India's burgeoning economy goes full steam ahead, fuelling higher salaries for in-demand talent

Accelerated hiring of technology-savvy talent to steer the country's economy forward is driving up salaries across various sectors, as a new report released by RGF International Recruitment shows.

NEW DELHI, Sept. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- India Inc is booming, but it has to surmount challenges pertinent to the continuation of its stellar economic performance  – how best to attract and retain talent with the prerequisite skills to drive further progress and growth.

With the stabilisation of the COVID-19 situation, India's economy has made an impressive recovery and is charging ahead to meet its goals for the future. The RGF International Recruitment 2022 Salary Watch: India report shares perspectives on how India's growth plans and healthy investment portfolios, along with the ongoing digital transformation initiatives and broad adoption of new technologies across various sectors, have contributed to the upward trends in demand for talent and salary increments commensurate with their skills and experience.

Demand for talent in the Industrial Manufacturing sector has been driven up by the Industry 4.0 revolution and the Indian government's enthusiastic growth trajectory for its electric vehicles (EV) industry. As such, employers are willing to offer talent, particularly in the battery development and automation fields, an average salary increase of 9%. Those performing senior roles in R&D, Application Engineering and Sales & Marketing have received record salary increments of up to 20%, as compared to 2021.

The Consumer Goods sector accounts for a sizeable slice of India's GDP, and robust annual growth is expected over the next decade. The rebound in the retail industry, explosive growth in e-commerce and ongoing digital transformation of retail companies have contributed towards the average salary increase of 12% for talent with the prerequisite skills. Those in senior roles with digital capabilities (eg: E-commerce Director/ Manager, Digitalisation Director) are able to command salary increments of up to 15%.

The increased use of digital technologies in the Healthcare & Life Sciences sector, spurred by the pandemic, government policies and investments, has pushed up the market value of telemedicine and digital care solutions to unprecedented levels. Consequently, the sector is seeing spikes in demand for healthcare talent, particularly in these fields, as well as salary increments averaging 9%. The expanding Medical Devices manufacturing division is also seeing increased demand for talent, particularly in the Production and Operations fields, and an average salary increase of 14.9%, as compared to 2021.

Companies in the Corporate Services sector are seeing a surge in new work orders. This boost in business, along with the accelerated adoption of digital processes as efficiency-improvement measures, have led to the increased demand for talent, particularly human resource personnel with skills in digital tools and IT software, as well as an average salary increase of 15%.

The landscape of India's Technology sector is being rapidly transformed by the accelerated adoption of frontier technologies like IoT, AI, blockchain, data security, cybersecurity and 5G. Being a "digital talent nation", India's tech talent demand-supply gap is low, as compared to other major economies. However, due to high attrition rates and the aggressive war for talent, those with in-demand roles are able to command an average salary increase of 12%. Talent with hot skills in fields like Fullstack Development, Devops, Cloud, Data Science, Cyber Security and IoT are also seeing steep upward trends in salary ranges.

Download the full report here.