Originally sourced from ZDNet, based on a DevOps Institute survey of 1,260 IT managers.
DevOps Is a Business Proposition, Not Just a Technical One
DevOps has always demanded technical depth, but the discipline is maturing — and so are the skills organizations need to sustain it. According to a survey of 1,260 IT managers conducted by the DevOps Institute, the next phase of DevOps success is less about mastering individual tools and more about combining process knowledge, automation capability, and soft skills into a genuinely hybrid competency profile.
The demand is real: 52% of enterprises surveyed planned to ramp up DevOps hiring. Yet nearly two-thirds (65%) reported difficulty finding candidates with the right combination of skills. That gap — between ambition and available talent — defines the central challenge facing DevOps teams today.
Process Skills Now Outrank Automation
In previous iterations of this survey, automation skills topped the list of must-have competencies. In this round, process skills and knowledge moved into first place at 68%, nudging automation (67%) into second. This shift is not coincidental — it reflects where most organizations are in the DevOps maturity curve.
As the survey authors explain: in the first stage of DevOps adoption, teams focused on learning what the technology could do and how to implement it. The next logical stage is establishing the processes and governance frameworks through which that technology is actually used day-to-day. Tooling without process is fragile; process without tooling is slow. The winning combination requires both.
Why DevOps Transformation Remains Hard
More than half of survey respondents still describe the DevOps journey as difficult. That difficulty is structural, not just technical. DevOps challenges existing organizational boundaries — the longstanding silos between development, operations, security, and quality assurance teams. Introducing DevOps can feel threatening to people and departments that have built their identity and workflows around those silos.
The survey identifies three dominant DevOps team topologies in use today:
- DevOps team silo / advocacy model: A dedicated DevOps team sits between development and operations. This is the most commonly deployed model.
- DevOps collaboration model: DevOps is treated as everyone’s responsibility, with no separate team. This is the second most common approach.
- DevOps tool team model: A dedicated team owns and maintains the tooling that enables DevOps practices across the organization. This is the third most common structure.
Each topology has trade-offs. Silo models can create new bottlenecks even as they remove old ones. Collaboration models distribute responsibility but require strong cultural alignment. Tool team models scale well technically but can become disconnected from day-to-day engineering realities.
The Hybrid DevOps Specialist
The survey’s clearest finding is the emergence of the hybrid DevOps specialist — a professional whose value comes not from depth in a single area but from breadth across several. According to the DevOps Institute, ideal DevOps candidates at this stage of maturity need a holistic view of issues facing developers, operations teams, and the broader automation landscape. Human skills, process knowledge, and technical automation capability are all weighted equally.
A hybrid DevOps specialist typically draws from three overlapping skill domains:
- Technology skills: Cloud infrastructure, CI/CD toolchains, APIs, scripting and programming languages
- Functional skills: IT operations, security, networking, application development
- Process and framework skills: Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Agile methodologies, DevOps adoption practices
Top DevOps Skills by Category
The survey breaks down in-demand skills across three categories. The percentages reflect the proportion of respondents who identified each skill as important for DevOps roles.
Hybrid Skills
| Skill | % Citing as Important |
|---|---|
| Process skills and knowledge | 68% |
| Automation skills | 67% |
| Soft skills | 61% |
| Functional knowledge (networks, storage, etc.) | 36% |
| Specific automation tools | 29% |
| Business skills | 23% |
Functional Skills
| Skill | % Citing as Important |
|---|---|
| IT operational knowledge | 52% |
| Security practices | 52% |
| IT infrastructure knowledge | 50% |
| Application development and design | 45% |
| Quality assurance knowledge | 32% |
| Business continuity / disaster recovery knowledge | 31% |
| Testing knowledge | 31% |
| Network knowledge | 28% |
Technical Skills
| Skill | % Citing as Important |
|---|---|
| CI/CD toolchain skills | 69% |
| Cloud platform and environment knowledge | 63% |
| APIs | 41% |
| Analytical knowledge | 31% |
| Multiple programming languages | 28% |
| UI, web and middle-tier services experience | 28% |
What This Means for DevOps Hiring and Development
If you are hiring for DevOps roles, these findings suggest a few practical priorities:
- Don’t hire for tools alone. CI/CD toolchain experience is the top technical skill, but candidates who only know specific tools without understanding underlying process and workflow will struggle to drive organizational change.
- Prioritize process and soft skills alongside automation. The near-parity between process skills (68%) and automation skills (67%) is not accidental — both are essential, and candidates who can bridge them are rare and valuable.
- Security is non-negotiable. Security practices tied with IT operational knowledge at 52%, reflecting the growing adoption of DevSecOps principles. Security can no longer be treated as a downstream concern.
- Cloud fluency is baseline. With 63% of respondents citing cloud platform knowledge as a top technical skill, cloud infrastructure literacy should be treated as a hiring prerequisite, not a bonus.
- Invest in upskilling existing staff. Given that 65% of organizations struggle to find the right skill combinations externally, internal training programs that build hybrid competencies across technical, functional, and process domains are increasingly worth the investment.
Key Takeaway
DevOps is entering a second phase — one where the foundational technical capabilities are assumed, and competitive advantage comes from mastering the human, organizational, and process dimensions that make those technical capabilities deliver real business value. The organizations and individuals that succeed will be those who treat DevOps as a discipline requiring hybrid expertise, not just a stack of tools to configure.