In the past couple of years, data analytics has grown from being a discretionary spend area to a service that is a need for competitive advantage. Not only are businesses looking at internal well-structured corporate or customer data but also are exploring large external data sources (on social networks, internet, e-mails, text documents, etc.), which are usually unstructured, and need to be combined with structured data to conduct meaningful analysis. Managing the sheer volume, variety, and velocity of data that is being generated (with the innumerable technological interface devices) is a relatively new challenge for the typical business organization.

Thus, the demand for trained analytics and big data professionals is increasing at a tremendous rate. Supply is still very constrained and this means that over half the positions on offer still remain vacant making it a lucrative career option for professionals.

This annual Analytics India Salary Study 2015 is an initiative by Analytics India Magazine in partnership with Great Lakes Institute of Management to highlight the salary trends in the industry across cities, experience levels and sectors.

Read the latest Analytics India Salary Study 2016

Key Trends

In the past few years there is a rise in demand of the data analytics professional and the overall salary trends look very optimistic.

Overall Salary Trends:

• The overall average salaries of analytics professionals across the country is 9.4 lakhs per annum. This is across seniority levels and expertise.
• The average salaries for analytics professionals increased by 21% from the same time last year. This is an excellent increase given that the recruitment at entry level has been high last year. The salaries for mid to senior levels professionals have increased in the range of 25-40% last year.
• 14% of all analytics professionals command more than 15 lakhs salary. 37% command less than 6 lakhs
• Almost 12% of entry level professionals in analytics command more than 6 lakhs

Salary Trends across Cities:

• Mumbai pays the highest salary to analytics professionals at an average of 9.9 lakhs per annum, marginally higher than Bangalore at 9.8 lakhs average.
• After Mumbai, Bangalore and NCR, Pune has the highest average salaries at 8 lakhs per annum.
• Among cities, Hyderabad had the highest year on year hike in salary at almost 25%.
• In Mumbai, there are more analytics professionals in the 10 – 25 lakh range salary than any other city (at 31%).

Key inferences:

• The number of professionals in the high income bracket is low and the majority of professionals are employed at a fresher or senior analyst level across India. This is in line with the expectation where when an area grows in volume, more of junior level professionals are required.
• Though Mumbai has traditionally offered the highest salaries because of its high cost of living and the trend still continues, Bangalore is fast catching up and its salaries are almost at par with that of Mumbai now.

Salary Trends across Experience Levels:

• From Analyst (0-3 years) to Senior Analyst (4-6 years), an analytics professional can expect almost 75% average hike in the salary. From Senior Analyst to Assistant Manager (7-9 years), it is almost 57%.
• Almost 85% of all analytics professionals in India with more than 12 years of experience can expect to have more than 15 lakhs per annum 45% have more than 25 lakhs per annum salary.

Key inferences:

• Things are a lot perkier as a data analyst and trends show that at each level salary increment is upwards of 50%. The biggest jump in salary is from the Analyst’s to a Senior Analyst’s level.
• At the Director’s level, salaries are much higher in Bangalore, Delhi/NCR and Mumbai in comparison to Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad. At the Analyst’s level, salaries are almost at par across the cities.

Salary Trends across Industries:

• Ecommerce emerged as the highest paymaster paying its analytics professionals an average salary of 12.9 lakhs per annum.
• The lowest paymasters were the Media/Advertising and Pharma sectors with average salaries of 5 and 8.1 lakhs per annum respectively.

Key inferences:

• In general captive centres (eg: ecommerce, retail, telecom) paid higher salaries to retain their talent.
• As compared to captives, analysts that work for service providers either in the IT/ITES or Media/Advertising sectors have the opportunity to move around domains and gain expertise. This is the advantage that affords service providers the luxury of paying lower salaries but still attracting high quality talent.

Conclusion

Analytics drives insights and insights lead to better decisions. As businesses find themselves in an era of unprecedented competition and changing economic landscape, data analytics is the crucial component that can help them build a competitive advantage and make well-informed choices. Businesses of all sizes today are waking up to this realization and to help these businesses realize their analytics goal, the skilled analytics professional is looked as the saviour of sorts.

As a result, the analytics job market will grow like never before and there will be unparalleled opportunities for those with analytic skills. Salaries will continue to increase and we will see professionals from other sectors honing their analytics skills and switching careers. The time for the data-savvy analytics professional is here!

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