Summary

The role selection dropdown in Confluence Cloud currently sorts custom space roles alphabetically after the 4 default system roles. This does not reflect the actual permission hierarchy and can be confusing for administrators assigning roles.

Current Behaviour

The role selector displays roles in this order:

• System roles first (Admin, Manager, Collaborator, Viewer) — fixed order
• Custom roles — sorted alphabetically

Example with a custom "Space Admin" role:

1. Admin
2. Collaborator
3. Space Admin
4. Viewer

Although "Space Admin" has significantly more permissions than "Collaborator", it appears below it due to alphabetical sorting.

Expected Behaviour

Role selection dropdowns should display roles ordered by permission scope (highest privileges first), with alphabetical sorting as a tiebreaker when two roles have equivalent permission counts.

Desired order:

1. Admin
2. Space Admin (custom)
3. Collaborator
4. Viewer

Alternatively, allow Confluence administrators to define a custom display order for space roles (including custom roles) in the role selector.

Suggested Approaches

Option A: Sort roles by number of granted permissions (highest to lowest), with alphabetical as secondary sort
Option B: Allow administrators to define a custom display order for all roles (default + custom) in Confluence settings → Permissions → Space roles
Option C: Both — automatic permission-based sorting as default, with admin override capability