Running Debian Buster 10 with gitlab-ce installed with apt I had the same problem upgrading from 14.8.0 to 14.8.1.
Quick fix
Have a peek at the parent-folder where missing folder should be. Note what rights and owner the other folders have:
$ sudo ls -alh /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared
insgesamt 56K
drwxr-x--x 14 git gitlab-www 4.0K Feb 25 09:59 .
drwxr-xr-x 9 git root 4.0K Feb 25 10:02 ..
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Mai 16 2020 artifacts
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Mai 16 2020 cache
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Feb 23 08:33 ci_secure_files
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Mai 16 2020 dependency_proxy
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Jan 25 2021 encrypted_settings
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Mai 16 2020 external-diffs
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Mai 16 2020 lfs-objects
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Mai 16 2020 packages
drwxr-x--- 2 git gitlab-www 4.0K Mai 16 2020 pages
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Mai 16 2020 terraform_state
drwx------ 2 git git 4.0K Mai 16 2020 tmp
So I took the following steps to create the folder and adjust the rights:
sudo mkdir /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/registry
sudo chown git:git /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/registry
sudo chmod 700 /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/registry
After that the upgrade worked like a charm.