Last updated: October 2026
Every company that ships software needs someone to keep it running, deploy it safely and stop the cloud bill from exploding. That's DevOps, and in India it has become one of the steadiest, best-paid infrastructure careers.
Here is what DevOps engineers earn in 2026, how SRE and platform roles compare, and which certifications actually move the number.
Quick answer
- Typical salary: ₹7–14 LPA (Glassdoor India average base pay is about ₹8 LPA)
- Fresher: ₹5–9 LPA at product companies; ₹3.5–5.5 LPA at IT services
- Senior (8–11 years): ₹38–65 LPA
- Highest-paying city: Bangalore
- Biggest pay lever: Deep cloud skills (AWS, GCP, Azure) plus Kubernetes
DevOps Engineer salary by experience
DevOps engineer pay by experience (total compensation, metro cities):
- Fresher (0–1 year): ₹5–9 LPA
- Early career (2–4 years): ₹12–22 LPA
- Mid-level (5–7 years): ₹22–38 LPA
- Senior (8–11 years): ₹38–65 LPA
- Staff / lead (12+ years): ₹65 LPA–₹1.1 Cr
Glassdoor's title data is lower because it is heavy on services companies: DevOps Engineer ₹6–15 LPA, Senior DevOps Engineer ₹10–20 LPA and Lead DevOps Engineer ₹15–30 LPA. SRE roles typically pay 20–30% more than DevOps at the same experience.
DevOps Engineer salary by city
Average DevOps pay by city:
- Bangalore: ₹22–30 LPA
- Hyderabad: ₹19–27 LPA
- Delhi NCR: ₹18–26 LPA
- Pune: ₹17–24 LPA
- Mumbai: ₹17–24 LPA
- Chennai: ₹14–21 LPA
- Tier-2 cities: ₹10–18 LPA
DevOps Engineer salary by company type
By employer type:
- IT services (TCS, Infosys): Freshers ₹3.5–5 LPA; about ₹10–17 LPA at 5 years
- Accenture and large consulting: Freshers ₹4.5–7 LPA; about ₹14–22 LPA at 5 years
- Mid-size product companies and startups: Freshers ₹6–10 LPA
- Indian unicorns and GCCs: ₹28–58 LPA at 3–5 years (for example Flipkart, PhonePe, Walmart Global Tech)
- FAANG SRE roles: ₹35–62 LPA at 3–5 years
What DevOps engineers earn at well-known companies
Median total pay reported by employees on Glassdoor India (October 2026). These are mostly early and mid-career figures, so treat them as a reality check rather than a ceiling.
- IBM: ₹10 LPA
- Accenture: ₹7 LPA
- Cognizant: ₹7 LPA
- Infosys: ₹6 LPA
- TCS: ₹5 LPA
Cloud and certification premiums
DevOps is one of the few fields where certifications have a measurable effect on pay, especially early on. Approximate salary lift seen in hiring data:
- AWS DevOps Engineer Professional: +20–30%
- GCP Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer: +20–30%
- CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator): +18–28%
- AWS Solutions Architect Professional: +15–25%
- Azure DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400): +12–20%
- HashiCorp Terraform Associate: +10–18%
By platform, senior engineers with multi-cloud experience earn the most (+25–45% over generic DevOps), followed by GCP and AWS specialists. A certification without hands-on work won't carry you far, though. Interviewers will ask what you actually built.
Skills that push your salary up
The core skill set for a high-paying DevOps role:
- Linux and networking fundamentals.
- One cloud in depth (AWS is the most in demand).
- Kubernetes and Docker.
- Infrastructure as code: Terraform or Pulumi.
- CI/CD: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or Jenkins.
- Observability: Prometheus, Grafana and good incident habits.
- Scripting in Python, Bash or Go.
CTC vs in-hand: what you actually take home
Offer letters quote CTC, but your bank account sees something smaller. Take a DevOps engineer offer of ₹8 LPA with no variable pay. If PF is calculated on a basic of 50% of CTC, your monthly in-hand is roughly ₹58,500. If your company caps PF at ₹1,800 a month (many do), it is closer to ₹63,000.
Under the new tax regime, salaried people with taxable income up to ₹12.75 lakh (after the ₹75,000 standard deduction) pay no income tax, so at this level PF and professional tax are the main deductions. Variable pay, insurance and gratuity can lower the monthly number further. Our guide on CTC vs in-hand salary walks through a full payslip.
How to grow your DevOps salary
- Freshers: build and deploy a real project end to end on a cloud free tier, with CI/CD and monitoring.
- 2–4 years: go deep on Kubernetes and one cloud, and add a professional-level certification.
- 4+ years: move towards SRE or platform engineering, where pay is highest.
- Switch from services to product or GCC for the biggest single jump.
Next reads: DevOps engineer roles and skills, DevOps interview questions and DevOps fresher resume guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is the salary of a DevOps engineer in India?
Most DevOps engineers earn ₹7–14 LPA, with senior engineers at product companies and GCCs earning ₹38–65 LPA.
What does a fresher DevOps engineer earn?
₹5–9 LPA at product companies and ₹3.5–5.5 LPA at IT services companies.
Does an AWS certification increase DevOps salary?
Yes. Professional-level AWS or GCP DevOps certifications are linked to roughly 20–30% higher offers, especially when backed by real projects.
Which pays more: DevOps or SRE?
SRE usually pays 20–30% more at the same experience, because it combines software engineering with reliability work.
Related guides
- DevOps engineer roles and skills
- DevOps interview questions
- DevOps fresher resume guide
- Azure DevOps interview questions
- Cyber security salary in India 2026
How we put these numbers together
Figures are approximate annual CTC in Indian rupees (LPA = lakh per annum) as of October 2026. We combined employee-reported salaries from Glassdoor India with 2025–26 hiring data published by Instahyre and Hyring, and cross-checked them against published industry salary guides. Where sources disagreed, we show a range instead of one number. Actual offers depend on the company, your interview performance and how well you negotiate.
Find DevOps engineer jobs
Knowing the number is step one. Getting the offer is step two. Browse DevOps Engineer jobs on Weekday: verified companies, salary filters and hiring teams that actually reply.
