Site Reliability Engineering Job Trends

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Site Reliability Engineering skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 347 313 284
Rank change year-on-year -34 -29 +67
Permanent jobs citing Site Reliability Engineering 593 429 807
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.54% 0.86% 0.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.74% 0.97% 1.23%
Number of salaries quoted 428 155 321
10th Percentile £52,775 £57,500 £57,500
25th Percentile £62,500 £64,750 £66,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £77,500 £80,000 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.13% - -
75th Percentile £96,250 £96,250 £100,750
90th Percentile £101,250 £120,000 £118,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £75,000 £70,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% -6.67% +12.36%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Site Reliability Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 80,269 44,315 65,850
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.06% 88.64% 80.88%
Number of salaries quoted 55,761 25,263 40,217
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £51,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -6.86% -6.87%

Site Reliability Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Site Reliability Engineering relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Site Reliability Engineering job vacancy trend in the UK

Site Reliability Engineering
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Site Reliability Engineering.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Site Reliability Engineering

Site Reliability Engineering
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Site Reliability Engineering over the 6 months to 1 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Site Reliability Engineering in the UK

Site Reliability Engineering
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Site Reliability Engineering within the UK over the 6 months to 1 September 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -53 477 £77,500 -3.13% 756
UK excluding London -8 420 £75,000 +7.14% 391
Work from Home -58 207 £71,991 -10.01% 334
London -17 150 £90,000 -4.00% 512
North of England -81 139 £80,000 +6.67% 89
North West -65 97 £75,000 +11.88% 54
South West -9 76 £75,000 -16.67% 52
South East +10 56 £80,000 +3.23% 54
Northern Ireland -33 53 £80,000 - 39
Scotland +5 33 £77,500 +10.71% 83
East of England +1 29 £90,000 +30.91% 29
Midlands -34 23 £68,496 +1.47% 39
North East - 23 £80,000 - 12
Yorkshire -46 19 £97,500 +25.81% 23
West Midlands -19 18 £71,991 +6.65% 24
Wales -58 11 £71,991 +25.20% 9
East Midlands - 5 £62,500 - 15

