Building a Platform Team Without Hiring

Hiring platform engineers is a nightmare - and it’s slowing teams down.
Platform teams are the backbone of modern tech - Kubernetes clusters, servers, apps all lean on them. But staffing one? Brutal.

Glassdoor’s 2023 UK Salary Data pegs junior platform engineers at £40k-£60k and senior SREs at £90k-£120k, with 3-6 months to onboard [1]. That’s if you can find them—LinkedIn’s 2023 Talent Report lists SRE roles as the UK’s third-hardest tech hire, with 45% of postings open 60+ days [2]. Demand’s up 30% since 2021, per Indeed’s hiring trends [3].

Meanwhile, your stack’s creaking—alerts pile up, scaling lags, and burnout creeps in.The cost isn’t just cash. Training eats time—Gartner’s 2022 IT Skills Report estimates 6-12 weeks for a new hire to hit stride [4]. Turnover’s a kicker too—Hays’ 2023 UK Tech Survey says 25% of IT pros jump ship within 18 months, chasing better gigs [5]. Add benefits, office space, and tools, and a single SRE could hit £150k/year all-in, per Deloitte’s 2022 Tech Spend Report [6].

For a full team—say, two juniors and a senior—you’re staring at £300k-£400k annually, plus half a year to gel. Chaos doesn’t wait that long.

Alternatives exist:

Contractors cut onboarding—Reed’s 2023 UK Staffing data clocks them at 2-4 weeks to start—but day rates (£400-£800) pile up fast [7].DIY automation’s another path—Forrester’s 2022 IT Ops Outlook says 60% of platform tasks (monitoring, backups) can shift to scripts or tools [8].

Problem? Building it takes dev hours—McKinsey’s 2023 Automation Report pegs custom monitoring at £50k-£100k in upfront costs [9]. Outsourcing’s the dark horse—IDC’s 2023 Outsourcing Trends shows 25% savings over in-house FTEs, with near-instant deployment [10]. The trick is finding the right mix—speed, skill, and scale without the HR slog.

How Hyperbyte Helps:
Hyperbyte’s that mix—your platform team, no hiring needed. We’re live in days, not months—one line install gets you covered, bash <(curl -Ss https://dl.hyperbyte.cloud/install), deploys us into your Platform, zero-config needed.