DevOps Engineer Salary in London 2026: Full Guide

London is Europe's highest-paying tech market, and DevOps engineers are among the top earners within it. In 2026, salaries range from £55,000 for junior roles up to £130,000+ for principal or staff engineers at financial institutions and FAANG companies.

What DevOps Engineers Earn in London

The median DevOps engineer salary in London is approximately £90,000 per year - significantly ahead of Berlin (€75K), Paris (€62K), and remote-only roles at European employers. See live DevOps engineer salary data for London →

Salary ranges reflect base pay. Total compensation at public tech companies and financial institutions adds 20-50% via bonuses and RSUs. Contracting rates are also significant - experienced DevOps contractors typically command £500-£800/day inside IR35, or £650-£950/day outside.

Industry Breakdown

Employer type drives more variance than experience level at mid-career. Finance pays the highest base; FAANG competes with equity; startups offer upside.

Finance and Banking (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Barclays, HSBC): The highest base salaries in London. Mid-level DevOps engineers at investment banks earn £90K-£115K; senior roles reach £120K-£160K with substantial discretionary bonuses. The trade-off: stricter on-call requirements, more complex compliance tooling (HashiCorp Vault, network segmentation), and conservative tech stacks. FAANG and Big Tech (Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft): Competitive base pay - £100K-£135K for senior engineers - paired with meaningful RSU grants. Amazon's London engineering offices are a major DevOps employer, particularly for SRE and platform teams. Total comp at this tier often exceeds finance base+bonus when equity vests in a growth year. Tech Startups and Scale-ups (Monzo, Revolut, Wise, Deliveroo): Lower base (£75K-£110K for senior) but equity upside can be significant. London's strong fintech and consumer tech ecosystem means a disproportionate number of pre-IPO growth companies. Engineers who joined Revolut or Wise at Series B have seen equity outcomes that dwarf any salary differential.

London vs. Other Cities

London commands a clear premium over other European tech markets - but cost of living and tax structure matter.

After UK income tax and National Insurance (~35-40% effective rate for a £90K earner), net pay is roughly £54K-£58K. London's cost of living is high, but the absolute salary gap over Berlin means London still leads on take-home pay for most engineers.

Compare DevOps engineer salaries in Berlin → See remote DevOps engineer salary data →

For the wider London picture, see our London tech salaries 2026 guide covering all engineering roles. To benchmark against 20 global markets, the software engineer salary by city comparison provides a comprehensive worldwide view.

Skills That Command Premium Pay

Specific toolchain expertise moves DevOps engineers into the upper salary bands regardless of experience level:

1. Kubernetes and container orchestration - GKE, EKS, AKS. Engineers who own Kubernetes in production earn £10K-£20K above peers with equivalent seniority. 2. Terraform and Infrastructure as Code - Terraform, Pulumi, CDK. IaC skills are now table stakes, but depth and cross-cloud experience separate mid from senior. 3. AWS / GCP / Azure at scale - Cloud certifications (AWS Solutions Architect, CKA) carry weight, especially at financial institutions where they factor into promotion decisions. 4. Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) mindset - SLO/SLA ownership, on-call design, incident management. SRE-tilted DevOps engineers command a 10-15% premium at FAANG and scale-ups. 5. DevSecOps and compliance tooling - Vault, SAST/DAST integration, zero-trust networking. Financial sector employers pay heavily for DevOps engineers who understand SOC 2 and PCI-DSS compliance toolchains.

Engineers with Kubernetes + Terraform + AWS trifecta are consistently among the highest earners in the London DevOps market.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average DevOps engineer salary in London? The median is approximately £90,000 per year. Junior DevOps engineers start at £55K-£70K; senior engineers earn £100K-£130K; principal or staff roles reach £130K+ at financial institutions and FAANG. Do London DevOps engineers earn more than software engineers? Generally, yes - by £5K-£15K at comparable seniority. DevOps engineers with SRE skills and cloud platform ownership typically command a premium, particularly at companies where infrastructure is a revenue-critical differentiator. Is London better paid than Berlin for DevOps? Yes in absolute terms. London senior DevOps salaries (£100K-£130K) exceed Berlin equivalents (€80K-€100K). After tax, London still leads, though the gap narrows with cost-of-living adjustments. Check Berlin DevOps salaries → Which London sectors hire the most DevOps engineers? Fintech and banking are the largest employers, followed by e-commerce, cloud-native startups, and media tech. Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Revolut, Monzo, and Sky are consistently among the largest active hirers of DevOps and SRE talent in London.