AI-skilled professionals are earning as much as 60% more than peers in other tech fields, and the divide is expected to grow over the next two to three years as entry-level hiring contracts at large IT firms, according to recruitment agencies.
“AI-complementary roles across technology, GCCs and banking and financial services (BFSI) are commanding a 30–60% premium, creating one of the sharpest within-sector pay gaps in India’s job market,” said Neeti Sharma, CEO of staffing firm TeamLease Digital.
For instance, a senior AI or machine learning role in a global capability centre (GCC) pays Rs 58-60 lakh a year and is growing at 18% annually, against Rs 12 lakh for legacy IT support. In banking, AI roles in areas such as fraud detection pay Rs 18-50 lakh, while a comparable non-AI role fetches Rs 8-15 lakh, according to Teamlease.
The gap is visible at appraisal time too. Employees who are actively using AI tools at work are getting hikes that are 1.5-1.7 times higher than the company average, which works out to a 4-7 percentage point advantage over peers, according to AMS, a talent consulting firm.
Companies are also beginning to make this official.
“Roughly 45-50% of organisations in India have now moved to skills-based or AI-influenced pay frameworks, and that adoption has accelerated sharply over the last 12 months, especially in tech, GCCs and BFSI,” said Roop Kaistha, regional managing director, Asia-Pacific, AMS.
Sharma added that six in 10 employers are now linking AI skills directly to pay.
“AI is becoming a baseline, and growth now depends on combining it with human insight,” she said.
AI hiring at GCCs has surged 131% year on year, according to Vikram Ahuja, co-founder, ANSR, an Accenture-backed GCC consulting firm. Two years ago, AI skills appeared in 10-15% of GCC job descriptions, mostly in data and technology. Today, the requirement is showing up in finance, HR and operations as well.
“We are moving from a world where AI skills were a differentiator to one where their absence is a disqualifier,” Ahuja said.
Employees in roles with little or no AI exposure are seeing slower pay growth. Basic quality assurance, routine coding and Level 1 IT support are among the functions seeing slower pay growth and, in some cases, job cuts.
“Entry-level roles have shrunk 20-25% due to automation, and fresher CTCs have stagnated for close to two decades,” Sharma said. The bigger risk for employees in these roles is income stagnation rather than job loss, Kaistha said.
The trend is also visible in fresher hiring numbers. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which used to hire 45,000-50,000 of them annually, recruited only 25,000 this year. Cognizant plans to hire 20,000 of them.
“Fresher hiring across the industry is less than half of what it used to be, and in the next couple of years, it could fall to about 25% of earlier levels,” said Pareekh Jain, CEO, EIIRTrend. But those who do get hired into AI-focused roles are starting at higher salaries than others. Infosys, for instance, is offering freshers in specialist programmer roles Rs 21 lakh a year.
“With AI adoption, companies will not require as much hiring, allowing them to increase entry-level salaries to compete for AI talent,” Jain said.
Companies can afford to pay more because AI is making their workforce more productive.
“We are seeing an increase in both revenue per headcount and employee spend per headcount for IT service providers, indicating higher salaries are being compensated through productivity and pricing,” Jain explained.
AI and ML roles are growing at around 20% a year in salary terms, against 5-8% for non-AI roles.
“Over the next two to three years, we expect a 15-25 percentage point gap in salary growth to open up between AI-skilled and non-AI talent as productivity-linked and AI-driven pay models become mainstream,” Kaistha said. Sharma said AI professionals could see 50-60% cumulative salary growth over that period, while those in non-AI roles are likely to see 18-25%.
