DevOps stats and facts – all the numbers you might ever need on DevOps in 2023

How big is the DevOps market and how quickly is it growing? What are the demographic breakdown of DevOps engineers and teams? How much do DevOps specialists earn? How ‘evolved’ are DevOps organisations and teams and how does that affect their performance metrics? The numbers which answer all these and many more DevOps questions and queries all conveniently compiled in one place!

Table of Contents

Every DevOps statistic and fact you’ll ever need or want to know, and a few more for good measure, all in one place!

The DevOps extension of Agile software development principles has evolved over the past 15 years or so alongside the rise of cloud computing, the advantages of which it is designed to maximise. But it is really over the past five years that DevOps has fully established itself as an industry standard in developing software systems built to run in cloud environments, exclusively or as part of a hybrid infrastructure.

Today, DevOps is arguably the single most influential trend in software development. That’s reflected in the fact DevOps engineer is currently one of the most in-demand IT roles. Right now, there are over 17,000 DevOps engineer roles advertised on Indeed.com in the USA alone with an average salary range of $96,600-$122,000.

So much demand for DevOps expertise means lots of interest in the topic from both inside and outside the IT industry.

If you are researching DevOps, you’ve come to the right place for DevOps statistics! We’ve diligently compiled and ordered every DevOps stat put together by reputable industry sources. All here in one place for your convenience.

We are confident you’ll find every DevOps stat you might need to reference right here. And if we’re missing any you think would add value, please do let us know so we can keep on improving this resource!

DevOps market stats: how big is the DevOps market and what is it worth?

The DevOps market size was over $8 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of over 20% from 2023 to 2032 to reach a value of over $70 billion. The market value for North America is expected to exceed USD 25 billion.

Infographic showing value of global DevOps market

Source – Global Market Insights

The global DevOps market size was valued at $6.78 billion in 2020, and is projected to reach $57.90 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 24.2% from 2021 to 2030.

Asia-Pacific would exhibit the highest CAGR of 26.3% during 2021-2030.

Source – Allied Market Research

Here are some of the most important facts about DevOps at a glance:

  • DevOps / DevSecOps is the most important software development methodology in the world.
  • 19% of recruiters are struggling to recruit the DevOps expertise they need.
  • 21% of software development teams have adopted a DevOps approach to source code management in 2021
  • 35.5% of IT recruiters would like to hire professionals with DevOps skills.
  • 36% of software developers would like to acquire DevOps skills.
  • Linux is the most widely used technology in DevOps tech stacks worldwide

Source – Statista

DevOps practitioners, specialists and team member demographics

Respondents to the Google Cloud State of DevOps survey 2022 by gender:

  • 76% men
  • 18% women
  • 1% non-binary
  • 6% not specified

Respondents indicated that the composition of their teams was 25% women, which was no change from the previous year.

11% of respondents had a disability, 82% did not, and 7% did not report.

19% of respondents identified themselves as a member of an underrepresented group, which could refer to race, gender, or another characteristic.

13% of respondents had at least 16 years of work experience, 18% had 11-15 years, 33% had 6-10 years, 27% had 3-5 years, and 8% had 0-2 years. This shows a significant shift to less work experience compared to the previous year, which may indicate that many of the more experienced developers have retired, shifting the ratio significantly.

Bar graph showing average years of experience DevOps professionals have by year

Source: Google Cloud – State of DevOps 2022

U.S.A-only demographics for DevOps engineers

How old is the average DevOps engineer?

The average DevOps engineer is 39.3 years old.

Breakdown of DevOps engineers by age:

  • 20-30 years old – 18%
  • 30-40 years old – 36%
  • 40+ years old – 45%

What level of education do DevOps engineers have?

  • Bachelors – 75%
  • Masters – 20%
  • Associate – 2%
  • Diploma – 1%
  • Other Degrees – 2%

What is the unemployment rate for DevOps engineers?

In 2021, the unemployment rate for DevOps engineers was 2.1%, down from a slight increase in 2020 (2.4%).

