Ruadhri McGarry explores the DevOps career route and offers advice to professionals considering work in this sector.

“The DevOps space in 2026 is certainly busy but more selective,” according to Ruadhri McGarry, an associate director at IT Search and a DevOps, cloud and cybersecurity specialist recruiter. 

While hiring is active, companies are moving more slowly than in recent years, he explained, leading to an environment in which platform engineering teams are generally stable, despite ongoing expectations to continue to automate, and workplaces are subject to a more measured pace of hiring. 

“Overall, the market is stable with steady demand, with growth expected to remain consistent as organisations continue to invest in platform modernisation,” McGarry told SiliconRepublic.com. 

So, with that in mind, what should students and professionals aiming for a career in this space know about the current landscape?

In the know

Qualifications and certifications are, for many, the first step into the DevOps or platform engineering world. McGarry noted cloud certifications across AWS, Azure or GCP can enable candidates to demonstrate foundational knowledge and understanding of modern infrastructure environments. 

“However, for more senior positions a key differentiator is the ability to demonstrate experience working on production workloads building, scaling and operating systems. In practice, candidates who have ownership of infrastructure and clear exposure to automation and delivery pipelines will stand out.”

A major advantage in today’s STEM landscape, when building a career, is the improved access to roles and opportunities that may have previously required a third-level degree. DevOps is no different and there are multiple alternate routes, which McGarry said reflects the range of the discipline itself. 

“Many professionals transition from software engineering, infrastructure or systems administration backgrounds. Others move from networking or security roles, particularly as DevSecOps continues to grow in importance.

“It is also increasingly common to see candidates move into DevOps from adjacent areas such as data engineering, particularly where MLOps and real-time platforms are involved.”

When it comes to employment, he explained that opportunities remain strong, though there is specific demand in certain areas, namely in Kubernetes and cloud-native engineering, site reliability engineering (SRE), DevSecOps and cloud security automation. 

“There is also steady demand in observability and FinOps-related DevOps, alongside a growing increase in hybrid data/DevOps roles, particularly within MLOps and real-time platforms.”

Skills and challenges

While skills and abilities often evolve and change on the job, and experience is a teaching moment in itself, there are still a number of skills that McGarry believes experts and students should prioritise. 

He explained that the most critical skills combine technical depth with an operational mindset, adding that from a technical perspective, key capabilities include depth of cloud experience in AWS, Azure or GCP; Kubernetes and container orchestration; infrastructure as code using Terraform, CloudFormation or Helm; CI/CD pipeline ownership, particularly across GitHub or Jenkins; security fundamentals, including least-privilege IAM and secrets management.

“Beyond tooling, candidates who can demonstrate ownership of platforms and systems, rather than just execution of tasks, are consistently the most in demand.”

Experts also need to have a number of soft skills, one of them being the ability to adapt to emerging challenges: for example, the breadth of DevOps, which spans infrastructure, software delivery, security and operations. 

McGarry said, “This can make it difficult for individuals to develop sufficient depth. Another challenge is the pace of change. Tools, platforms and practices continue to evolve rapidly, requiring continuous learning and adaptation.

“These challenges are typically overcome by focusing on core principles of automation, scalability, reliability and security rather than individual tools, and by gaining hands-on experience in real-world environments. From an organisational perspective, success depends on embedding DevOps practices into engineering culture, rather than treating it purely as a tooling function.”

Ultimately, McGarry finds that the DevOps space is on an evolving trajectory, moving from simpler roles into a broader engineering discipline where the key focus is on building reliable, scalable and secure platforms.

Looking to the future, he expects there to be fewer senior generalist DevOps roles, and for more value to be placed on defined platform engineering, SRE and DevSecOps skillsets. 

“AIOps and automation will continue to expand, particularly within observability and incident management. In my opinion, engineers who can design systems, automate processes and build strong feedback loops will be best positioned for long-term success.”

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