India’s 2025 tech market reset: Mid-senior salaries slashed by almost 40 percent

India’s hiring landscape in 2025 delivered what 2024 only hinted at: real recovery, but deeply uneven and shaped almost entirely by AI adoption, cost corrections, and a widening divide between premium skills and everything else. Mid-senior tech roles saw a substantial salary reset, with median compensation reducing by nearly 40%. And despite high visibility, non-AI-aligned advertising roles and mid-senior traditional IT and marketing jobs softened sharply, signalling a workforce recalibrating faster than many organisations expected.

Even as India added 14.5 million net formal jobs this year, and overall hiring improved roughly 9 percent year-on-year, the underlying trends show a market expanding in silos rather than broad waves. Tech contributed just 2 percent to this growth, yet the skills that shaped the direction of 2025 were unmistakably tech-first.

AI, Data and Cybersecurity Move From Pilot to Priority

According to Sanketh Chengappa KG, Director and Business Head – Professional Staffing at Adecco India, 2025 was the year data roles decisively became mainstream. “Data roles truly became mainstream in 2025. Every industry, from BFSI to retail to manufacturing, prioritised data engineering, data management and analytics expertise. AI and ML roles emerged as the second-highest priority category, moving from experimental hiring to structured workforce planning,” he said.

Companies were simultaneously rebalancing compensation structures. “Mid-senior tech roles saw a substantial salary reset, with median compensation reducing by nearly 40%. Companies were more measured with increments and hiring budgets, reflecting a pragmatic shift toward efficiency,” Chengappa said. He added that while the market adjusted aggressively, skill premiums remained intact. “Specialists in AI, cloud architecture and cybersecurity continued to see moderate upward salary movements because these capabilities directly support digital transformation and business continuity.”

The result was a bifurcated talent economy: a cooling traditional tech job market paired with accelerated investment in AI, data, cloud and security.

Freshers Improved, But the Momentum Was Uneven

If mid-senior professionals bore the brunt of correction, 2025 was a mixed year for freshers. Sarbojit Mallick, co-founder of Instahyre, said the recovery was real but underwhelming. “The data shows that 2025 was a slightly setback year for freshers. Fresher hiring improved ~9% YoY, but fresher hiring intent slipped to 70% in H2 (–4% vs H1), with startups, e-commerce and retail brands leading fresher hiring intent at 88%. Bengaluru-based companies topped city-wise fresher hiring intent at 81%,” he said.

The surprises came not from volumes but from hiring direction. “Apart from AI + data roles [+18%], performance marketing [+22%], FMCG [+11%], and tech startups/e-commerce/retail saw unexpected hiring surges, driven largely by AI adoption, digital marketing, and customer-facing roles in media and marketing,” Mallick said.

But this growth was selective. “Despite high visibility, non-AI-aligned advertising roles and mid-senior traditional IT/marketing jobs softened sharply. Some of the major roles that saw drops in demand were Web3 engineers, which dropped by 27% compared to 2024, and crypto marketing roles, which saw 31% less roles being available for talent,” he noted.

The Stealth Wave: Hybrid Tech Roles and Gig-Led AI Support

Beyond headline roles, the real mainstreaming happened in hybrid and emerging categories that fed India’s AI engine. As Mallick explained, “The stealth mainstream wave came from AI & ML specialists, data analysts, cloud engineers, cybersecurity analysts, along with gig-economy jobs in AI-powered support and digital content, building on upward trends like sales enablement [+41%] and consumer research analysts [+33%].”

Salary momentum reflected the same reality. “Salary growth narrowed sharply for most mid-senior tech roles. Hikes ranged between 4–9%, except AI and cybersecurity (10–15%), while earlier corrections were held (full-stack –12%, SDE3 –15%, cloud/DevOps –7%). Given the market sentiment, freshers saw only 2–4% salary hikes amid highly selective hiring.”

Mallick also framed 2025 as a genuine recovery year, but one that demands a correction phase ahead. “Unlike 2024’s sentiment-led rebound, 2025 delivered real recovery with 14.5 million net formal job additions, aligning with the overall hiring increase of ~9% YoY [of which tech contributed just 2%], meaning the market grew — but unevenly. A correction is due in the short term, with positive future repercussions.”

Campus and Entry-Level Hiring Under Prolonged Stress

While AI and hybrid roles surged, entry-level hiring remained under severe pressure. Kamal Karanth, Co-Founder of Xpheno, said the stress on fresher pipelines shows no signs of easing. “We observe a cautious and conservative status quo on campus action by sectors and enterprises that are known to be key absorbers of fresher talent. The demand for entry-level and fresher talent has been on a low for nearly 3-plus years now. The current active demand for entry level talent in India is under 50K across all sectors, with only one-third of it coming from the tech sector. The state of fresher and entry-level hiring continues to be under stress as industries attempt to stabilize their talent plans and costs.”

Macro challenges have kept India’s largest campus recruiters sidelined. “Headwinds and macro uncertainties, that hit fresher intake by the IT sector, have not fully cleared up yet. The sector's overall austerity plans to protect margins have impacted the volume and velocity of campus intakes this year as well,” he said.

Expectations for recovery in FY2026, Karanth added, have been revised downward. “Campus hiring has traditionally been driven by the IT sector and specifically the IT Services cohort. The IT Services cohort is known to be the largest contributor to the talent BUILD process in the tech sector. The tech sector's intake volumes, on the backdrop of India annually producing 900K+ engineers, remains a concern… FY2026 was earlier projected to be a recovery year for fresher hiring. However developments in the US as a key market for the sector, has disrupted the plans for the current year as well.”

Karanth detailed the intake trend starkly: FY2020–21 saw 95K freshers hired, jumping to 600K in FY2021–22, then falling to 250K, 100K, and 120K over the next three fiscal cycles. FY2025–26, originally estimated at 150K, has now been revised back to 120K. “In the first half of the fiscal, a collective of 7 large IT service players have absorbed a net of less than 23K freshers in the tech & engineering function… The second half is projected to be not very different unless something drastically shifts in the conditions of the IT services market,” he added.