DevOps InstituteDevOps Journey Playbook

May 11, 2020

Landscape:The Global Landscape of DevOps Adoption Has Improved

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

Hiring, Recruiting and Key Must-Have Skills are Now a Global Topic

Eveline Oehrlich JP Garbani

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.

Executive Summary

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.

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DevOps is ExpandingCurrent 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.

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Figure 1:2020 Adoption of DevOps Across Different Company Sizes

Source: 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps

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

% o

f Re

spon

dent

s

Small Enterprise(1-999 employees)

Medium Enterprise(1,000-4,999employees)

Large Enterprise(5,000-19,999

employees)

Very Large Enterprise(greater than

20,000 employees)

43

2924

47

2622

48

22

45 45

18

35

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

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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

Source: 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps

% o

f Re

spon

dent

s

Applying

32

6

24

813

16

610

20

30

40

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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.

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.

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Global DevOps AdoptionContinues 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).

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

Source: 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps

% o

f Re

spon

dent

s

Applying DevOpsat Project Level

or Multiple Projects

116

2328 29

10

20

30

40

% o

f Re

spon

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s

Applying DevOpsAcross Our Enterprise

85

3132

21

10

20

30

40

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).

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Figure 4:2020 Global DevOps Planning to Adopt by Regions

Source: 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps

% o

f Re

spon

dent

s

Planning Stage and/or Initial Stage for Our Enterprise(planning horizon within the next 12 months)

10

20

30

40

24

33

28

211

% o

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spon

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Plan to Leverage DevOps in the Future(planning horizon longer than 12 months out)

1824

43

10

20

30

40

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The Future of the DevOpsHuman 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.

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 MeansDevOps 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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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.

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

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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 contactoehrliche@devopsinstitute.comfor questions about this report.