May 2020

DevOps Institute
DevOps Journey SKILbook

Landscape:
The Global Landscape of
DevOps Adoption Has Improved
Hiring, Recruiting and Key Must-Have
Skills are Now a Global Topic

By Eveline Oehrlich,
with JP Garbani,
and Karen Skiles, DevOps Institute

Eveline Oehrlich JP Garbani

 Executive Summary
The last ten years of DevOps journeys have varied
greatly across the different regions of the world.
However, necessary digital transformations are
needed across all regions and all vertical industries.
Organizations across the globe are catching up to
adopt DevOps. This report will share the DevOps
landscape across the globe, taking a closer look at
recruiting and other challenges.
Firms Turn to
DevOps Globally

DevOps adoption across the globe has been growing since its inception in 2009. While
some organizations are still in the planning stage, others have adopted DevOps across
the enterprise. DevOps provides a set of practices and cultural changes, supported by
complementary tools, that automates the software delivery pipeline. Not only does
DevOps enable organizations to improve productivity within the technology teams
and improve software delivery with speed and quality, it can shift IT into a new role to
deliver value fast enhancing and accelerating the digital transformation of companies.
Industry analyst companies such as IDC predict that by 2022, 80% of revenue growth
will depend on digital offerings and operations1. A study by KPMG reveals that 61% of
companies that are effective at using digital technologies see higher revenue growth
than their competition2.

DevOps is Expanding
Current Strongholds

Since the early days of DevOps in 2009, developers and I&O pros have been learning
how to generate customer and business value by changing culture, adopting automa-
tion, sharing, and measuring their achievements. DevOps is no longer just for “Unicorns”.
DevOps has entered the mainstream with large enterprises, enterprises, and small and
midsize businesses adopting the bulk of DevOps practices (see Figure 1). While large and
exceptionally large enterprises have adopted DevOps enterprise wide there are no signif-
icant differences in the adoption at the project level.

1
Figure 1:
2020 Adoption of DevOps Across Different Company Sizes

Q
Which of the following best
describes the DevOps journey
within your company today?

100
90
80
70
% of Respondents

60
47 48
50 45 45
43
40 35
29
30 24 26
22 22
20 18
10

Small Enterprise Medium Enterprise Large Enterprise Very Large Enterprise

(1-999 employees) (1,000-4,999 (5,000-19,999 (greater than
employees) employees) 20,000 employees)

Source: 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps

2
 Five Industries Lead DevOps Adoption,
but Others are Following

A statistically significant number of survey participants from all industries reported their
planning or DevOps adoption stage (see Figure 2).  All industries are facing pressure from
their customers for more features, faster. Specifically, we found that:

Figure 2:
2020 Global DevOps Adoption Across Industry Verticals

40
% of Respondents

32
30 24
16
20
13
4 6 6 8
10

Applying

Source: 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps

Key industries account for the vast majority of applying

DevOps either at project or enterprise levels. The top three
industries, financial services, government and non-profit,
and media and telecoms, make up the majority of DevOps
adoption by industry. Healthcare and chemicals, manufac-
turing, retail, travel, and transportation make up the next
major group.

3
 Highly regulated industries no longer are lagging in applying
DevOps. Government and education organizations, travel
and transportation, and healthcare and chemical industries
have caught up in applying DevOps. These industries might
have seen that the benefits of DevOps outweigh concerns
about governance. I&O pros at media and entertainment
firms need to catch up quickly with their nonregulated coun-
terparts if they are to compete with compelling mobile and
eCommerce solutions. If not, they will leave the door open
for the sort of disruption that Uber and Lyft have introduced
for taxi firms.

Global DevOps Adoption

Continues at Full Speed

DevOps adoption does not center on a region but spans the globe. APAC and North
America lead adoption at the enterprise level, but other regions are planning for signifi-
cant investment in DevOps practices in the future. We found that:

DevOps enterprise and project adoption varies across

the globe. APAC, US and EMEA are further ahead on both
enterprise and project adoption of DevOps, but additional
regional practitioner volumes are catching up. Our survey
results show that project adoption is highest in EMEA (29%)
followed by APAC (28%) and North America (23%). En-
terprise adoption is led by APAC (32%) followed by North
America (31%) and EMEA (21%) (see Figure 3).

4
Figure 3:
2020 Global DevOps Enterprise vs. Project Adoption by Regions

40
% of Respondents

28 29
30 23
20
11
6
10

Applying DevOps
at Project Level
or Multiple Projects

40
% of Respondents

32 31
30
21
20
8
10 5

Applying DevOps
Across Our Enterprise

Source: 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps

There is lots of DevOps adoption planning. Additionally, re-

gions are planning to implement DevOps either in the near
term or longer terms. Our survey data was collected from
October 2019 to January of 2020. The countries which have
indicated a near term adoption (less than 12 month) might
have already jumped onto the DevOps train as of today
(see Figure 4).

5
 Figure 4:
2020 Global DevOps Planning to Adopt by Regions

40
% of Respondents

33
30
24
28
20
11
10
2

Planning Stage and/or Initial Stage for Our Enterprise

(planning horizon within the next 12 months)

43
40
% of Respondents

30
24
18
20
10 6 6

Plan to Leverage DevOps in the Future

(planning horizon longer than 12 months out)

Source: 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps

6
The Future of the DevOps
Human Looks Promising

DevOps salaries (depending on expertise and local labor market conditions) today start
at $93,000 and can reach $179,0003. Even these high salary ranges do not make it
easier for recruiters to find and attract skilled people. According to our survey, 52% of
companies globally are either already recruiting for DevOps talent or are planning to
recruit in the next 12 months. The title of “DevOps Engineer/Manager” was the most
popular title to recruit for. Additional role titles mentioned were Software Engineer, CI/
CD Engineer, Infrastructure Engineer and Site Reliability Engineer. While recruiting prac-
tices vary across the globe the following key challenges are making it difficult to staff
DevOps teams.

