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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 438 195 306
Rank change year-on-year -243 +111 -29
Permanent jobs citing Kafka 242 501 367
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.28% 1.47% 0.69%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.30% 10.70% 3.63%
Number of salaries quoted 173 120 190
10th Percentile £53,750 £44,875 -
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% -22.07%
75th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £97,625 £77,750
UK median annual salary £80,000 £85,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year -5.88% +21.43% -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 7,343 4,681 10,121
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 8.59% 13.73% 18.93%
Number of salaries quoted 5,656 2,824 6,081
10th Percentile £40,000 £33,750 £36,250
25th Percentile £47,500 £45,000 £44,738
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,500 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +0.83% +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 23 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 23 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 -125 81 £75,000 +7.14% 140
North West -88 62 £75,000 +9.09% 94
South East -62 47 £67,500 -5.59% 67
South West -78 35 £85,000 +25.93% 51
Midlands -95 30 £85,000 +25.93% 35
West Midlands -38 29 £85,000 +51.11% 27
Wales - 26 £70,000 - 6
East of England -39 20 £72,500 -4.29% 19
North East -60 15 £62,500 +31.58% 13
Scotland -86 13 £50,000 -13.04% 51
Yorkshire -43 6 £72,653 -3.13% 33
East Midlands -74 1 £71,500 +5.93% 8
Northern Ireland -96 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 23 (9.50%) Apache Spark
2 17 (7.02%) Apache
3 9 (3.72%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (1.65%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.24%) Anypoint
5 3 (1.24%) BizTalk Server
6 2 (0.83%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.83%) Confluence
7 1 (0.41%) JBoss
7 1 (0.41%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 1 (0.41%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 153 (63.22%) AWS
2 118 (48.76%) Azure
3 56 (23.14%) GCP
4 41 (16.94%) Serverless
5 35 (14.46%) AWS CloudFormation
6 32 (13.22%) Amazon SQS
7 31 (12.81%) GitHub
8 28 (11.57%) AWS Lambda
9 24 (9.92%) Amazon S3
10 22 (9.09%) Amazon ECS
11 18 (7.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 17 (7.02%) Azure Service Bus
13 16 (6.61%) Amazon EventBridge
13 16 (6.61%) Azure Data Factory
14 14 (5.79%) Amazon EKS
15 12 (4.96%) GitHub Copilot
16 11 (4.55%) Datadog
17 10 (4.13%) GitHub Actions
18 8 (3.31%) Snowflake
19 7 (2.89%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 29 (11.98%) MQTT
2 5 (2.07%) Network Security
3 3 (1.24%) Internet
4 2 (0.83%) 4G
4 2 (0.83%) 5G
4 2 (0.83%) DNS
4 2 (0.83%) HTTP
4 2 (0.83%) SSH
4 2 (0.83%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.41%) ATM
5 1 (0.41%) Firewall
5 1 (0.41%) LAN
5 1 (0.41%) SSL
5 1 (0.41%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (26.45%) MongoDB
2 50 (20.66%) PostgreSQL
3 44 (18.18%) NoSQL
4 30 (12.40%) MySQL
5 18 (7.44%) SQL Server
6 14 (5.79%) Big Data
6 14 (5.79%) Elasticsearch
6 14 (5.79%) Relational Database
7 13 (5.37%) Data Lake
7 13 (5.37%) Flink
8 12 (4.96%) Redis
9 10 (4.13%) DynamoDB
10 8 (3.31%) Amazon RDS
11 6 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (2.07%) Amazon Redshift
12 5 (2.07%) DocumentDB
13 4 (1.65%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 4 (1.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (1.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 3 (1.24%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 56 (23.14%) Git
2 29 (11.98%) GitLab
3 23 (9.50%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.89%) JIRA
5 5 (2.07%) Selenium
6 4 (1.65%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (1.65%) Bitbucket
7 3 (1.24%) Cucumber
7 3 (1.24%) JUnit
7 3 (1.24%) Postman
7 3 (1.24%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.83%) JMeter
8 2 (0.83%) minitest
8 2 (0.83%) RSpec
9 1 (0.41%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.41%) ER Studio
9 1 (0.41%) Gatling
9 1 (0.41%) Karma Test Runner
9 1 (0.41%) Maven
9 1 (0.41%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 39 (16.12%) Social Skills
2 38 (15.70%) Public Sector
3 32 (13.22%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (9.09%) Finance
5 16 (6.61%) Banking
6 14 (5.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (3.31%) Publishing
8 7 (2.89%) Law
9 4 (1.65%) Advertising
9 4 (1.65%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.65%) Games
9 4 (1.65%) Marketing
10 3 (1.24%) iGaming