How long does the average DevOps engineer stay in a job?

40% of DevOps engineers stay in their job for between 1-2 years with 18% staying put for less than a year. However 33% also stay with one company for between 5-7 years.

Chart showing number of years DevOps engineers stay in their jobs

What is the gender split for DevOps engineers?

86% of DevOps engineers are male and 14% female. On average, female DevOps engineers earn $0.93 for ever $1 earned by male DevOps engineers.

What race are DevOps engineers?

  • White – 52,2%
  • Asian – 29,8%
  • Hispanic or Latino – 8,4%
  • Unknown – 4,9%
  • Black or African American – 4,6%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native – 0,1%

Source – Zippia

How much do DevOps engineers earn?

Germany – €77,675 average salary with an average range from €54,445 to €96,484

UK – £56,728 average salary with an average range from £40,000 to £70,000

Switzerland – CHF95,841 average salary

USA – $116,000 average salary with an average range from $72,000 to $130,000

Poland – €52,000 average salary

Ukraine – $36,000 to $66,000

Bulgaria – €30,000 to €84,000

For a full granular breakdown of international salary ranges for DevOps engineers, based on several different data sources, please refer to our analysis International salary ranges for DevOps engineers.

What tools and technology skills are most used by DevOps engineers and teams?

Most popular technology skills in the DevOps tech stack worldwide in 2022. What technologies and tools do DevOps engineers and teams use most?

  • Linux – 26%
  • Docker – 25%
  • Terraform – 19%
  • AWS – 17%
  • Bash – 13%

Bar chart showing most popular technical skills for DevOps professionals to have

SourceStatista

Which departments or teams do DevOps specialists work in?

26% of respondents worked in development or engineering teams in 2022 (+3% year-over-year), 23% worked in DevOps or SRE teams (+2%), 19% worked as part of IT Ops or infrastructure teams (+10%), 17% were managers (-1%), and 4% were C-level executives (-5%).

Bar chart showing departments DevOps professionals belong to by order of most common

Source – Google Cloud – State of DevOps 2022

What industries and sectors do DevOps practitioners work in?

44% of respondents classified themselves to the technology sector in 2022 (+11% year-on-year), 13% to the financial services sector (-1%) and 8% to the retail/consumer/e-commerce sector (-1%).

Bar chart showing the industries and sectors that employ most DevOps professionals

Source – Google Cloud – State of DevOps 2022

What size are the organisations DevOps practitioners work in?

While in the previous year the largest group of DevOps users, 22%, worked in companies with more than 10,000 employees, this figure fell to 16% for 2022. At 17%, a larger proportion now works in companies with 100-499 employees.

  • 10,000+ – 22%
  • 5000-9999 – 7%
  • 2000-4999 – 15%
  • 500-1999 – 13%
  • 100-499 – 15%
  • 20-99 – 15%
  • 10-19 – 5%
  • 5-9 – 2%
  • 1-4 – 5%

Source – Google Cloud – State of DevOps 2022

DevOps adoption stats and facts

83% of IT decision makers report their organization is implementing DevOps practices. However, only 21% of respondents identify their team as “a DevOps team”, down from a peak of 29% in 2018.

Chart showing how many software development and other IT specialists identify as belonging to a DevOps team

Source – State of DevOps Report – Puppet

How popular is DevOps as a software development methodology?

DevOps/DevSecOps is the most common software development methodology globally, used by 47% of software development teams in 2022 (compared to 35.9% in 2021). Respondents stated their reasons for adopting a DevOps/DevSecOps approach as:

  • faster time to market.
  • security, code quality.
  • improved communication and collaboration among developers.

Bar chart showing most common DevOps approaches

Source – Statista

How well do companies that use DevOps implement it?

18% of organisations and teams that have adopted a DevOps approach to software development consider themselves to be “highly evolved” in their implementation and application. 78% consider themselves to be evolved to a middle level and 4% to a low level.