Site Reliability Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 8 (1.35%) Apache
2 6 (1.01%) Confluence
3 4 (0.67%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.17%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.17%) WebSphere
Applications
1 7 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.17%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 278 (46.88%) AWS
2 247 (41.65%) Azure
3 123 (20.74%) GCP
4 75 (12.65%) SaaS
5 71 (11.97%) GitHub
6 54 (9.11%) AWS CloudFormation
7 53 (8.94%) Datadog
8 46 (7.76%) Azure DevOps
9 34 (5.73%) GitHub Actions
10 33 (5.56%) Serverless
11 32 (5.40%) Amazon EKS
12 31 (5.23%) Azure AKS
13 26 (4.38%) OpenShift
14 18 (3.04%) Amazon ECS
14 18 (3.04%) dbt
15 11 (1.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 10 (1.69%) Azure Monitor
16 10 (1.69%) Entra ID
17 8 (1.35%) Amazon MSK
17 8 (1.35%) Amazon OpenSearch
Communications & Networking
1 22 (3.71%) TCP/IP
2 12 (2.02%) Firewall
3 10 (1.69%) DNS
3 10 (1.69%) VPN
4 4 (0.67%) ATM
4 4 (0.67%) BGP
4 4 (0.67%) Network Security
5 3 (0.51%) MQTT
5 3 (0.51%) WAN
5 3 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (0.34%) HTTP
6 2 (0.34%) IPv4
6 2 (0.34%) IPv6
6 2 (0.34%) VLAN
6 2 (0.34%) WireGuard
7 1 (0.17%) Broadband
7 1 (0.17%) Ethernet VPN
7 1 (0.17%) Internet
7 1 (0.17%) Multicast
7 1 (0.17%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (3.54%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (2.19%) MongoDB
3 11 (1.85%) NoSQL
4 8 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
4 8 (1.35%) Elasticsearch
4 8 (1.35%) MySQL
4 8 (1.35%) SQL Server
5 7 (1.18%) Azure SQL Database
5 7 (1.18%) Redis
6 6 (1.01%) Data Lake
6 6 (1.01%) KDB
7 3 (0.51%) NonStop SQL
7 3 (0.51%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.34%) Big Data
8 2 (0.34%) Power BI
9 1 (0.17%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.17%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.17%) Couchbase
9 1 (0.17%) Hadoop
9 1 (0.17%) ZAP BI
Development Applications
1 66 (11.13%) GitLab
2 56 (9.44%) Jenkins
3 49 (8.26%) Git
4 27 (4.55%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 8 (1.35%) JIRA
6 6 (1.01%) Bitbucket
7 5 (0.84%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.34%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.34%) minitest
8 2 (0.34%) MSI
8 2 (0.34%) RSpec
8 2 (0.34%) Snyk
9 1 (0.17%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.17%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.17%) JMeter
9 1 (0.17%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.17%) Octopus Deploy
9 1 (0.17%) Postman
9 1 (0.17%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 120 (20.24%) Social Skills
2 108 (18.21%) Finance
3 52 (8.77%) Law
4 45 (7.59%) Analytical Skills
5 35 (5.90%) Public Sector
6 31 (5.23%) Banking
6 31 (5.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (1.85%) Marketing
8 10 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.18%) Financial Institution
9 7 (1.18%) Front Office
9 7 (1.18%) Manufacturing
9 7 (1.18%) Retail
10 6 (1.01%) Digital Economy
11 5 (0.84%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (0.84%) Legal
12 3 (0.51%) Aerospace
12 3 (0.51%) Automotive
12 3 (0.51%) Electronics
12 3 (0.51%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 166 (27.99%) Site Reliability Engineer
2 147 (24.79%) Site Engineer
3 133 (22.43%) Senior
4 109 (18.38%) DevOps Engineer
5 86 (14.50%) Lead
6 64 (10.79%) Python Engineer
7 52 (8.77%) Software Engineer
8 51 (8.60%) IT Manager
9 48 (8.09%) IT Services Manager
9 48 (8.09%) Resilience Manager
9 48 (8.09%) Service Manager
10 47 (7.93%) Azure Engineer
11 46 (7.76%) Cloud Engineer
12 43 (7.25%) Platform Engineer
13 41 (6.91%) Principal Engineer
14 34 (5.73%) Principal DevOps Engineer
15 27 (4.55%) AWS Engineer
16 26 (4.38%) Cloud Platform Engineer
17 22 (3.71%) Senior DevOps
18 21 (3.54%) Senior DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 270 (45.53%) Terraform
2 51 (8.60%) Middleware
3 41 (6.91%) Spring
3 41 (6.91%) Spring Boot
4 31 (5.23%) Kafka
5 22 (3.71%) .NET
6 16 (2.70%) Elastic Stack
7 13 (2.19%) Node.js
7 13 (2.19%) OpenTelemetry
8 11 (1.85%) Loki
9 10 (1.69%) ARM Templates
9 10 (1.69%) React
10 8 (1.35%) Apache NiFi
11 7 (1.18%) REST
12 5 (0.84%) AWS CDK
12 5 (0.84%) FIX Protocol
12 5 (0.84%) gRPC
12 5 (0.84%) Vue
12 5 (0.84%) YAML
13 4 (0.67%) Ray
Miscellaneous
1 139 (23.44%) Cloud Native
2 50 (8.43%) Cyber Threat
3 45 (7.59%) Distributed Systems
4 17 (2.87%) Hybrid Cloud
5 15 (2.53%) Product Ownership