10 3 (1.24%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.83%) Automotive
11 2 (0.83%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.41%) Billing
12 1 (0.41%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.41%) Military
12 1 (0.41%) Retail
Job Titles
1 80 (33.06%) Developer
2 74 (30.58%) Senior
3 50 (20.66%) Data Engineer
4 36 (14.88%) Java Developer
4 36 (14.88%) Lead
5 31 (12.81%) Senior Developer
6 28 (11.57%) Software Engineer
7 25 (10.33%) Architect
8 23 (9.50%) Senior Data Engineer
9 16 (6.61%) Kafka Engineer
9 16 (6.61%) Python Engineer
10 15 (6.20%) Python Developer
11 13 (5.37%) Senior Python Developer
12 12 (4.96%) Azure Data Engineer
12 12 (4.96%) Azure Engineer
12 12 (4.96%) Backend Developer
13 11 (4.55%) Elasticsearch Engineer
13 11 (4.55%) Java Engineer
13 11 (4.55%) Python Data Engineer
14 10 (4.13%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (33.06%) Spring
2 74 (30.58%) Spring Boot
3 73 (30.17%) Terraform
4 64 (26.45%) RESTful
5 60 (24.79%) RabbitMQ
6 50 (20.66%) REST
7 33 (13.64%) Node.js
8 31 (12.81%) Hibernate
9 29 (11.98%) JPA
10 26 (10.74%) React
11 23 (9.50%) FastAPI
12 20 (8.26%) OpenAPI
12 20 (8.26%) Swagger
13 16 (6.61%) .NET
14 15 (6.20%) PySpark
15 14 (5.79%) Keycloak
16 11 (4.55%) Apache NiFi
17 9 (3.72%) JWT
17 9 (3.72%) OAuth
18 8 (3.31%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 75 (30.99%) Cloud Native
2 60 (24.79%) Distributed Systems
3 35 (14.46%) Product Ownership
4 20 (8.26%) Enterprise Software
5 16 (6.61%) Hybrid Cloud
6 15 (6.20%) Self-Motivation
7 13 (5.37%) Virtual Team
8 10 (4.13%) Onboarding
9 8 (3.31%) Distributed Computing
9 8 (3.31%) Media Streaming
9 8 (3.31%) Podcast
10 7 (2.89%) Greenfield Project
10 7 (2.89%) IoT
10 7 (2.89%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (2.89%) Robotics
11 6 (2.48%) Data Structures
11 6 (2.48%) Mainframe
12 5 (2.07%) AI Agents
12 5 (2.07%) Algorithms
13 4 (1.65%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 24 (9.92%) Linux
2 4 (1.65%) Windows
3 1 (0.41%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (55.79%) CI/CD
2 123 (50.83%) Agile
3 110 (45.45%) DevOps
3 110 (45.45%) Microservices
4 105 (43.39%) Event-Driven
5 80 (33.06%) Containerisation
5 80 (33.06%) Software Engineering
6 77 (31.82%) Infrastructure as Code
7 76 (31.40%) Mentoring
8 69 (28.51%) Observability
9 60 (24.79%) Problem-Solving
10 59 (24.38%) AI
11 48 (19.83%) Data Pipeline
11 48 (19.83%) Roadmaps
12 47 (19.42%) Scrum
13 46 (19.01%) Analytics
13 46 (19.01%) Continuous Improvement
14 45 (18.60%) Technical Leadership
15 44 (18.18%) API Design
16 43 (17.77%) Event-Driven Architecture
Programming Languages
1 122 (50.41%) Java
2 115 (47.52%) Python
3 66 (27.27%) SQL
4 39 (16.12%) TypeScript
5 34 (14.05%) JavaScript
6 19 (7.85%) Go
7 10 (4.13%) C#
7 10 (4.13%) PowerShell
8 9 (3.72%) Rust
9 8 (3.31%) Ruby
9 8 (3.31%) Scala
10 7 (2.89%) Bash
10 7 (2.89%) Groovy
11 6 (2.48%) Kotlin
12 4 (1.65%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.65%) T-SQL
13 3 (1.24%) C++
13 3 (1.24%) DataWeave
13 3 (1.24%) PHP
14 2 (0.83%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 65 (26.86%) Security Cleared
2 46 (19.01%) SC Cleared
3 26 (10.74%) Degree
4 18 (7.44%) DV Cleared
5 17 (7.02%) Azure Certification
5 17 (7.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (2.48%) AWS Certification
8 5 (2.07%) Master's Degree
9 4 (1.65%) MBA
10 3 (1.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.83%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.41%) HND
12 1 (0.41%) OCP
12 1 (0.41%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (11.16%) QA
2 21 (8.68%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.89%) Accessibility
4 6 (2.48%) WCAG
5 3 (1.24%) GDPR
5 3 (1.24%) NIST
5 3 (1.24%) NIST 800
6 2 (0.83%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.41%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.41%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.41%) PSD2
System Software
1 106 (43.80%) Docker
2 1 (0.41%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 122 (50.41%) Kubernetes
2 28 (11.57%) Grafana
3 24 (9.92%) Prometheus
4 16 (6.61%) Ansible
5 7 (2.89%) Argo
6 6 (2.48%) Puppet
7 5 (2.07%) Kibana
7 5 (2.07%) Podman
8 1 (0.41%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 22 (9.09%) Splunk
2 21 (8.68%) Microsoft
3 18 (7.44%) Databricks
4 12 (4.96%) Dynatrace
5 9 (3.72%) Google
6 8 (3.31%) Oracle
7 7 (2.89%) Atlassian
7 7 (2.89%) HubSpot
7 7 (2.89%) OpenAI
8 5 (2.07%) Confluent
8 5 (2.07%) MuleSoft
9 4 (1.65%) Adobe
9 4 (1.65%) Informatica
9 4 (1.65%) NVIDIA
10 3 (1.24%) Tenable
10 3 (1.24%) webMethods
11 2 (0.83%) Sparx
12 1 (0.41%) Dell
12 1 (0.41%) Red Hat
12 1 (0.41%) YouTube