A newly published 2018 Annual IT/OPS salary survey released by O’Reilly Media shows a slight decrease from last year’s salary average of $100k (£76.9k).
The results of the 2018 survey revealed that the global median pay for DevOps experts now stands at $90k (£69.2k).
The survey also suggests that this year’s salary drop could be because there were fewer respondents taking part in this year’s survey.
According to the salary survey, the majority of survey respondents were male, with only 4% of responses coming from female DevOps professionals.
The survey also states that salaries increase depending on an employee’s age, experience and role.
While income is heavily dependent on a company’s location, DevOps professionals who work for a larger company are likely to earn more.
The average pay for companies employing two-to-100 employees is slightly over $78k (£59.8k), compared to the $114K (£87.5k) in companies that employ more than 10,000 employees.
Factors that determine a DevOps income
The survey points out that professional’s salaries can also fluctuate depending on the industry they’re working in.
The highest median pay is the healthcare sector, with professionals earning a potential salary of up to $113k (£86.7k). The lowest median pay is the educational sector, with most professionals earning an income of $74k (£56.8k).
However, most DevOps professionals tend to work in the software industry where the average salary is $95k (£72.9k).
The average salary for those who code 20 or more hours a week is $82k (£62.9k) compared to the $94k (£72.1k) for those coding between one to three hours per week.
The survey also states that those who have experience with programming languages software, such as Python, can earn a median income of $86.3k (£66.2k).
Employees who have experience using other software’s like PHP and Go pay better, can earn a median income of $90k (£69k) and $102 (£78.3k).
Commenting on the results of the survey, Nikki McDonald, Content Director and Chair of the Velocity Conference said, “DevOps remains a thriving field with many opportunities for learning and advancement. Yet it’s also one that moves quickly, and choosing the right trends and technologies to focus on can be rewarded with larger pay checks.”
“While the dominance of certain programming languages continues, we expect to see new ones emerge and others fall away as more companies move to the cloud and micro services-based architectures. Ops professionals seeking advancement would do well to keep learning and expanding their skills sets in these areas.”
