Big tech, small cheques: A decade of déjà vu for India's IT freshers as CEO salaries soar

India’s IT sector has more than doubled its exports in the last decade—from $82 billion to over $210 billion—and its top executives now draw multi-crore salaries. But for most entry-level engineers joining from non-premium colleges, starting salaries have stayed nearly the same at ₹3–4 lakh per annum. Despite rising living costs, urban inflation, and expanding industry profits, the compensation offered to freshers in many large IT firms continues to hover around ₹25,000–₹34,000 a month.

A comparison over 10 years by TOI's Veena Mani, shows stagnation in fresher compensation even as India's GDP grew from $2.1 trillion to $4.2 trillion. During this period, IT company CEOs saw their median salaries grow by 160% in just the last five years, while fresher pay increased by only about 15%, according to former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai. Most fresher hires still fall in the ₹3.5 lakh per annum range, with little differentiation between 2011 and 2024.

Why fresher pay refuses to grow
One key reason is oversupply. India produces nearly 15 lakh engineering graduates each year, but only a fraction land jobs through campus placements. Even graduates from core engineering streams such as civil or mechanical often opt for IT roles, hoping for better employment prospects. The large pool of available candidates limits individual bargaining power, especially from Tier-2 colleges.

At the same time, billing rates for IT services firms have fallen sharply. A senior HR professional quoted in TOI said clients now pay $20–$25 per hour for outsourced work, down from $40 a decade ago. He explained, “The only reason we are able to still retain our profit margins is because the rupee has also fallen in the past decade from about ₹62–63 to a dollar to the current ₹85 or so, and because we are able to hire from the bottom at lower salaries.”

Skill tags, clauses, and the cost of leaving
To manage margins, companies have also begun differentiating compensation based on skill level. Candidates with specialised or advanced training can be classified into categories like ‘Digital’, ‘Ninja’, or ‘Prime’, and may earn higher packages. However, most mass-hiring still follows uniform compensation models.

Offer letters reviewed in the TOI report show common salary terms: ₹25,000 monthly gross, 18-month probation, and penalties of ₹1 lakh for early exit. These conditions are common among mass recruiters hiring from Tier-2 campuses.

Companies also justify static pay with training investments. Nasscom president Rajesh Nambiar told TOI, “Large companies recruiting from campuses invest in intensive training programmes to ensure that students develop relevant and in-demand tech skills.” Others point to rising bench costs and pre-deployment training as reasons why fresher salaries haven’t grown.

GCCs may change the equation
However, some new trends are beginning to alter the fresher hiring landscape. Global Capability Centres (GCCs)—the offshore arms of multinational firms—are now visiting Indian campuses and offering higher entry-level pay. A report by consultancy ANSR cited in TOI said GCCs pay ₹5.9 lakh to ₹8.5 lakh per annum for those with 0–3 years’ experience, especially in specialised areas such as machine learning and cybersecurity.

Billing rates for these niche roles remain strong. Premium clients are willing to pay $35–40 per hour for cloud engineers or full-stack developers, while traditional roles in application maintenance and infrastructure support may see billing rates fall further to $15–18 an hour with growing AI adoption.

Despite the salary freeze, the IT industry remains an aspirational career path for many. For new graduates, even a ₹3.5 lakh job is still seen as a gateway into one of the world's fastest-changing industries—where upskilling, not just the starting point, could define the future.