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 8 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 402 198 361
Rank change year-on-year -204 +163 -82
Permanent jobs citing Kafka 264 485 273
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.31% 1.40% 0.53%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.67% 10.52% 2.76%
Number of salaries quoted 194 109 175
10th Percentile £52,000 £44,750 -
25th Percentile £61,438 £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 £87,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £97,500 £83,000
UK median annual salary £75,000 £85,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year -11.76% +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 7,198 4,612 9,905
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 8.35% 13.28% 19.11%
Number of salaries quoted 5,525 2,774 5,775
10th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £36,000
25th Percentile £47,500 £44,000 £45,000
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 £85,000 £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 8 October 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 8 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
North of England -119 93 £67,500 -3.57% 109
North West -76 66 £75,000 +7.14% 72
South East -57 49 £70,000 - 37
South West -63 40 £85,000 +11.48% 33
Midlands -77 32 £85,000 +25.93% 20
West Midlands -36 31 £85,000 +51.11% 16
Wales - 27 £70,000 - 7
North East -42 24 £60,000 +26.32% 13
East of England -30 23 £72,500 +1.40% 21
Scotland -87 12 £50,000 -16.67% 62
Yorkshire -36 9 £66,805 -10.93% 24
East Midlands -72 1 £71,500 +5.93% 4
Northern Ireland -84 1 - - 42
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 (9.85%) Apache Spark
2 18 (6.82%) Apache
3 9 (3.41%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (2.27%) WebLogic
5 5 (1.89%) OpenStack
6 3 (1.14%) Anypoint
6 3 (1.14%) BizTalk Server
6 3 (1.14%) Confluence
7 2 (0.76%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.76%) JBoss
Business Applications
1 1 (0.38%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 166 (62.88%) AWS
2 126 (47.73%) Azure
3 56 (21.21%) GCP
4 42 (15.91%) Serverless
5 37 (14.02%) GitHub
6 36 (13.64%) Amazon SQS
6 36 (13.64%) AWS CloudFormation
7 32 (12.12%) Amazon S3
8 29 (10.98%) AWS Lambda
9 25 (9.47%) Amazon ECS
10 20 (7.58%) Azure Data Factory
10 20 (7.58%) Azure Service Bus
11 18 (6.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 17 (6.44%) Amazon EKS
13 14 (5.30%) Amazon EventBridge
14 12 (4.55%) GitHub Copilot
15 11 (4.17%) GitHub Actions
16 9 (3.41%) AWS KMS
16 9 (3.41%) Datadog
17 7 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 31 (11.74%) MQTT
2 5 (1.89%) Internet
2 5 (1.89%) Network Security
3 2 (0.76%) 4G
3 2 (0.76%) 5G
3 2 (0.76%) DNS
3 2 (0.76%) HTTP
3 2 (0.76%) SSH
3 2 (0.76%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.38%) ATM
4 1 (0.38%) LAN
4 1 (0.38%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (25.00%) MongoDB
2 56 (21.21%) PostgreSQL
3 43 (16.29%) NoSQL
4 32 (12.12%) MySQL
5 16 (6.06%) Elasticsearch
6 15 (5.68%) Big Data
6 15 (5.68%) SQL Server
7 14 (5.30%) Data Lake
7 14 (5.30%) Redis
7 14 (5.30%) Relational Database
8 13 (4.92%) Flink
9 8 (3.03%) Amazon RDS
9 8 (3.03%) Data Warehouse
10 7 (2.65%) Amazon Redshift
10 7 (2.65%) DynamoDB
11 6 (2.27%) DocumentDB
12 5 (1.89%) Power BI
13 4 (1.52%) Amazon Athena
14 3 (1.14%) BigQuery
14 3 (1.14%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 61 (23.11%) Git
2 39 (14.77%) GitLab
3 25 (9.47%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.65%) JUnit
5 6 (2.27%) JIRA
6 5 (1.89%) Cucumber
6 5 (1.89%) Selenium
7 4 (1.52%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 4 (1.52%) Bitbucket
7 4 (1.52%) Mockito
8 3 (1.14%) Gatling
8 3 (1.14%) Postman
8 3 (1.14%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.76%) JMeter
9 2 (0.76%) minitest
9 2 (0.76%) RSpec
10 1 (0.38%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.38%) ERwin
10 1 (0.38%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.38%) Maven
General
1 47 (17.80%) Public Sector
2 41 (15.53%) Social Skills
3 36 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (7.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 20 (7.58%) Finance
6 18 (6.82%) Banking
7 12 (4.55%) Publishing
8 6 (2.27%) Law
9 4 (1.52%) Advertising
9 4 (1.52%) Games
9 4 (1.52%) Marketing
10 3 (1.14%) Aerospace
10 3 (1.14%) iGaming
10 3 (1.14%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.76%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.38%) Automotive