The Recruiting process is difficult across the globe. When

we asked the question “How would you describe your expe-
rience during your recent DevOps recruiting process?” 65%
of the respondents indicated the recruiting process to be
extremely difficult, difficult, or somewhat difficult.

Finding skilled people is a challenge which all regions share.

While all global regions are recruiting, they all have chal-
lenges. These challenges include finding skilled individuals.
This is most difficult in North America (84%), EMEA (84%)
and APAC (77%) where DevOps adoption is further along
than other regions. Attracting skilled people is also exceed-
ingly difficult. EMEA and North America survey respondents
agree that they have the biggest challenges in attracting
skilled workers. This is where additional incentives such as
motivational rewards and incentives tied to performance
can help. Robert Half Technology research shows that 71%
of companies in the US and Canada are planning to offer
additional incentives in 2020 to attract technology staff.

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 The key challenge, however, is assessing the skills of humans.
According to a study conducted by Robert Half Technology,
almost all (95%) of all IT hiring decision makers admitted that
they made a poor hiring decision at some point4. This is where
it helps to understand what the must-have skills are across
a variety of skill categories. The DevOps Institute research
shows that process skills and knowledge (68%), automation
skills (67%) and human skills (61%) are the top three must-have
skill categories to assess when hiring a DevOps human.

Certifications and expertise matter. In 2020, most organiza-

tions (50%) first look internal and if there is no qualified indi-
vidual, they look external when recruiting. One important indi-
cator is the DevOps human’s expertise and the certifications.
While expertise is something an individual improves over time
across key topics, certifications are something which can be
attained. The regions vary in their response as to whether cer-
tifications are a must-have or nice-to-have with APAC stating
specific certifications are a must-have (42%), EMEA (23%),
NAR (22%).

What This Means

DevOps is the Next Normal

The transformation to DevOps must stay focused on the delivery of value to customers
and the entire organization. This transformation includes the adoption of DevOps princi-
ples, the change around culture and organization, the adoption of automation tools and
the necessity to measure progress. Technology disruption such as artificial intelligence or
new architectures will not stop. While not all technologies might be adopted at the same
time, the demands from your customers and lines of business will continue for new and
value-added capabilities. 

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The key is to stay focused. To do that you must understand the following:

DevOps must focus on meeting business needs faster, better,

and cheaper. DevOps has evolved from a methodology to bring
developers and operations teams together into a strategy for
transforming an entire business into a single operational entity
focused on sustaining competitive differentiation by delivering
software faster, better, and cheaper. The digital business de-
mands velocity while ensuring quality to retain its customers
now more than ever.

The need to establish common goals to foster collaboration

from the beginning. When you are planning a DevOps trans-
formation you must establish a common goal to foster a trans-
formation journey where collaboration breaks the traditional
silos across developers, testers, security, operations, and other
necessary functions. It is essential to recruit and select key indi-
viduals who have must-have DevOps skills across the DevOps
skill categories.

That upskilling is not just for updating technology skills. Your

DevOps journey needs skilled and empowered people with the
right capabilities to accelerate and support a DevOps culture
which can quickly experiment, fail fast if wrong, and improve
what they are building for customers and users. Upskilling must
happen across a variety of skill categories and must be ongoing.
Digital transformation efforts are essential efforts to bring the
business closer to its customers. This places a great emphasis
on human skills. Human skills, such as interpersonal skills, em-
pathy, adaptability, and flexibility, are just as important as func-
tional skills in security or technical skills around cloud platforms.

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References
1 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44440318
2 https://www.harveynash.com/group/mediacentre/2019%20Harvey%20Nash%20KPMG%20CIO%20
Survey.pdf
3 https://www.roberthalf.com/salary-guide/technology
4 https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/recruitment-tips/recruiting-woes

About the Authors

Eveline Oehrlich is Chief Research Director at DevOps Institute. She conducts research
on topics focusing on DevOps as well as Business and IT Automation. She held the po-
sition of VP and Research Director at Forrester Research, where she led and conducted
research around a variety of topics including DevOps, Digital Operational Excellence, IT
and Enterprise Service Management, Cognitive Intelligence and Application Performance
Management for 13 years. She has advised leaders and teams across small and large en-
terprises in the world on challenges and possible changes to people, process and tech-
nology. She is the author of many research papers and thought leadership pieces and a
well-known presenter and speaker within the IT industry. Eveline has more than 25 years
of experience in IT.

About DevOps Institute

DevOps Institute is dedicated to advancing the human elements of DevOps success. As a

global member-based association, DevOps Institute is the go-to learning hub connecting
IT practitioners, education partners, consultants, talent acquisition and business execu-
tives to help pave the way to support digital transformation and the New IT.

We help advance careers and support emerging practices within the DevOps community
based on a human centered SKIL Framework, consisting of Skills, Knowledge, Ideas, and
Learning. All our work, including accreditations, research, events, and continuous learning
programs – is focused on providing the “human know-how” to modernize IT and make
DevOps succeed.
 Address and Other Details

Please contact
oehrliche@devopsinstitute.com
for questions about this report.