What a DevOps Engineer does in the UK, typical salary, required skills, and the realistic (not instant) path in for career changers.
DevOps Engineers bridge software development and IT operations, automating deployment, infrastructure and monitoring so systems run reliably and updates ship smoothly. It is a senior, specialist role, genuinely one of the highest-paying realistic destinations for someone who started in IT support and built up through cloud engineering.
People who enjoy automation, scripting and continuous learning, typically with real cloud engineering experience already behind them.
Not as a first role, and rarely even as a second. The realistic path is IT support, then cloud engineering (Azure), then specialising into DevOps once you have solid infrastructure and scripting experience.
IT Support → Azure Cloud Engineer → DevOps Engineer → Senior DevOps or Platform Engineer.