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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 431 197 336
Rank change year-on-year -234 +139 -63
Permanent jobs citing Kafka 258 491 309
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.30% 1.42% 0.58%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.54% 10.62% 3.06%
Number of salaries quoted 187 116 186
10th Percentile £53,250 £45,000 -
25th Percentile £61,250 £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 £96,250 £79,875
UK median annual salary £77,000 £85,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year -9.41% +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 7,288 4,624 10,095
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 8.43% 13.36% 19.03%
Number of salaries quoted 5,587 2,783 5,952
10th Percentile £40,000 £33,750 £36,025
25th Percentile £47,500 £45,000 £44,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £76,375 £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 2 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 2 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 -116 92 £67,500 -3.57% 155
North West -79 68 £75,000 +7.14% 103
South East -59 49 £69,000 -1.43% 73
South West -67 37 £85,000 +21.43% 43
Midlands -86 32 £85,000 +25.93% 33
West Midlands -39 31 £85,000 +51.11% 23
Wales - 27 £70,000 - 12
East of England -41 21 £72,500 +1.40% 22
North East -47 21 £60,000 +26.32% 17
Scotland -81 12 £50,000 -14.89% 71
Yorkshire -34 9 £66,805 -10.93% 35
East Midlands -79 1 £71,500 +5.93% 10
Northern Ireland -94 1 - - 34
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 25 (9.69%) Apache Spark
2 17 (6.59%) Apache
3 10 (3.88%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (1.94%) OpenStack
5 4 (1.55%) WebLogic
6 3 (1.16%) Anypoint
6 3 (1.16%) BizTalk Server
6 3 (1.16%) Confluence
7 2 (0.78%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.78%) JBoss
Business Applications
1 1 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 164 (63.57%) AWS
2 124 (48.06%) Azure
3 56 (21.71%) GCP
4 42 (16.28%) Serverless
5 36 (13.95%) AWS CloudFormation
6 35 (13.57%) Amazon SQS
7 34 (13.18%) GitHub
8 29 (11.24%) Amazon S3
8 29 (11.24%) AWS Lambda
9 24 (9.30%) Amazon ECS
10 20 (7.75%) Azure Data Factory
11 19 (7.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 18 (6.98%) Azure Service Bus
13 16 (6.20%) Amazon EKS
14 15 (5.81%) Amazon EventBridge
15 12 (4.65%) GitHub Copilot
16 11 (4.26%) GitHub Actions
17 10 (3.88%) Datadog
18 8 (3.10%) AWS KMS
18 8 (3.10%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 29 (11.24%) MQTT
2 5 (1.94%) Network Security
3 4 (1.55%) Internet
4 2 (0.78%) 4G
4 2 (0.78%) 5G
4 2 (0.78%) DNS
4 2 (0.78%) HTTP
4 2 (0.78%) SSH
4 2 (0.78%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.39%) ATM
5 1 (0.39%) Firewall
5 1 (0.39%) LAN
5 1 (0.39%) SSL
5 1 (0.39%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (25.19%) MongoDB
2 54 (20.93%) PostgreSQL
3 42 (16.28%) NoSQL
4 31 (12.02%) MySQL
5 17 (6.59%) SQL Server
6 16 (6.20%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (5.81%) Big Data
7 15 (5.81%) Data Lake
7 15 (5.81%) Relational Database
8 13 (5.04%) Flink
8 13 (5.04%) Redis
9 9 (3.49%) DynamoDB
10 8 (3.10%) Amazon RDS
11 7 (2.71%) Data Warehouse
12 6 (2.33%) Amazon Redshift
12 6 (2.33%) DocumentDB
13 4 (1.55%) Power BI
13 4 (1.55%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 4 (1.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (1.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 60 (23.26%) Git
2 35 (13.57%) GitLab
3 25 (9.69%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.71%) JIRA
5 5 (1.94%) JUnit
5 5 (1.94%) Selenium
6 4 (1.55%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (1.55%) Bitbucket
6 4 (1.55%) Cucumber
7 3 (1.16%) Postman
7 3 (1.16%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.78%) Gatling
8 2 (0.78%) JMeter
8 2 (0.78%) minitest
8 2 (0.78%) Mockito
8 2 (0.78%) RSpec
9 1 (0.39%) ER Studio
9 1 (0.39%) ERwin
9 1 (0.39%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.39%) Maven
General
1 45 (17.44%) Public Sector
2 41 (15.89%) Social Skills
3 35 (13.57%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (8.53%) Finance
5 18 (6.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 17 (6.59%) Banking
7 12 (4.65%) Publishing
8 7 (2.71%) Law
9 4 (1.55%) Advertising
9 4 (1.55%) Games
9 4 (1.55%) Marketing
10 3 (1.16%) Aerospace
10 3 (1.16%) iGaming
10 3 (1.16%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.78%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.39%) Automotive
