FMCG emerges as the highest paying industry in India: Randstad

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With an average annual salary of Rs 11.3 lakh across all levels and functions, employees in the FMCG industry receive the highest pay in the country, followed by the power sector and the IT industry where employees earn average annual salaries of Rs 9.8 lakh and Rs 9.3 lakh respectively.  

The 2017 Salary Trends Study released by Randstad, a leading HR service provider, revealed that a “robust demand” for qualified personnel in sales, marketing and supply chain management roles led to the FMCG industry taking the top spot in the rankings. The fact that close to 30 percent of the FMCG jobs were posted in the Rs 10 lakh-plus category was also cited as a primary driver, said the study, which analysed 100,000 jobs across 20 industry verticals and 15 core functions.

The pharma and health care industry followed in fourth place with an average annual CTC of Rs 8.8 lakh, and telecom in fifth place with Rs 8.7 lakh. “Today employers are cognisant of the fact that the right salary structure is one of the key strategies to attract, engage and retain top talent in the organisation and hence it is important to closely analyse the prevalent salary trends and make course corrections wherever necessary,” said Dr Moorthy K Uppaluri, managing director and CEO, Randstad India.

Furthermore, the study found that ecommerce emerged as the highest paying industry for senior and mid-level talent. The former, with 15-plus years of experience, earned an average annual salary of Rs 34 lakh, while mid-level talent with 6-15 years of experience earned Rs 13 lakh. The chart below depicts the top three industries by level of experience.

The top three “hot jobs” - defined as those wherein the pay for professionals with 6-10 years of experience is more than in other professions - were found to be Core Java related jobs with professionals earning Rs 18.06 lakh in average annual salary followed by digital marketing professionals and testing automation engineers, earning Rs 17.09 lakh and Rs 14.67 lakh respectively.

The study further found that location-wise, Bengaluru is the highest paying city in the country with an average annual salary of Rs 14.6 lakh for employees across all levels and functions. Mumbai comes in second with Rs 14.2 lakh, followed by Hyderabad and the National Capital Region (NCR) with Rs 13.6 lakh and Rs 13.5 lakh respectively.