Juniors may beat senior colleagues in salary hikes this year: Study

the real estate sector is experiencing a significant upturn, with senior-level remuneration escalating by up to 40 percent.

Salary hikes on job switch are likely to be in the 25-40 percent range, compared to 20-30 percent for their mid-level colleagues and 15-25 percent for senior colleagues this year, according to a report by recruitment firm Michael Page India.

‘The Page Insights Salary Guide 2024’ said juniors are also expected to receive the highest average annual salary increase within their current job in the range of 7-20 percent compared to mid-level (7-15 percent) and senior employees (7-12 percent).

“Usually this is the case as the absolute salary numbers are much lower, and the increment  percent is higher for it to be a material salary increase. Organisations also tend to have much more flexibility at junior levels to push their budgets as the overall impact to their cost is much lesser,” Ankit Agarawala, MD of Michael Page India, told Moneycontrol.

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Over the last 2-3 years, Agarawala added that organisations have become more conservative in paying ‘big bucks’ to senior executives to manage their cost base and minimise risk.

Instead, companies tend to reward strong performance with attractive variable compensation or incentives rather than significant increases in fixed pay. This helps them to tide over difficult economic phases more easily without being forced into situations of layoffs.

According to the report, the information technology (IT) services industry, a cornerstone of the Indian economy, is witnessing a phase of recalibration. Companies are moderating their approach to salary increments, with overall average hikes expected to be around 8-10 percent. This marks a notable shift from the previous trend of significant pay increases.

In contrast, the real estate sector is experiencing a significant upturn, with senior-level remuneration escalating by up to 40 percent.

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Concerning huge variation in salary hike offered by various sectors, Agarawala said this is a factor of how well the sector is doing, as well as the mismatch in supply and demand of talent in that particular sector. For example, areas such as technology are offering healthy hikes as there is a strong demand and relative shortage of supply for high skill roles such as AI and data engineers.

IT and Technology

The sector sees a major demand in C-Suite across various areas like technology, data, AI/ML, product and security along with digital transformation, IoT and generative AI and data.

Financial services, consumer tech, and GBS/SSC are the top employers of this industry. The hike range varies from 35-45 percent for junior employees, 30-40 percent hike for mid-level executives, and 20-30 percent increment for senior management.

Property and construction sector

The industry is looking at roles like leasing, business/P&L head and real estate strategy. The top companies majorly looking to hire in this sector are commercial real estate, residential real estate and industrial and warehousing.

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Unlike other sectors, the market is projecting a good scope of growth and offering 20-40 percent hike to juniors, 25-45 percent hike to middle experiencers and a 20-40 percent salary appraisal to seniors.

Law, CS and Compliance Sector

Elaborating on the salary perspective on law, CS and compliance sector, the report mentioned that while the law firms are currently offering high premiums for talent attraction and retention, lawyers are getting attacked by the flexibility in benefits.

With skills like data privacy, IPO and Listing, the hike in the sector continues to be average with the same ranging between 20-30 percent for juniors, 25-45 percent for middle experiencers, and 10-15 percent appraisal for seniors.

Procurement & Supply Chain

In the procurement and supply chain, the sector is offering higher than the average salary hike of 30-35  percent for junior executives, 24-30 percent for mid-level executives and 18-25 percent for senior executives and is also giving joining bonuses and Long-Term incentive plan (LTIPs).

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The demand for skill sets like procurement, procurement logistics and quality are high, organisations are looking for professionals to fill in positions for strategic sourcing/ procurement and contract leads, logistics and distribution and Head of Supply Chain

Sales & Marketing

With an average salary hike between 25-40 percent across job levels, the sector is looking for talents for positions like Digital Marketing, Growth manager/ Leader, and Growth Head / Business Head and is lucrative for professionals having expertise in Digital / Paid Marketing, Demand / Lead Generation and Branding.