DevOps and cloud salaries vs Skilled Worker salary thresholds in 2026: do the numbers work?

“Is £50k enough for a Skilled Worker visa?” is one of the most common questions from engineers looking at UK roles, and the honest answer is it depends on the occupation code. The headline £41,700 figure gets quoted everywhere, but for most tech jobs it is not the number that decides whether a salary qualifies.

This article puts the official thresholds for IT occupation codes next to current advertised pay for DevOps, cloud and SRE roles, so you can see where the lines actually cross.

How the Skilled Worker salary rule works

GOV.UK sets out the general rule. The minimum salary is the higher of:

• £41,700 a year (the “standard” salary threshold); or
• the “going rate” for your occupation code.

GOV.UK gives its own example. If you are offered £42,000 but the going rate for your job is £45,000, you do not meet the usual salary requirement, even though you are above £41,700.

Three more details matter:

• Going rates assume a 37.5-hour week. Appendix Skilled Occupations says they must be pro-rated for other working patterns, based on the weekly hours stated by your sponsor.
• Your job has to be eligible in the first place. Higher-skilled occupation codes qualify, and medium-skilled ones qualify only in limited situations.
• Lower thresholds can apply to some people extending or updating an existing Skilled Worker visa, depending on their circumstances. GOV.UK has the details.

The going rates for tech occupation codes

The going rates sit in Table 1 of Appendix Skilled Occupations, which covers occupation codes at RQF level 6 or above. Here are the IT codes most tech workers fall into, as published on GOV.UK when we checked on 27 October 2026:

SOC 2020 code	Occupation (example job titles)	Going rate	Minimum you’d need (higher of going rate or £41,700)
2131	IT project managers	£58,200	£58,200
2132	IT managers (incl. software development managers, IT service delivery managers)	£55,000	£55,000
2133	IT business analysts, architects and systems designers (incl. data engineers, solutions architects)	£54,900	£54,900
2134	Programmers and software development professionals	£54,700	£54,700
2139	IT professionals n.e.c. (“DevOps engineers” is listed by name, as are IT consultants)	£52,300	£52,300
2135	Cyber security professionals	£48,500	£48,500
2137	IT network professionals	£45,600	£45,600
2136	IT quality and testing professionals	£41,200	£41,700

For every code here except testing (2136), the going rate is above £41,700, so the going rate is the real threshold. A DevOps engineer sponsored under code 2139 would usually need at least £52,300 for a 37.5-hour week, not £41,700.

Which code is “yours”?

The code depends on what the job involves, not only the job title. GOV.UK tells applicants to get the code from their employer and points to the CASCOT occupation coding tool to look it up. The Appendix lists “DevOps engineers” under 2139. A role that is mostly software development may sit under 2134, and a cloud architect role might be coded 2133. Each comes with a different going rate, so ask which code the employer intends to use.

The new entrant and other discounted rates

GOV.UK says you can be paid 70% of the going rate, as long as you earn at least £33,400, if, among other routes:

• you are under 26 when you apply;
• you are in the UK on a Student visa studying at bachelor’s level or above, or on a Graduate visa (or were in the last two years, with conditions); or
• you are working towards a recognised professional qualification or chartered status.

For people using this “new entrant” discount, GOV.UK adds that your total stay in the UK cannot be more than 4 years, including time already spent on a Graduate visa.

Here is what 70% looks like for the same codes, from the Appendix’s own 70% column:

Code	70% of going rate (option E)
2131 IT project managers	£40,700
2132 IT managers	£38,500
2133 Analysts/architects/designers	£38,400
2134 Programmers/software developers	£38,300
2139 IT professionals n.e.c. (DevOps)	£36,600
2135 Cyber security	£34,000
2137 Network professionals	£33,400
2136 Testing	£33,400

There are also PhD-related discounts (80% of the going rate for a relevant STEM PhD, or 90% for a relevant non-STEM PhD, each with a salary floor). All the codes above are marked as eligible for PhD points in the Appendix.

