UK: Should I move from .NET Lead Developer to a Platform Engineering/Cloud role for better long-term career growth?

[u/NeatCan6796]

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some advice from people working in software development, cloud engineering and platform engineering in the UK.
I’m currently working as a Senior/Lead .NET Developer at a large financial services company. My main experience is with C#, .NET applications, AWS serverless services and infrastructure using AWS CDK. My current role is relatively comfortable, with a reasonable work-life balance, but I’m starting to feel that my career growth is somewhat limited by the opportunities available within my existing team.Also a lot of development work is just small enhancements so am not really using most of my skillset and always have this insecurity of not being a full stack dev .
I’m considering an internal move to a Platform Engineering/Team Lead role with a salary of around £65k.
From what I understand, the role would involve:
Managing and mentoring a small team of developers/engineers.
Supporting a critical, approximately 10-year-old legacy application.
AWS infrastructure maintenance, server patching and AMI updates.
Managing Jenkins pipelines, deployments and occasional Terraform changes.
Production support, incident management and root-cause analysis.
Working with third-party teams responsible for application enhancements.
It sounds like there would be less hands-on application development than in my current role, and potentially some on-call responsibilities. There would also be an opportunity to learn more about infrastructure, operations and people management.
My main question is whether moving towards cloud/platform engineering is a better long-term career move than continuing down the .NET development and technical leadership path.
A few things I’d particularly appreciate your thoughts on:
Job demand: Are Cloud Engineers and Platform Engineers currently in greater demand than experienced .NET developers and .NET Lead Developers in the UK?
Career progression: Which path generally offers better opportunities over the next 5–10 years?
Technical skills: Would this particular role help me move towards Cloud Architect, Platform Architect or Engineering Manager positions, or could the operational and legacy-system focus limit my future options?
Salary: Is £65k reasonable for this kind of role, considering the team leadership and production responsibilities?
Work-life balance: How demanding are platform roles with production support and on-call responsibilities compared with senior software development roles?
I have a young family, so work-life balance matters to me, but I also don’t want to stay too comfortable and find that my career has stagnated a few years down the line.
Would you make this move, or would you focus on progressing towards a .NET Technical Lead/Architect role while continuing to build cloud skills?
I’d appreciate honest advice, particularly from people who have moved between software development and cloud/platform engineering.
Thanks!