Stimulating economic growth across all sectors in India, the information and communication technology (ICT) field has a key role to play as a major driver of the country's economy.

It is not surprising then that businesses in India, across most sectors covered in the ZDNet Asia IT Salary Benchmark Survey 2008, are paying ICT professionals better salaries over the previous year.

E. Balaji, CEO of Ma Foi Management Consultants in India, noted how IT companies in the country are offering higher salaries to their tech staff.

"Each year, [IT professionals] earn 10 percent to 15 percent more than than the previous year," Balaji told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail interview.

"At entry/junior levels, they may get a hike of up to 30 to 40 percent," he said. "When IT professionals change jobs, they tend to get 30 percent or more, from the new employers unless a candidate has lost a job or is about to lose a job."

According to the ZDNet Asia survey, the average annual IT salary in India was 554,075 rupees (US$12,910). A total number of 5,141 complete responses culled for the survey were from India.

Interestingly, though, respondents in India's IT, Web and telecom sector were paid less this year compared to the previous year. The average annual salary for those in this sector was 556,464 rupees (US$12,966), compared to 687,401 rupees (US$16,016) in the previous year's survey.

Balaji reckoned a reason for this could be that, previously, IT companies in India hired graduates from premier engineering colleges, paying high starting salaries of around 40,000 rupees (US$932) a month. The organizations then started to hire from Tier 2 institutes, paying almost half of what they paid students from premier campuses.

"In the last year or so, some of the big Indian IT companies have started to hire many science graduates at lower salaries," he explained. "These companies are able to get comparable productivity through superior work designs where the jobs are deskilled," he said.

More than three quarters, or 78.8 percent, of respondents in India were in the IT, Web and telecom sector.

The survey also revealed that 56.8 percent had a Bachelor's degree, while 31.2 percent had a Master's degree, 11.1 percent owned a diploma, 4.9 percent had vocational/tech school qualifications and 1.8 percent had a PhD.

Some 45.2 percent of India's IT professionals in the survey had application development skills, while 27.9 percent had desktop/software skills and 26.5 percent had operating systems skills.

Respondents working in the legal and finance sector enjoyed the highest average annual salary of 683,781 rupees (US$15,932).

IT Salary Benchmark Survey 2008
ZDNet Asia conducted an online survey between late-2007 and early-2008 to gain insights into Asia's IT workforce and salary trends. It drew 21,635 respondents from sectors such as government, healthcare, IT, services, telecommunications, legal and finance, and across seven Asian economies: Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Some 5,141 respondents were polled from India, 63.1 percent of whom held jobs in the IT, Web and telecom sectors.

Note: In the following charts, INR denotes the Indian rupee.