GCCs pay 12-20% higher salaries for tech roles as compared IT companies: Teamlease report

With the rapid expansion of Global Capability Centres (GCCs) of foreign conglomerates in India and the rising demand for tech talent, the pay gap compared to IT services companies is widening.

GCCs are currently paying at least 12-20 percent higher salaries for the same tech roles as its IT services and non-tech sector peers, according to a new TeamLease Digital report.

To give a comparison for software developer roles, GCCs are paying Rs 9.7 LPA (lakhs per annum) which can go up to Rs 43 LPA at a senior level of over 8 years of experience. Meanwhile, IT products and services sector salaries for the same role at an entry-level pays about Rs 5.7 LPA and goes up to Rs. 17.9 LPA with more than eight years of experience.

The report highlighted that while the 1,600 GCCs in India have already employed over 1.66 million professionals, there are another 800 new GCCs set to come up in the next five-six years increasing India’s prominence as the global tech hub.

Many of these GCCs will be set up in tier-II cities like Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Vadodara, driving geographical diversification and employment in these locations.

Skills that are seeing increased demand include PyTorch, AWS, DevOps, NLP, Kubernetes, Hyperledger Fabric, Blockchain, Tableau, SQL, and ServiceNow.

Overall, in FY24 India’s tech market size stood at $254 billion, with a 3.8% year-on-year growth and a 5.6 million tech workforce.

From 2020 to 2024, the country leapfrogged in technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Blockchain Tech, IoT, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Edge Computing, and Quantum Computing with essential tools like Python, R, TensorFlow, and PyTorch. This, however, caused a major shortage of right expertise as only 2.5% of engineers in India possess AI skills, and merely 5.5% are qualified with basic programming abilities.

“In response to this growing tech skills gap, 86% of Indian businesses are actively reskilling their IT workers,” the report said.

IT services sector too is poised to grow in the coming years, especially with cloud investment expected to grow by 25-30% in the next 5 years.

Speaking to Moneycontrol, Munira Loliwala, AVP - Strategy and Growth, TeamLease Digital said, "The salary disparity is mainly due to GCCs hiring job-ready experienced talent from IT companies. Fresher intake for GCCs has only been about 15-20% in the last two-three years. And this fresher intake is also happening for only evolved GCCs, which have been around for at least 10 years and are looking to expand workforce."

"The new entrant GCCs start with about a 70-member team going to 100. In the second phase, it will go up to 250 and then 550. Expansion happens after they have more than 1000 employees. For these early stage GCCs, 90% of the hiring will be for experienced talent," she added.

Loliwala shared that during the survey, they found that if a fresher wants to enter the job market and has an internship background, which the government is now promoting, they are likely to find better jobs.

Gender pay gap remains high

TeamLease Digital’s report also sheds light on women's representation in the tech workforce. Currently, there are 20.5 lakh women tech professionals in India.

“In GCCs, the percentage of women tech professionals is expected to increase from 25% to 35% by 2027. However, there has been a persistent gender pay gap in the tech industry, ranging from 10-17% on average and sometimes reaching 22-30% for roles like Data Analysis,” it said.

The report said that the gender pay gap was mainly influenced by structural inequalities, disparities in role distribution, barriers to career advancement, and negotiation gaps. The pay gap varies across roles, with technical and leadership positions showing more significant disparities.

“Addressing the gender pay gap requires implementing transparent pay policies, establishing mentorship programs, providing training on unconscious bias, and offering flexible working conditions to support work-life balance,” it said.

Bengaluru leads salary growth

Metro cities Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai offer the highest salaries for tech job roles, while Jaipur, Indore and Coimbatore are the upcoming hubs currently in an evolution phase, given these are projected to be GCC and Data Center hubs.

Bengaluru is leading the pack with the highest packages across tech job roles including data analytics, product management, full stack developers, cloud computing, cyber security, Dev Ops, software development to name a few.