) Automotive
10 2 (0.91%) iGaming
10 2 (0.91%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.91%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.46%) Billing
11 1 (0.46%) Italian Language
11 1 (0.46%) Military
11 1 (0.46%) Retail
11 1 (0.46%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 69 (31.51%) Developer
2 60 (27.40%) Senior
3 49 (22.37%) Data Engineer
4 34 (15.53%) Lead
5 30 (13.70%) Java Developer
6 25 (11.42%) Architect
7 23 (10.50%) Senior Developer
8 21 (9.59%) Senior Data Engineer
9 17 (7.76%) Software Engineer
10 13 (5.94%) Kafka Engineer
11 12 (5.48%) Backend Developer
11 12 (5.48%) Full-Stack Developer
11 12 (5.48%) Python Developer
12 11 (5.02%) Python Engineer
13 10 (4.57%) DevOps Engineer
13 10 (4.57%) Integration Developer
13 10 (4.57%) Principal Engineer
14 9 (4.11%) Full-Stack Java Developer
14 9 (4.11%) Senior Python Developer
15 8 (3.65%) Azure Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (30.59%) Terraform
2 58 (26.48%) Spring
3 56 (25.57%) RESTful
3 56 (25.57%) Spring Boot
4 47 (21.46%) RabbitMQ
5 43 (19.63%) REST
6 28 (12.79%) Hibernate
7 27 (12.33%) JPA
7 27 (12.33%) Node.js
8 17 (7.76%) .NET
8 17 (7.76%) FastAPI
8 17 (7.76%) React
9 16 (7.31%) OpenAPI
9 16 (7.31%) PySpark
9 16 (7.31%) Swagger
10 12 (5.48%) Apache NiFi
11 11 (5.02%) Keycloak
12 10 (4.57%) JWT
12 10 (4.57%) OAuth
13 9 (4.11%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 71 (32.42%) Cloud Native
2 55 (25.11%) Distributed Systems
3 26 (11.87%) Product Ownership
4 15 (6.85%) Enterprise Software
5 13 (5.94%) Hybrid Cloud
6 11 (5.02%) Public Cloud
7 10 (4.57%) Onboarding
7 10 (4.57%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (4.11%) Virtual Team
9 8 (3.65%) Distributed Computing
9 8 (3.65%) Mainframe
10 7 (3.20%) Clustering
10 7 (3.20%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (3.20%) Robotics
11 6 (2.74%) Data Structures
11 6 (2.74%) Greenfield Project
12 5 (2.28%) AI Agents
12 5 (2.28%) Algorithms
13 4 (1.83%) Marketing Technology
13 4 (1.83%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 22 (10.05%) Linux
2 4 (1.83%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (55.71%) CI/CD
2 103 (47.03%) Agile
3 97 (44.29%) Microservices
4 96 (43.84%) DevOps
5 81 (36.99%) Event-Driven
6 70 (31.96%) Infrastructure as Code
7 63 (28.77%) Containerisation
8 61 (27.85%) AI
8 61 (27.85%) Software Engineering
9 55 (25.11%) Mentoring
10 53 (24.20%) Data Pipeline
10 53 (24.20%) Observability
11 51 (23.29%) Analytics
11 51 (23.29%) Problem-Solving
12 41 (18.72%) ETL
12 41 (18.72%) Machine Learning
12 41 (18.72%) Scrum
13 39 (17.81%) Data Modelling
14 38 (17.35%) Technical Leadership
15 36 (16.44%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 118 (53.88%) Python
2 105 (47.95%) Java
3 79 (36.07%) SQL
4 31 (14.16%) JavaScript
5 24 (10.96%) TypeScript
6 15 (6.85%) Go
7 12 (5.48%) C#
8 10 (4.57%) PowerShell
8 10 (4.57%) Rust
9 8 (3.65%) Groovy
9 8 (3.65%) Ruby
9 8 (3.65%) Scala
10 6 (2.74%) Bash
10 6 (2.74%) Kotlin
11 5 (2.28%) T-SQL
12 3 (1.37%) C++
12 3 (1.37%) DataWeave
12 3 (1.37%) PL/SQL
12 3 (1.37%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.91%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 55 (25.11%) Security Cleared
2 35 (15.98%) SC Cleared
3 26 (11.87%) Degree
4 17 (7.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (7.31%) DV Cleared
6 14 (6.39%) Azure Certification
7 6 (2.74%) AWS Certification
8 5 (2.28%) Master's Degree
9 4 (1.83%) MBA
10 3 (1.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (0.91%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.46%) HND
12 1 (0.46%) OCP
12 1 (0.46%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (10.96%) Data Quality
2 20 (9.13%) QA
3 10 (4.57%) GDPR
4 8 (3.65%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 7 (3.20%) Accessibility
6 6 (2.74%) WCAG
7 3 (1.37%) NIST
7 3 (1.37%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.91%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.46%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.46%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.46%) PSD2
System Software
1 88 (40.18%) Docker
2 1 (0.46%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 101 (46.12%) Kubernetes
2 23 (10.50%) Grafana
3 19 (8.68%) Prometheus
4 17 (7.76%) Ansible
5 7 (3.20%) Argo
5 7 (3.20%) Puppet
6 5 (2.28%) Kibana
6 5 (2.28%) Podman
7 2 (0.91%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 24 (10.96%) Databricks
2 20 (9.13%) Microsoft
3 18 (8.22%) Splunk
4 10 (4.57%) Dynatrace
5 9 (4.11%) Google
5 9 (4.11%) Oracle
6 8 (3.65%) Dell
7 7 (3.20%) Atlassian
7 7 (3.20%) Cloudera
7 7 (3.20%) HubSpot
7 7 (3.20%) OpenAI
8 5 (2.28%) MuleSoft
9 4 (1.83%) Adobe
9 4 (1.83%) Informatica
9 4 (1.83%) NVIDIA
10 3 (1.37%) Confluent
10 3 (1.37%) Pega
10 3 (1.37%) Tenable
10 3 (1.37%) webMethods
11 2 (0.91%) Sparx