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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 435 189 304
Rank change year-on-year -246 +115 -19
Permanent jobs citing Kafka 239 500 405
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.28% 1.46% 0.73%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.26% 10.66% 3.84%
Number of salaries quoted 168 119 198
10th Percentile £53,750 £44,750 -
25th Percentile £62,376 £52,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £67,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.41% +22.73% -21.43%
75th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £97,750 £81,500
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 7,324 4,692 10,534
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 8.60% 13.67% 19.06%
Number of salaries quoted 5,650 2,843 6,373
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 £76,250 £73,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £93,750 £86,250 £81,250
UK median annual salary £67,500 £70,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year -3.57% +7.69% -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 20 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 20 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 -137 80 £75,000 +7.14% 142
North West -84 61 £75,000 +9.09% 93
South East -60 45 £67,500 -6.25% 70
South West -73 35 £85,000 +25.93% 53
Midlands -86 30 £85,000 +25.93% 33
West Midlands -45 29 £85,000 +51.11% 27
Wales - 26 £70,000 - 5
East of England -34 21 £72,500 -4.29% 21
North East -52 15 £62,500 +31.58% 13
Scotland -82 12 - - 71
Yorkshire -42 6 £72,653 -3.13% 36
East Midlands -76 1 £71,500 +5.93% 6
Northern Ireland -94 1 - - 43
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 26 (10.88%) Apache Spark
2 17 (7.11%) Apache
3 12 (5.02%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (1.67%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.26%) Anypoint
5 3 (1.26%) BizTalk Server
6 2 (0.84%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.84%) Confluence
7 1 (0.42%) JBoss
7 1 (0.42%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 1 (0.42%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 152 (63.60%) AWS
2 119 (49.79%) Azure
3 58 (24.27%) GCP
4 41 (17.15%) Serverless
5 35 (14.64%) AWS CloudFormation
6 31 (12.97%) Amazon SQS
6 31 (12.97%) GitHub
7 28 (11.72%) AWS Lambda
8 24 (10.04%) Amazon S3
9 22 (9.21%) Amazon ECS
10 18 (7.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 16 (6.69%) Amazon EventBridge
11 16 (6.69%) Azure Data Factory
12 15 (6.28%) Azure Service Bus
13 14 (5.86%) Amazon EKS
14 12 (5.02%) GitHub Copilot
15 11 (4.60%) Datadog
15 11 (4.60%) Snowflake
16 10 (4.18%) GitHub Actions
17 8 (3.35%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 27 (11.30%) MQTT
2 5 (2.09%) Network Security
3 2 (0.84%) 4G
3 2 (0.84%) 5G
3 2 (0.84%) DNS
3 2 (0.84%) HTTP
3 2 (0.84%) Internet
3 2 (0.84%) SSH
3 2 (0.84%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.42%) ATM
4 1 (0.42%) Firewall
4 1 (0.42%) LAN
4 1 (0.42%) SSL
4 1 (0.42%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (26.78%) MongoDB
2 49 (20.50%) PostgreSQL
3 44 (18.41%) NoSQL
4 30 (12.55%) MySQL
5 18 (7.53%) SQL Server
6 17 (7.11%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (6.69%) Data Lake
8 14 (5.86%) Big Data
8 14 (5.86%) Relational Database
9 13 (5.44%) Flink
10 12 (5.02%) Redis
11 10 (4.18%) DynamoDB
12 9 (3.77%) Data Warehouse
13 8 (3.35%) Amazon RDS
13 8 (3.35%) Amazon Redshift
14 6 (2.51%) Power BI
15 5 (2.09%) BigQuery
15 5 (2.09%) DocumentDB
16 4 (1.67%) Looker
16 4 (1.67%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 56 (23.43%) Git
2 29 (12.13%) GitLab
3 23 (9.62%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.93%) JIRA
5 5 (2.09%) Selenium
6 4 (1.67%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (1.67%) Bitbucket
7 3 (1.26%) Cucumber
7 3 (1.26%) JUnit
7 3 (1.26%) MLflow
7 3 (1.26%) Postman
7 3 (1.26%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.84%) JMeter
8 2 (0.84%) minitest
8 2 (0.84%) RSpec
9 1 (0.42%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.42%) ERwin
9 1 (0.42%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.42%) Maven
9 1 (0.42%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 38 (15.90%) Public Sector
2 37 (15.48%) Social Skills
3 35 (14.64%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (9.21%) Finance
5 16 (6.69%) Banking
6 14 (5.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (2.93%) Law
7 7 (2.93%) Publishing
8 4 (1.67%) Advertising
8 4 (1.67%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.67%) Games
8 4 (1.67%) Marketing
9 3 (1.26%) iGaming
9 3 (1.26%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.84%) Automotive
