What does a head of DevOps do?
The head of DevOps is responsible for the overall DevOps strategy within a business. They lead platform, automation, and infrastructure teams to ensure software delivery is fast, secure, and reliable across environments.
They manage senior engineers and architects, set standards for automation, implement scalable infrastructure, and align DevOps with product and engineering goals. The role also includes vendor management and stakeholder communication.
In growing tech businesses, they may establish the function from scratch. In mature organisations, they focus on leading large-scale transformation, improving deployment metrics, and aligning DevOps with business outcomes.
Key responsibilities of a head of DevOps.
The head of DevOps owns the overall strategy, performance, and scalability of DevOps operations. Their responsibilities usually include:
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Defining the company-wide DevOps strategy and infrastructure roadmap
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Leading DevOps, platform, and SRE teams across regions or squads
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Overseeing CI/CD pipeline governance and release reliability
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Aligning deployment workflows with business delivery timelines
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Managing infrastructure cost, security posture, and technical risk
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Coordinating with engineering, product, and security teams
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Driving cloud optimisation across AWS, Azure, or GCP environments
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Ensuring monitoring, alerting, and recovery strategies are in place
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Representing DevOps metrics and decisions at leadership level
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Building scalable and repeatable infrastructure processes and policies
This role blends strategic leadership, platform governance, and operational scale.
Skills and requirements for a head of DevOps.
Heads of DevOps lead scalable and reliable software delivery strategies. Employers typically look for:
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8–12 years of experience in DevOps, infrastructure, or platform engineering
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Proven experience leading DevOps teams across multiple projects
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Strong understanding of cloud architecture and automation frameworks
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Track record of improving deployment speed, uptime, and observability
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Skilled in cost optimisation and vendor management across tooling
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Ability to define DevOps roadmaps, team structure, and hiring needs
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Confidence reporting to CTOs or engineering leadership
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Experience standardising incident management and compliance
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Familiarity with platform security, auditing, and operational resilience
Most heads of DevOps lead teams across SRE, infrastructure, and tooling, driving digital maturity in high-growth or enterprise environments.
Average salary for a head of DevOps.
In the UK, the average salary for a head of DevOps typically ranges from £90,000 to £130,000, based on delivery scope, organisational scale, and system complexity.
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Mid-level heads of DevOps tend to earn between £90,000 and £110,000
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Senior heads leading global infrastructure or high-availability systems may earn between £111,000 and £130,000
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Packages often include bonuses based on uptime, team performance, or deployment frequency
Salaries are highest in London, Manchester, and in remote-first roles within fintech, SaaS, and enterprise cloud providers.
Career progression for a head of DevOps.
A head of DevOps manages platform stability, system automation, and infrastructure strategy across engineering teams. This senior leadership role may evolve into executive-level tech leadership. Typical progression includes:
DevOps engineer
Handles deployments, CI/CD, and environment health monitoring.
Senior DevOps engineer
Leads platform initiatives, improves security and automation.
DevOps manager / architect
Oversees team operations and system design.
Head of DevOps
Owns platform architecture, team development, and infrastructure strategy across the business.
VP of engineering / CTO
Leads tech innovation and long-term infrastructure roadmaps across the entire organisation.
System Developer
Electrician
Data Cabling
Electrical Improver
salary guide
Our UK tech salary guide.
Heads of DevOps lead technical strategy, platform performance, and infrastructure innovation. Compensation should reflect ownership across delivery and reliability.
Use our 2025 UK tech salary guide to benchmark leadership-level DevOps roles, track 2024 trends, and plan for 2026 projections.
FAQS
Head of DevOps FAQs.
They oversee DevOps strategy, culture, tooling, and performance across the engineering organisation. This includes aligning CI/CD practices with business delivery goals, leading incident response processes, and guiding security posture across environments.
It typically reports into the CTO or VP of Engineering and works closely with Heads of Engineering, Product, and QA. The role bridges development velocity with infrastructure resilience.
Hands-on experience leading DevOps or platform teams, delivering scalable cloud architectures, and implementing DevSecOps practices. Candidates should be able to manage engineers, budgets, and tooling strategy simultaneously.
Scaling infrastructure without downtime, ensuring compliance in complex environments, managing alert fatigue, and embedding DevOps practices across all product teams.
Options include VP of Engineering, CTO, or moving into platform consulting or site reliability strategy roles, especially in global or enterprise settings.
