Kubernetes maturity: 7 in 10 enterprises trust it for core workloads

Kubernetes has firmly transitioned from an emerging technology into a core part of enterprise production environments, according to a new survey from SUSE, conducted at KubeCon London 2025.

  • Friday, 2nd May 2025 Posted 16 hours ago in by Phil Alsop

The survey highlights the latest adoption patterns, challenges, and priorities among 100 attendees from the tech, finance, and healthcare sectors, including developers, IT decision-makers, and cloud architects.

Key highlights include the following:

Production workloads are now Kubernetes-native - nearly 40% of respondents now run all their production workloads on Kubernetes, with an additional 31% leveraging it for pre-production environments.

The shift toward scalable, streamlined development - users value Kubernetes for its ability to scale effortlessly (31%) and streamline development cycles (38%). As a result, it has become the foundation for innovation, especially for businesses prioritising agility, efficient resource management, and automated operations.

Multi-cloud strategies are gaining momentum - while on-premises infrastructure remains prevalent (51%), enterprises are increasingly shifting towards multi-cloud strategies. In addition, 39% of respondents plan to scale Kubernetes across multiple clouds, and 14% already operate across three or more cloud providers.

The immense power of community - Kubernetes thrives on community-driven innovation, with 71% of respondents emphasising the importance of ecosystem integration and support.

As Kubernetes cements its place as a core enterprise technology, security and compliance have emerged as top priorities, with organisations refining defences to withstand an evolving threat landscape. At the same time, cost optimisation and operational efficiency remain in focus, as IT leaders seek to scale infrastructure without compromising performance or budget.

Managing Kubernetes across multi-cloud environments introduces new layers of complexity, highlighting the need for robust support structures, architectural consistency, and cross-platform resilience. Enterprises aren’t just adopting Kubernetes—they’re working to operationalise it at scale.

High-profile cyberattacks highlight a recurring issue: employees are often the weakest security link.
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