10 2 (0.84%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.42%) Billing
11 1 (0.42%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.42%) Military
11 1 (0.42%) Retail
Job Titles
1 79 (33.05%) Developer
2 74 (30.96%) Senior
3 50 (20.92%) Data Engineer
4 36 (15.06%) Java Developer
4 36 (15.06%) Lead
5 31 (12.97%) Senior Developer
6 25 (10.46%) Architect
7 24 (10.04%) Software Engineer
8 23 (9.62%) Senior Data Engineer
9 16 (6.69%) Kafka Engineer
10 15 (6.28%) Python Developer
11 14 (5.86%) Python Engineer
12 13 (5.44%) Senior Python Developer
13 12 (5.02%) Azure Data Engineer
13 12 (5.02%) Azure Engineer
13 12 (5.02%) Backend Developer
14 11 (4.60%) Elasticsearch Engineer
14 11 (4.60%) Java Engineer
14 11 (4.60%) Python Data Engineer
15 10 (4.18%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (32.64%) Spring
2 73 (30.54%) Terraform
3 72 (30.13%) Spring Boot
4 62 (25.94%) RESTful
5 57 (23.85%) RabbitMQ
6 48 (20.08%) REST
7 32 (13.39%) Node.js
8 31 (12.97%) Hibernate
9 29 (12.13%) JPA
10 24 (10.04%) React
11 21 (8.79%) FastAPI
12 18 (7.53%) OpenAPI
12 18 (7.53%) Swagger
13 16 (6.69%) .NET
14 15 (6.28%) PySpark
15 14 (5.86%) Keycloak
16 11 (4.60%) Apache NiFi
17 9 (3.77%) JWT
17 9 (3.77%) OAuth
18 8 (3.35%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 76 (31.80%) Cloud Native
2 60 (25.10%) Distributed Systems
3 35 (14.64%) Product Ownership
4 20 (8.37%) Enterprise Software
5 16 (6.69%) Hybrid Cloud
6 15 (6.28%) Self-Motivation
7 13 (5.44%) Virtual Team
8 10 (4.18%) Onboarding
9 8 (3.35%) Distributed Computing
10 7 (2.93%) Greenfield Project
10 7 (2.93%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (2.93%) Media Streaming
10 7 (2.93%) Podcast
10 7 (2.93%) Public Cloud
10 7 (2.93%) Robotics
11 6 (2.51%) Data Structures
11 6 (2.51%) IoT
11 6 (2.51%) Mainframe
12 5 (2.09%) AI Agents
12 5 (2.09%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 24 (10.04%) Linux
2 4 (1.67%) Windows
3 1 (0.42%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 134 (56.07%) CI/CD
2 121 (50.63%) Agile
3 108 (45.19%) DevOps
4 107 (44.77%) Microservices
5 103 (43.10%) Event-Driven
6 77 (32.22%) Containerisation
6 77 (32.22%) Infrastructure as Code
7 76 (31.80%) Software Engineering
8 75 (31.38%) Mentoring
9 68 (28.45%) Observability
10 61 (25.52%) AI
11 59 (24.69%) Problem-Solving
12 51 (21.34%) Data Pipeline
13 49 (20.50%) Analytics
14 47 (19.67%) Scrum
15 46 (19.25%) Roadmaps
16 45 (18.83%) Continuous Improvement
16 45 (18.83%) Technical Leadership
17 42 (17.57%) Decision-Making
17 42 (17.57%) Event-Driven Architecture
Programming Languages
1 120 (50.21%) Java
2 116 (48.54%) Python
3 69 (28.87%) SQL
4 36 (15.06%) TypeScript
5 33 (13.81%) JavaScript
6 18 (7.53%) Go
7 10 (4.18%) C#
7 10 (4.18%) PowerShell
8 9 (3.77%) Rust
9 8 (3.35%) Ruby
9 8 (3.35%) Scala
10 7 (2.93%) Bash
10 7 (2.93%) Groovy
11 6 (2.51%) Kotlin
12 4 (1.67%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.67%) T-SQL
13 3 (1.26%) C++
13 3 (1.26%) DataWeave
14 2 (0.84%) Bicep
14 2 (0.84%) PHP
Qualifications
1 65 (27.20%) Security Cleared
2 46 (19.25%) SC Cleared
3 26 (10.88%) Degree
4 18 (7.53%) DV Cleared
5 17 (7.11%) Azure Certification
5 17 (7.11%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (2.51%) AWS Certification
8 5 (2.09%) Master's Degree
9 4 (1.67%) MBA
10 3 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.84%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.42%) HND
12 1 (0.42%) OCP
12 1 (0.42%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (11.30%) QA
2 21 (8.79%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.93%) Accessibility
4 6 (2.51%) GDPR
4 6 (2.51%) WCAG
5 4 (1.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 3 (1.26%) NIST
6 3 (1.26%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.84%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.42%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.42%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.42%) PSD2
System Software
1 102 (42.68%) Docker
2 1 (0.42%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 118 (49.37%) Kubernetes
2 28 (11.72%) Grafana
3 24 (10.04%) Prometheus
4 16 (6.69%) Ansible
5 7 (2.93%) Argo
6 6 (2.51%) Puppet
7 5 (2.09%) Kibana
7 5 (2.09%) Podman
8 1 (0.42%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 22 (9.21%) Splunk
2 21 (8.79%) Databricks
2 21 (8.79%) Microsoft
3 12 (5.02%) Dynatrace
4 9 (3.77%) Google
5 8 (3.35%) Oracle
6 7 (2.93%) Atlassian
6 7 (2.93%) HubSpot
6 7 (2.93%) OpenAI
7 5 (2.09%) Confluent
7 5 (2.09%) MuleSoft
8 4 (1.67%) Adobe
8 4 (1.67%) Dell
8 4 (1.67%) Informatica
8 4 (1.67%) NVIDIA
9 3 (1.26%) Cloudera
9 3 (1.26%) Tenable
9 3 (1.26%) webMethods
10 2 (0.84%) Sparx
11 1 (0.42%) YouTube