6 12 (2.02%) Onboarding
7 9 (1.52%) Management Information System
7 9 (1.52%) Public Cloud
8 7 (1.18%) AI Agents
8 7 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (1.18%) Virtual Team
9 6 (1.01%) Legacy Applications
10 5 (0.84%) Cyberattack
10 5 (0.84%) Data Centre
10 5 (0.84%) Fixed Income
11 4 (0.67%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (0.67%) Data Structures
11 4 (0.67%) Renewable Energy
12 3 (0.51%) Distributed Computing
12 3 (0.51%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 112 (18.89%) Linux
2 33 (5.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 28 (4.72%) Unix
4 26 (4.38%) Windows
5 25 (4.22%) CentOS
6 11 (1.85%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.84%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.67%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.51%) VMS
10 2 (0.34%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.17%) Android
11 1 (0.17%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.17%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 367 (61.89%) DevOps
2 275 (46.37%) CI/CD
3 273 (46.04%) Infrastructure as Code
4 239 (40.30%) Observability
5 187 (31.53%) Platform Engineering
6 160 (26.98%) Software Engineering
7 152 (25.63%) Agile
8 118 (19.90%) Containerisation
9 115 (19.39%) Continuous Improvement
10 95 (16.02%) ITIL
11 93 (15.68%) AI
12 88 (14.84%) Disaster Recovery
13 83 (14.00%) Incident Response
14 81 (13.66%) Test Automation
15 79 (13.32%) Mentoring
16 76 (12.82%) Runbook
17 66 (11.13%) Root Cause Analysis
18 63 (10.62%) Incident Management
18 63 (10.62%) Microservices
19 61 (10.29%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 266 (44.86%) Python
2 81 (13.66%) Java
3 70 (11.80%) Bash
4 67 (11.30%) PowerShell
5 36 (6.07%) Go
6 29 (4.89%) SQL
7 16 (2.70%) Bicep
8 15 (2.53%) JavaScript
9 12 (2.02%) C#
10 11 (1.85%) Shell Script
11 10 (1.69%) C
11 10 (1.69%) Rust
12 9 (1.52%) C++
13 8 (1.35%) Groovy
13 8 (1.35%) PHP
14 5 (0.84%) TypeScript
15 4 (0.67%) Ruby
16 3 (0.51%) COBOL
16 3 (0.51%) Kotlin
17 2 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 181 (30.52%) Security Cleared
2 116 (19.56%) DV Cleared
3 115 (19.39%) SC Cleared
4 53 (8.94%) ITIL Certification
5 50 (8.43%) CISSP
6 48 (8.09%) CISM
7 23 (3.88%) Degree
8 17 (2.87%) AWS Certification
9 11 (1.85%) Azure Certification
10 8 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.01%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.84%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 5 (0.84%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 3 (0.51%) AWS Certified Developer
14 2 (0.34%) CompTIA Security+
14 2 (0.34%) Master's Degree
15 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Certification
15 1 (0.17%) PMI Certification
15 1 (0.17%) PMP
15 1 (0.17%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (8.26%) ISO 22301
1 49 (8.26%) NIST
2 17 (2.87%) SLA
3 13 (2.19%) QA
4 8 (1.35%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.84%) NCSC
7 4 (0.67%) SOC 2
8 3 (0.51%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.51%) GDPR
8 3 (0.51%) ISO 20022
8 3 (0.51%) ISO 8583
9 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.17%) GxP
10 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.17%) PMO
System Software
1 131 (22.09%) Docker
2 13 (2.19%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (1.01%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.51%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.34%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.34%) iptables
5 2 (0.34%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 219 (36.93%) Kubernetes
2 156 (26.31%) Ansible
3 95 (16.02%) Grafana
4 70 (11.80%) Prometheus
5 26 (4.38%) Argo
6 19 (3.20%) Puppet
7 18 (3.04%) Istio
8 9 (1.52%) Kustomize
9 7 (1.18%) Podman
10 5 (0.84%) Nagios
11 4 (0.67%) Docker Swarm
11 4 (0.67%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.51%) linkerd
13 2 (0.34%) Kibana
13 2 (0.34%) logstash
13 2 (0.34%) Packer
14 1 (0.17%) Graylog
14 1 (0.17%) HP Fortify
14 1 (0.17%) ITRS Geneos
14 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 40 (6.75%) Microsoft
2 39 (6.58%) Google
3 27 (4.55%) Dynatrace
4 19 (3.20%) Splunk
5 17 (2.87%) Red Hat
6 15 (2.53%) Oracle
7 8 (1.35%) Confluent
8 7 (1.18%) Databricks
8 7 (1.18%) ServiceNow
9 6 (1.01%) AppDynamics
9 6 (1.01%) NVIDIA
10 4 (0.67%) Pega
10 4 (0.67%) Tenable
10 4 (0.67%) VocaLink
11 3 (0.51%) HP
11 3 (0.51%) VMware
12 2 (0.34%) Informatica
12 2 (0.34%) Sage
12 2 (0.34%) SGI
13 1 (0.17%) Cisco