Infographic showing perceived level of DevOps adoption

67% of mid-evolution respondents say their team has automated most repetitive tasks.

However, 58% report multiple handoffs between teams are required for deployment of products and services, indicating they haven’t addressed the organizational silos and misaligned incentives around deploying software to production that gave rise to the DevOps movement.

Level of DevOps adoption – stats

12% of organisations defined as having started a DevOps evolution but still at a low level at feature a cross-functional team that builds features and independently ships and runs them for customers. That rises to 18% for organisations with a mid-level of DevOps evolution and 26% for those at a high level.

3% of organisations defined as at a low level of DevOps evolution have a team that provides software delivery solutions, e.g., infrastructure, data, CI/CD tooling, etc., for many feature teams, primarily through self-service APIs. At the mid-level that rises to 15% and to 23% at a high level.

16% of organisations defined as at a low level of DevOps evolution have a team that provisions and maintains infrastructure that other teams use to design, build, and deliver features. At a mid-level that rises to 18% and declines to 15% for organisations at a high level.

3% of organisations with a low level of DevOps evolution have a team that creates reusable assets (e.g., libraries, tools, or services) for other teams to assemble into solutions. At the mid-level the figure is 6% and 10% for organisations categorised as at a high level of DevOps evolution.

13% of organistions defined as at a low level of DevOps transformation have a developer team that builds features that are delivered to customers by another team. 10% of organisations defined as at the mid-level have such teams and 7% of those at a high level.

16% of organisations at a low-level of DevOps evolution have a team that defines the standards, processes, practices, frameworks or architectures that other teams must follow. 10% of those at a mid-level of DevOps evolution also do and 7% of those at a high level.

15% of organisations still at a low-level of DevOps evolution, 6% of those at a mid-level, and 5% at a high level have a team who is responsible for responding to tickets related to infrastructure issues.

Of organisations at a low-level of DevOps evolution, 7% have a team whose primary mission is to help define and encourage the adoption of good practices by other teams. That rises to 9% among organisations at a mid-level and drops to 4% among organisations with a high level of DevOps evolution.

Finally, 5% of organisations at a low level have a team of managers who define and coordinate the goals of multiple teams or departments. 6% of organisations in the mid-level have one and 4% of those defined as having reached a high level.

Stats on team-level perception of DevOps culture and processes

The following questions are designed to indicate how well evolved DevOps culture, practices and processes are at the team level in organisations that have begun a DevOps evolution. Percentages are split between organisations defined as having achieved high, mid and low levels of DevOps evolution.

  1. My team has a clear understanding of our responsibilities to other teams.
  • High – 91% agree or strongly agree
  • Mid – 78% agree or strongly agree
  • Low – 46% agree or strongly agree
  1. Members of my team have clear roles, plans, and goals for their work.
  • High – 89% agree or strongly agree
  • Mid – 72% agree or strongly agree
  • Low – 46% agree or strongly agree
  1. Teams adjacent to my team have a clear understanding of their responsibilities as they relate to my team
  • High – 77% agree or strongly agree
  • Mid – 58% agree or strongly agree
  • Low – 33% agree or strongly agree
  1. Teams that share common tooling, language, or methodologies actively share best practices with one another.
  • High – 85% agree or strongly agree
  • Mid – 67% agree or strongly agree
  • Low – 32% agree or strongly agree
  1. The automation my team uses improves the quality of our work
  • High – 97% agree
  • Mid – 87% agree
  • Low – 51% agree
  1. My team has automated most repetitive tasks
  • High – 90% agree
  • Mid – 67% agree
  • Low – 25% agree
  1. Is DevOps at your organization mostly promoted, or mostly resisted?
  • High – 2% say actively resisted, 9% say passively resisted, 26% say passively promoted and 60% say actively promoted.
  • High-mid – 2% say actively resisted, 13% say passively resisted, 38% say passively promoted and 44% say actively promoted.
  • Mid – 3% say actively resisted, 21% say passively resisted, 41% say passively promoted and 30% say actively promoted.
  • Low-mid – 5% say actively resisted, 30% say passively resisted, 40% say passively promoted and 17% say actively promoted.
  • Low – 13% say actively resisted, 40% say passively resisted, 29% say passively promoted and 6% say actively promoted.
  1. Our culture discourages risk
  • High – 15% agree
  • Mid – 21% agree
  • Low – 33% agree

What percentage of DevOps organisations use cloud and on-premise infrastructure?

