According to the TeamLease Services – Jobs and Salaries Primer 2025-26 report, India is projected to see an average salary hike between 6.2 to 11.3% in fiscal year 2025-2026 (FY26), across all industries.
The report elaborated that the hikes for some role levels might go up to 13.8%. The increase has been attributed to employees reshaping their workforce strategies by focusing more on skill certification and incentive-led engagement.
“The projected salary growth, ranging from 6.2% to 11.3%, signals a broader realignment in India’s job and wage landscape. As new-age industries scale rapidly, demand is shifting toward roles that combine technical capability with immediate business impact,” said TeamLease Services CEO – Staffing, Kartik Narayan.
The findings in the reports come from the inputs of 1,308 businesses across 23 industries and 20 cities.
As per the report, the industries likely to see the highest increments in FY26 include EV and EV infrastructure (11.3%), consumer durables (10.7%), retail (10.7%), and NBFCs (10.4%). When calculated by designation, the roles likely to see the most increase in salary include electrical design engineer (12.4%) in EV and EV infrastructure, in-store demonstrator (12.2%) in consumer durables, relationship executive (11.6%) in NBFC, and fashion assistant (11.2%) in retail.
With the rising infrastructure investments, blue-collar workers can expect a rebound in their salary hikes, with the expanding EV ecosystem and revival of real estate and manufacturing also contributing to the same. Amongst the blue-collar workers, mechanics can expect a hike of 10.4%, followed by material handlers at 10%, machine operators at 9.9%, and electricians at 9.3%.
“In the upward momentum in blue-collar wages, even the traditionally stable roles like mechanic and material handler are seeing double-digit hikes. We see this shift as a critical signal for employers to align hiring with new growth engines, and for job seekers to upskill toward relevance and resilience,” Narayan added.
Some other roles with notable expected salary increases include quality control inspector (13.8%) in Pune, MIS executives (13.4%) in Hyderabad, data engineers (12.9%) in Bengaluru, electrical design engineer (12.6%) in Mumbai, and sales executive (12.4%) in Gurugram.
As for functional areas, sales and marketing roles are projected to see the highest average salary increment at 9.9%, followed closely by engineering at 9.5%. Functions such as finance, customer service and back office, blue collar, and HR and admin are expected to receive moderate hikes of between 8.2% and 8.6%.