Rs 3 lakh then, Rs 3 lakh now: A decade of unchanged fresher pay at TCS, Infosys

For decades, securing a campus placement at India's IT titans, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, or Wipro, was the definitive middle-class dream. It was never just a letter of offer. It was a social contract.

A guarantee of stability, respectability, and a predictable escape from economic uncertainty after years of punishing entrance exams, crowded classrooms, and families staking their futures on education. For urban India, this pathway defined upward mobility.

That contract is now quietly fraying.

India's IT services industry has never looked stronger. It is richer, more global, and deeply embedded in the systems of the world's largest corporations. Revenues are at record highs, balance sheets are robust, and hiring continues at a large scale. Yet for those entering at the bottom, the freshly minted engineering graduates, the arithmetic no longer works.

Starting salaries have barely moved in nearly two decades. Adjusted for soaring tuition fees, urban rents, transport costs, and everyday inflation, the real value of a fresher's paycheck has collapsed.

What once promised comfort now often barely covers subsistence. Young engineers increasingly find themselves trapped in shared apartments, servicing education loans, and watching savings evaporate, forced to question whether the economic return justifies one of India's most demanding degrees.

The irony is hard to ignore: even as the industry reaches unprecedented heights, the very step meant to elevate the next generation is steadily eroding. For today's graduates, an IT job is no longer a passport to prosperity. It is a prolonged test of patience, of how long resilience can substitute for financial reward, and how long ambition can survive under constant economic strain.

WHAT HAS REALLY CHANGED IN 19 YEARS?

One comparison captures the scale of stagnation better than any abstract statistic. A Reddit post notes that in 2007, a fresh engineering graduate hired by TCS as an Assistant Systems Engineer Trainee earned around 3.16 lakh per annum. In 2026, the same role offers roughly Rs 3.36 lakh per annum, as reported by Careers360. That is an increase of just Rs 20,000 a year over almost nineteen years.

This is not a TCS-specific anomaly. Entry-level salaries across major IT and ITeS firms, including Infosys, Wipro, and multinational players like Accenture, continue to cluster around the Rs 3–4 LPA mark. In nominal terms, pay appears "stable." In real terms, it has fallen sharply.

WHY HAS ENTRY-LEVEL IT PAY REMAINED STAGNANT?

While fresher salaries stood still, almost every other variable moved aggressively upward. The cost of a BTech degree has nearly quadrupled since 2010, driven by higher institutional fees, infrastructure costs, and the rapid expansion of private engineering colleges.

Families now routinely spend Rs 10–25 lakh on an engineering education, often financed through long-term loans.

At the same time, inflation, especially urban inflation affecting rent, transport, food, and healthcare, has steadily eaten away at purchasing power. Compounding the pressure, the number of engineering graduates entering the job market has multiplied seven to eight times, creating intense competition at the entry level.

The arithmetic is unforgiving: profits have surged, education has become vastly more expensive, graduate supply has exploded, yet starting salaries remain almost unchanged.

A SILENT COLLAPSE IN PURCHASING POWER

In the late 2000s, a Rs 3–3.5 LPA salary could still sustain a modest, but stable life in cities like Bengaluru or Pune.

Today, the same salary often struggles to cover rent, deposits, EMIs, and basic living expenses. Multiple estimates suggest that real purchasing power for fresh engineers has declined by 50–60 percent compared to their counterparts fifteen to eighteen years ago.

The irony is hard to miss. Many gig workers, freelancers, and delivery partners, without four-year degrees or large education loans, now earn as much as, or more than, entry-level engineers from reputed colleges.

WHEN PROFITS SOAR, WHY DO FRESHERS STRUGGLE?

The contrast becomes starker when viewed alongside executive compensation. India's IT export revenues have more than doubled over the past decade, and leadership pay has risen sharply.

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, for instance, reportedly earned over Rs 80 crore in FY25, hundreds of times the salary of a fresher entering the organisation. Median employee pay, by comparison, has seen only modest increases, failing to keep pace with inflation or productivity gains.

This widening gap has intensified concerns about whether the industry's success is translating into fair value for its youngest and most numerous contributors.

A SYSTEMIC WAKE-UP CALL

Highlighting concerns over stagnant IT fresher pay, Saurabh Kumar, Founder & CEO of Shiksha Nation, said, "Offering top percentile JEE graduates a starting salary of around Rs 3 lakh per annum is a wake-up call for India's education-industry ecosystem."

"Exceptional academic achievement must translate into fair market value, not just headline offers, but meaningful wages that recognise talent, encourage innovation and support a decent quality of life. It's not just an engineer's problem, it's a systemic challenge that educators, industry and policymakers need to address together," he added.

His observation cuts to the heart of the issue. The problem is no longer about individual companies or isolated pay bands; it reflects a deeper misalignment between education costs, labour supply, and how entry-level talent is valued.

ARE THERE ANY BRIGHT SPOTS?

There are limited exceptions. Graduates with niche skills in AI, machine learning, cloud computing, cybersecurity, or data engineering can command significantly higher packages, sometimes even crossing Rs 15–20 LPA. However, these opportunities are available to a small minority and often depend on elite institutions, specialised training, or prior experience.

For the vast majority entering traditional IT services roles, the compensation structure remains largely unchanged.

OPPORTUNITY OR MIRAGE?

India's IT industry remains a global powerhouse and a critical source of employment. But for fresh engineers, the old promise of automatic stability after a BTech is under strain. A starting salary that once symbolised security now barely keeps pace with survival in major urban centres.

With education costs soaring, inflation eroding real wages, and entry-level pay frozen in time, the question is no longer whether the system is under pressure, but how long it can continue like this.

Will companies rethink fresher compensation to reflect economic reality? Will educators and policymakers realign costs with outcomes? Or will engineering increasingly become an aspirational mirage, offering diminishing returns to each new generation?

The answers will shape not just careers, but the future of India's middle class itself.