APAC DevOps salaries lagging

A new report has found that APAC lags behind other regions in the top salary brackets, despite significant growth globally in DevOps salaries.

The 2021 DevOps Salary Report published by infrastructure automation company Puppet contains findings from a global survey of 2600 technology professionals and provides insights into the current competitive market for DevOps talent.

“As APAC markets such as Singapore and Australia continue to become synonymous with innovation and transformation, organisations must digitally transform and modernise faster than ever. The survey findings show that companies must keep pace with the competitive compensation globally in order to attract and nurture DevOps talent and critical skills in great demand,” said Rachel Lew, Senior Director, APAC, Puppet.

Additionally, the data reveals that women are steadily increasing their earning status across regions, roles and industries.

“It is exciting to see more women increasingly enter higher income brackets, especially in DevOps, which has historically been a male-dominated area,” said Abby Kearns, Chief Technology Officer at Puppet.

“The gradual decrease in a wage gap hopefully points to a long-term shift in pay equity. As a DevOps leader, I am inspired by this progression and I look forward to seeing more equality in wages and gender parity across DevOps overall.”

Pandemic-driven digital transformation efforts have directly impacted the DevOps landscape. These transformational enterprise shifts have forced companies to offer more competitive compensation and invest in top talent to ensure sustainable success. As a result, the 2021 DevOps Salary Report found that more workers are moving into higher income levels than at any time in the past three years. In addition, companies with high-evolution DevOps are compensating their employees at the highest level, with more managers and practitioners entering the salary group earning more than $150,000.

Key findings revealed in the DevOps Salary Report also include:

• Asia Pacific lags behind other regions in terms of wages in the highest salary bands. Only 4% of managers and practitioners combined earned more than $150,000 in 2021, compared to 6% in Europe/UK, 12% in Canada, and 35% in the United States. However, when it comes to salaries of $100,000-plus, Asia Pacific is slightly ahead (33%) of Europe/UK (24%), which is consistent with findings from 2019 and 2020.
• The salary gap between male and female practitioners is closing within higher income brackets, as women make a steady, potentially long-term shift into higher earnings. More than double the number of women entered the higher income level of $150,000-plus than the year before (17% in 2021 compared to 8% in 2020 and 10% in 2019).
• Companies at a high level of DevOps evolution continue to compensate their employees at the highest level, with practitioner salaries doubling and manager salaries nearly tripling from 2020 to 2021. The share of those earning more than $150,000 at high-evolution firms more than doubled to 20% in 2021 from 8% in 2020.
• Respondents working in financial services earned the highest salaries, followed by those working in health care and technology. There have been substantial increases across all sectors, with financial services nearly doubling from 16% in 2020 to 29% in 2021.

The company’s seventh annual DevOps Salary Report is available for download here.

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