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AI, cybersecurity talent drive fresher salaries to record highs in tech sector
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Volume hiring is giving way to skills-led recruitment as tech firms narrow fresher intake to specialised roles. Even as entry-level hiring slows, companies are offering packages ranging from ₹16 lakh to ₹55 lakh for niche fresher roles, underscoring how skills are increasingly trumping volume.
Firms are wooing select freshers with higher pay cheques in roles across AI, data engineering, digital engineering, cloud and cybersecurity, with salaries up to four times higher than the typical ₹4 lakh entry-level packages in the IT sector that end up being the bulk of the hiring pyramid.
Also, the talent war for skills in emerging areas pushed IT companies to raise salary brackets. Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks, for instance, is offering technical solution intern roles to select students from tier-1 colleges with compensation of ₹35 lakh per annum, including RSUs (restricted stock units). An email sent to Palo Alto Networks on the compensation did not elicit a response till press time.
Infosys invited engineering colleges to participate in its campus recruitment programme for the class of 2026, sharpening its focus on hiring specialised technical talent. As part of the programme, Infosys revised its compensation structure for freshers in specialised roles. Specialist programmer (trainee) positions are being offered across 3 levels, with annual packages of ₹21 lakh for L3 (higher proficiency), ₹16 lakh for L2, and ₹10 lakh for L1, along with a joining bonus of ₹1 lakh. Digital specialist engineer (trainee) roles carry an annual package of ₹6.25 lakh, in addition to a joining bonus of ₹75,000, according to a letter reviewed by TOI.
Responding to a question on rolling out higher compensation, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, during the earnings interaction, said, “With our most recent approach and launch, we put together a framework for highly skilled software engineers working in AI—those with deep expertise—by creating specialised engineering roles within our structure, accompanied by higher, significantly higher, compensation levels.”
Parekh added that in the AI world, there will be different types of professionals working alongside AI agents, each with varying levels of training. “We want to ensure that we remain in a leading position in this recruitment environment,” he said.
HCLTech said it will continue to step up fresher hiring, particularly for specialised roles aligned with its AI strategy. HCLTech’s Elite Cadre is offering compensation in the range of ₹18 lakh to ₹22 lakh. “Elite engineers currently account for about 15 per cent of our fresher intake, with compensation levels that are 3 to 4 times standard entry-level salaries,” CEO C Vijayakumar said in the recent earnings calls. “The skills mix across the organisation is clearly shifting towards AI, data, cloud, and security.”
TCS CHRO Sudeep Kunnumal told TOI that over the last 2 to 3 years, the company adopted a tiered salary and talent structure, with cadres such as Innovators, Prime, and Digital Ninjas aligned with skill levels and compensation bands. “This allows us to differentiate pay based on capability, and the share of hires in higher tiers increased significantly,” he said.
At Bengaluru-based RV College of Engineering (RVCE), the ongoing campus recruitment drive for the Class of 2026 saw 205 companies making 822 offers. The average cost-to-company (CTC) stands at ₹17.4 lakh per annum, while the highest package offered reached ₹72 lakh per annum. K N Subramanya, principal of RVCE, said core branches such as computer science, information science, and electronics are recording near-complete placements. “The average and median salary packages steadily increased, and the college attracted reputed MNCs offering high-value roles in software development, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and core engineering domains,” he said. The median salary more than doubled from ₹5.7 lakh per annum in 2015 to ₹11.5 lakh per annum in 2025.
