The Compensation Index.
The senior GCC compensation benchmark, built from what offers actually close at, not from survey self-reports. Bands by role, sector, and city, with the gaps that matter, IC4 to IC5, director to VP, Bengaluru to Hyderabad, where most comp plans quietly go wrong.
The published band and the closed offer are two different numbers — and the gap is widest in AI.
The IT edition benchmarks what it costs to win the hire in India technology and IT: bands by role, level and city, with the GCC premium and the skill premiums that decide the offer. Public guides set the floor; where an offer actually closes is what Recruise tracks placement by placement. Three numbers move every tech offer in 2026.
- 01 The GCC premium is the first number. A GCC pays 25–40% over an equivalent IT-services role at mid-senior level — the difference between an offer that closes and one that gets countered.
- 02 Skill premiums decide the offer ahead of tenure. GenAI, MLOps, cloud and security carry a 25–50% premium over a generalist at the same level; commoditised roles see only 6–8%.
- 03 The hike has cooled to ~9%, so lateral pay decides retention. A 4.1-point spread now separates the top sector from the bottom — the widest in recent years — and off-cycle corrections, not the annual cycle, hold scarce talent.
Recent drops.
Built from closed offers, not surveys.
A salary survey ages and aggregates. The Compensation Index is back-tested against what mandates actually closed at, which is the only number a candidate is really weighing.