12 1 (0.39%) Billing
12 1 (0.39%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.39%) Military
12 1 (0.39%) Retail
Job Titles
1 84 (32.56%) Developer
2 81 (31.40%) Senior
3 52 (20.16%) Data Engineer
4 39 (15.12%) Java Developer
4 39 (15.12%) Lead
5 34 (13.18%) Software Engineer
6 31 (12.02%) Senior Developer
7 25 (9.69%) Architect
7 25 (9.69%) Senior Data Engineer
8 18 (6.98%) Kafka Engineer
8 18 (6.98%) Python Engineer
9 15 (5.81%) Python Developer
10 14 (5.43%) Azure Data Engineer
10 14 (5.43%) Azure Engineer
11 13 (5.04%) Elasticsearch Engineer
11 13 (5.04%) Java Engineer
11 13 (5.04%) Python Data Engineer
11 13 (5.04%) Senior Python Developer
12 12 (4.65%) Backend Developer
12 12 (4.65%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (34.50%) Spring
2 83 (32.17%) Spring Boot
3 76 (29.46%) Terraform
4 65 (25.19%) RESTful
5 62 (24.03%) RabbitMQ
6 53 (20.54%) REST
7 35 (13.57%) Node.js
8 32 (12.40%) Hibernate
9 30 (11.63%) JPA
9 30 (11.63%) React
10 25 (9.69%) FastAPI
11 21 (8.14%) OpenAPI
11 21 (8.14%) Swagger
12 16 (6.20%) Keycloak
13 15 (5.81%) .NET
13 15 (5.81%) PySpark
14 10 (3.88%) Apache NiFi
15 9 (3.49%) Elastic Stack
16 8 (3.10%) OAuth
16 8 (3.10%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 79 (30.62%) Cloud Native
2 60 (23.26%) Distributed Systems
3 37 (14.34%) Product Ownership
4 23 (8.91%) Enterprise Software
5 19 (7.36%) Hybrid Cloud
6 18 (6.98%) Self-Motivation
7 14 (5.43%) Virtual Team
8 12 (4.65%) Media Streaming
8 12 (4.65%) Podcast
9 10 (3.88%) Onboarding
10 8 (3.10%) Distributed Computing
10 8 (3.10%) IoT
10 8 (3.10%) Legacy Systems
11 7 (2.71%) Greenfield Project
12 6 (2.33%) Data Structures
12 6 (2.33%) Mainframe
12 6 (2.33%) Robotics
13 5 (1.94%) AI Agents
13 5 (1.94%) Algorithms
13 5 (1.94%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 26 (10.08%) Linux
2 5 (1.94%) Windows
3 1 (0.39%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (56.98%) CI/CD
2 135 (52.33%) Agile
3 122 (47.29%) DevOps
4 116 (44.96%) Microservices
5 109 (42.25%) Event-Driven
6 87 (33.72%) Software Engineering
7 86 (33.33%) Containerisation
8 82 (31.78%) Mentoring
9 79 (30.62%) Infrastructure as Code
10 75 (29.07%) Observability
11 64 (24.81%) Problem-Solving
12 62 (24.03%) AI
13 53 (20.54%) Continuous Improvement
13 53 (20.54%) Scrum
14 52 (20.16%) Data Pipeline
14 52 (20.16%) Roadmaps
15 49 (18.99%) Analytics
16 48 (18.60%) Technical Leadership
17 46 (17.83%) API Design
18 44 (17.05%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 131 (50.78%) Java
2 116 (44.96%) Python
3 64 (24.81%) SQL
4 43 (16.67%) TypeScript
5 35 (13.57%) JavaScript
6 21 (8.14%) Go
7 10 (3.88%) PowerShell
8 9 (3.49%) C#
8 9 (3.49%) Rust
8 9 (3.49%) Scala
9 8 (3.10%) Ruby
10 7 (2.71%) Bash
10 7 (2.71%) Kotlin
11 6 (2.33%) Groovy
12 4 (1.55%) PHP
12 4 (1.55%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.55%) T-SQL
13 3 (1.16%) DataWeave
14 2 (0.78%) Bicep
14 2 (0.78%) C++
Qualifications
1 74 (28.68%) Security Cleared
2 56 (21.71%) SC Cleared
3 27 (10.47%) Degree
4 21 (8.14%) DV Cleared
5 19 (7.36%) Azure Certification
6 18 (6.98%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.71%) AWS Certification
7 7 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (1.94%) Master's Degree
9 4 (1.55%) MBA
10 3 (1.16%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.39%) HND
12 1 (0.39%) OCP
12 1 (0.39%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (11.24%) QA
2 21 (8.14%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.71%) Accessibility
4 6 (2.33%) WCAG
5 3 (1.16%) GDPR
5 3 (1.16%) NIST
5 3 (1.16%) NIST 800
6 2 (0.78%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.39%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.39%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.39%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.39%) PSD2
System Software
1 112 (43.41%) Docker
2 1 (0.39%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 131 (50.78%) Kubernetes
2 29 (11.24%) Grafana
3 25 (9.69%) Prometheus
4 16 (6.20%) Ansible
5 7 (2.71%) Argo
6 6 (2.33%) Puppet
7 5 (1.94%) Kibana
7 5 (1.94%) Podman
8 1 (0.39%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 23 (8.91%) Splunk
2 21 (8.14%) Databricks
2 21 (8.14%) Microsoft
3 13 (5.04%) Dynatrace
4 10 (3.88%) Oracle
5 9 (3.49%) Google
6 8 (3.10%) Atlassian
7 7 (2.71%) OpenAI
8 6 (2.33%) Confluent
8 6 (2.33%) HubSpot
8 6 (2.33%) MuleSoft
9 4 (1.55%) Adobe
9 4 (1.55%) Informatica
9 4 (1.55%) NVIDIA
10 3 (1.16%) Tenable
10 3 (1.16%) webMethods
11 2 (0.78%) Sparx
11 2 (0.78%) VMware
12 1 (0.39%) Red Hat
12 1 (0.39%) YouTube