What the market is actually paying

For market pay we used IT Jobs Watch, which tracks salaries quoted in UK permanent job adverts. Its figures cover adverts in the six months to 27 October 2026. Two caveats apply. First, these are advertised salaries, not what people are actually paid. Second, the “DevOps” figures cover adverts that mention DevOps skills, which is wider than adverts with “DevOps Engineer” as the title.

DevOps (adverts citing DevOps skills)

Measure	6 months to 27 Oct 2026
Permanent adverts citing DevOps	5,824
Adverts quoting a salary	3,898
10th percentile	£46,129
25th percentile	£55,000
Median	£70,000
75th percentile	£88,148
90th percentile	£100,000
Median, UK excluding London	£65,500
Median, London	£85,000

Cloud Engineer (job title)

The median is £70,000 across 1,363 permanent adverts, with a 10th percentile of £48,750 and a 25th percentile of £55,000. The UK-excluding-London median is also £70,000.

Site Reliability Engineer (job title)

The median is £80,000, but the sample is small: 169 adverts, 130 with salaries. The 10th percentile is £61,125.

Where the lines cross

Put the two sets of numbers together and a clear picture emerges for a standard, experienced hire under code 2139 (going rate £52,300):

• The median DevOps advert (£70,000) is comfortably above the threshold, by £17,700.
• The 25th percentile (£55,000) is still above it.
• The 10th percentile (£46,129) is below it.

So, roughly, somewhere between the bottom 10% and the bottom 25% of salaried DevOps adverts would not meet the standard going rate if the role were sponsored under 2139. For cloud engineer adverts the picture is similar: the 10th percentile (£48,750) falls below £52,300 and the 25th (£55,000) sits above it. SRE adverts in this dataset sit above the 2139 going rate even at the 10th percentile, though the sample is small.

Regional medians matter too. IT Jobs Watch’s DevOps medians include £55,000 in Wales, the East of England and the East Midlands, £62,250 in Scotland and £67,500 in the North West. A typical advert in a lower-paying region has much less headroom over £52,300 than one in London (£85,000).

What this means for you

This is general information, not advice on your situation. But the numbers suggest a few practical points.

1. Ask for the occupation code before you negotiate. £50,000 might sound fine against £41,700, but under 2139 it is £2,300 short. Under 2134 the gap is £4,700.

2. Mid-level and senior roles usually clear the bar. At the median and above, DevOps and cloud adverts are well over every IT going rate in the table. The tight zone is junior and lower-paid regional roles.

3. Check the hours. Going rates are for 37.5 hours a week and are pro-rated. Make sure the hours on the certificate of sponsorship match the salary you are being offered.

4. If you are a new entrant, the maths changes. At 70% of the 2139 going rate (£36,600), a much larger share of junior DevOps roles could qualify. But the 4-year cap on total stay under that discount is a real constraint for long-term plans, so check how it applies to you on GOV.UK.

5. Skills still drive pay. In IT Jobs Watch’s data, the most common skills alongside DevOps were Azure (52.0% of adverts), CI/CD (51.7%), AWS (31.9%), Infrastructure as Code (25.3%), Terraform (23.8%) and Kubernetes (19.7%). About 20.2% of DevOps adverts mention security clearance. That can be a hurdle for recent arrivals, so read each advert’s requirements carefully.

6. Re-check before you sign. Going rates and thresholds are revised by statements of changes to the Immigration Rules. The figures here are the ones published on 27 October 2026. Always confirm the current table on GOV.UK when you receive an offer.

Bottom line

For a typical mid-level DevOps or cloud engineer, the UK market pays comfortably above the Skilled Worker threshold. The risk sits at the edges: junior roles, lower-paying regions and roles coded under occupations with higher going rates than you expect. The single most useful question to ask a sponsoring employer is: “Which occupation code, and what are the weekly hours?” With those two answers you can check the threshold yourself in a couple of minutes.