Of organisations defined as having a high level of DevOps evolution, 80% made use of cloud infrastructure and 49% used on-premise infrastructure.

In organisations with a mid-level of DevOps evolution, 65% used cloud infrastructure and 62% on-premise.

In organisations with a low level of DevOps evolution, 54% used cloud infrastructure and 67% on-premise infrastructure.

Source – State of DevOps Report – Puppet

Respondents to a Google Cloud survey were asked where their primary service or application was hosted

56% of respondents indicated using a public cloud (including multiple public clouds), a 5% increase from 2019.

How many DevOps organisations use a multi-cloud infrastructure?

21% of respondents reported deploying to multiple public clouds.

What % of DevOps organisations don’t host their primary services or applications in the cloud?

21% of respondents indicated not using the cloud, and instead used a data centre or on-premises solution.

34% of respondents report using a hybrid cloud and 29% report using a private cloud.

Chart showing levels of multi-cloud adoption by DevOps teams

Why do DevOps organisations use multiple public cloud providers?

Of the DevOps organisations that had a multi-cloud strategy their reasons for doing so were given as:

  • To leverage the unique benefits of each provider – 26%
  • Availability – 22%
  • Disaster recovery – 17%
  • Legal compliance – 13%
  • Negotiation tactic or procurement requirement – 8%
  • Other – 8%
  • Lack of trust in one provider – 6%

Which cloud services are used by DevOps organisations?

Only 10.55% of respondents did not use a cloud in 2022 – 50% less than in the previous year. The largest increase was reported by public clouds (+36% to 76.08%) and hybrid clouds (+25% to 42.47%).

Table showing cloud services most used by DevOps professionals

Source – Google Cloud – State of DevOps 2022

Are there any stats on metrics that show how DevOps improves software quality?

Table showing performance metrics of DevOps teams

Highly evolved DevOps teams show better metrics than peers across the following performance metrics:

  • Deployment frequency – on demand
  • Lead time for changes – less than an hour
  • Mean time to recovery (MTTR) – less than an hour
  • Change failure rate – less than 5%

Source – State of DevOps Report – Puppet

Teams defined as having “elite” DevOps performance showed x973 frequency of code deployments compared to those considered “low” performers.

Teams defined as having “elite” DevOps performance showed x6570 faster lead time from commit to deploy compared to those considered “low” performers.

Teams defined as having “elite” DevOps performance showed x3 lower change failure rates (changes are 1/3 less likely to fail) compared to those considered “low” performers.

Teams defined as having “elite” DevOps performance showed x6570 faster time to recover from incidents compared to those considered “low” performers.

Source – Google Cloud

What are the factors driving DevOps adoption?

  • Rising need for reducing software development cycle and accelerating delivery
  • Increasing demand for streamlining collaboration between IT and operation teams
  • Growing adoption of automation in software development and testing
  • Increasing focus of enterprises on reducing IT capital expenditure
  • Surging adoption of microservices and service virtualization

What are the problems and bottlenecks hindering DevOps adoption?

  • Lack of standardized DevOps tools and solutions
  • Complexities in implementing DevOps approach

Source – Global Market Insights

Conclusion – the adoption of a DevOps approach to software development is a growing trend by almost every metric

If the DevOps statistics and facts collated here show one thing, it is that they all point to an accelerating trend towards organisations and software development teams adopting the approach.

Demand for DevOps expertise means the market is growing in value across services and solutions and is expected to continue to do so for the foreseeable future, alongside the continuing shift to cloud computing.

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