12 1 (0.38%) Billing
12 1 (0.38%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.38%) Military
12 1 (0.38%) Retail
Job Titles
1 87 (32.95%) Developer
2 81 (30.68%) Senior
3 50 (18.94%) Data Engineer
4 42 (15.91%) Lead
5 41 (15.53%) Java Developer
6 37 (14.02%) Software Engineer
7 31 (11.74%) Senior Developer
8 25 (9.47%) Architect
9 23 (8.71%) Senior Data Engineer
10 20 (7.58%) Python Engineer
11 18 (6.82%) Kafka Engineer
12 15 (5.68%) Java Engineer
12 15 (5.68%) Python Developer
13 14 (5.30%) Azure Data Engineer
13 14 (5.30%) Azure Engineer
14 13 (4.92%) Elasticsearch Engineer
14 13 (4.92%) Python Data Engineer
14 13 (4.92%) Senior Python Developer
15 12 (4.55%) Principal Engineer
15 12 (4.55%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (35.23%) Spring
2 87 (32.95%) Spring Boot
3 76 (28.79%) Terraform
4 67 (25.38%) RESTful
5 65 (24.62%) RabbitMQ
6 54 (20.45%) REST
7 35 (13.26%) Node.js
8 33 (12.50%) Hibernate
9 31 (11.74%) JPA
9 31 (11.74%) React
10 27 (10.23%) FastAPI
11 23 (8.71%) OpenAPI
11 23 (8.71%) Swagger
12 16 (6.06%) .NET
12 16 (6.06%) Keycloak
13 14 (5.30%) PySpark
14 10 (3.79%) Apache NiFi
15 8 (3.03%) AngularJS
15 8 (3.03%) Elastic Stack
15 8 (3.03%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 84 (31.82%) Cloud Native
2 59 (22.35%) Distributed Systems
3 37 (14.02%) Product Ownership
4 25 (9.47%) Enterprise Software
5 20 (7.58%) Hybrid Cloud
6 19 (7.20%) Self-Motivation
7 15 (5.68%) Virtual Team
8 12 (4.55%) Media Streaming
8 12 (4.55%) Podcast
9 9 (3.41%) IoT
10 8 (3.03%) Distributed Computing
10 8 (3.03%) Legacy Systems
10 8 (3.03%) Onboarding
11 7 (2.65%) Greenfield Project
12 6 (2.27%) Data Structures
12 6 (2.27%) Mainframe
12 6 (2.27%) Robotics
13 5 (1.89%) AI Agents
13 5 (1.89%) Algorithms
13 5 (1.89%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 26 (9.85%) Linux
2 5 (1.89%) Windows
3 1 (0.38%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (57.58%) CI/CD
2 138 (52.27%) Agile
3 127 (48.11%) DevOps
4 121 (45.83%) Microservices
5 111 (42.05%) Event-Driven
6 90 (34.09%) Containerisation
6 90 (34.09%) Software Engineering
7 85 (32.20%) Mentoring
8 79 (29.92%) Infrastructure as Code
9 72 (27.27%) Observability
10 66 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
11 63 (23.86%) AI
12 57 (21.59%) Scrum
13 55 (20.83%) Continuous Improvement
13 55 (20.83%) Roadmaps
14 51 (19.32%) Data Pipeline
14 51 (19.32%) Technical Leadership
15 49 (18.56%) Analytics
16 48 (18.18%) API Design
17 43 (16.29%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 135 (51.14%) Java
2 115 (43.56%) Python
3 59 (22.35%) SQL
4 43 (16.29%) TypeScript
5 35 (13.26%) JavaScript
6 23 (8.71%) Go
7 10 (3.79%) C#
7 10 (3.79%) PowerShell
7 10 (3.79%) Scala
8 9 (3.41%) Rust
9 8 (3.03%) Kotlin
9 8 (3.03%) Ruby
10 7 (2.65%) Bash
11 6 (2.27%) Groovy
12 5 (1.89%) PHP
13 4 (1.52%) Shell Script
14 3 (1.14%) DataWeave
14 3 (1.14%) T-SQL
15 2 (0.76%) Bicep
15 2 (0.76%) C++
Qualifications
1 79 (29.92%) Security Cleared
2 61 (23.11%) SC Cleared
3 26 (9.85%) Degree
4 21 (7.95%) DV Cleared
5 20 (7.58%) Azure Certification
6 17 (6.44%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (3.41%) AWS Certification
8 7 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (1.89%) Master's Degree
10 4 (1.52%) MBA
11 3 (1.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.76%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.38%) HND
13 1 (0.38%) OCP
13 1 (0.38%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (11.36%) QA
2 20 (7.58%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.65%) Accessibility
4 6 (2.27%) WCAG
5 3 (1.14%) GDPR
5 3 (1.14%) NIST
5 3 (1.14%) NIST 800
6 2 (0.76%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.38%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.38%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.38%) PSD2
System Software
1 121 (45.83%) Docker
2 1 (0.38%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 138 (52.27%) Kubernetes
2 29 (10.98%) Grafana
3 25 (9.47%) Prometheus
4 16 (6.06%) Ansible
5 7 (2.65%) Argo
6 5 (1.89%) Podman
6 5 (1.89%) Puppet
7 4 (1.52%) Kibana
8 1 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 24 (9.09%) Splunk
2 21 (7.95%) Databricks
3 19 (7.20%) Microsoft
4 13 (4.92%) Dynatrace
5 12 (4.55%) Oracle
6 10 (3.79%) Atlassian
7 9 (3.41%) Google
8 7 (2.65%) OpenAI
9 6 (2.27%) Confluent
9 6 (2.27%) MuleSoft
10 5 (1.89%) HubSpot
11 4 (1.52%) Adobe
11 4 (1.52%) Informatica
11 4 (1.52%) NVIDIA
12 3 (1.14%) Tenable
12 3 (1.14%) webMethods
13 2 (0.76%) Sparx
13 2 (0.76%) VMware
14 1 (0.38%) Red Hat
14 1 (0.38%) YouTube