Bangalore Vs. Delhi: A battle for best IT salary
By Binu Paul, SiliconIndia   |   Thursday, 09 June 2011, 02:20 IST
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Bangalore Vs. Delhi: A battle for best IT salary
Bangalore: The culture, lifestyle and living expense differs in each Indian city, so does the pay scale. The wider access to education has triggered increased migration of educated youth to cities in search of their dream jobs. India with its abundance of highly educated and skilled youth force has gathered the attention of the rest of the world and since then, the jobs were flowing to its cities. India is fast becoming the center of Information technology in the world and the cities are witnessing a rush of multinational companies setting up their offices here with numerous job opportunities in ITES, banking, finance, retail, telecom, and logistics etc. IT is a desired job destination for the Indian youth today. However, they look at salary structure, lifestyle and living expenses that each city offers and are flexible to move to the best place. According to a study by employability measurement and recruitment firm Aspiring Minds Research Cell, about 72 percent of the engineering students surveyed voted for Bangalore as the most preferred destination to work in. The young generation defines Bangalore as the Mecca of engineers as it offers growth, different options and like-minded people to work with. New Delhi was ranked second in terms of engineers' preferred choice as 32 percent of the respondents felt that the capital city offers them the best remunerations and growth opportunities. Hyderabad was the third most preferred city for employment for engineers as 31 percent of the students voted for the city. Pune came fourth with 30 percent of the respondents favoring it and Chennai was the fifth preferred city. The surprising finding was that the economic capital of the country, Mumbai was ranked last on the list of 6 top cities for engineering jobs. Bangalore was voted the best place for IT jobs not just for its cool climate and the supporting infrastructure, but mainly for the fact that it pays better than any other Indian cities. According to the online compensation data provider, PayScale.com, on an average, a senior software engineer/developer/programmer in Bangalore gets an annual salary of 584,710; a software engineer is paid 357,394 and the project manager in IT gets 1,091,380. The salary pattern in Delhi for the same jobs is comparatively low as a senior software engineer/developer/programmer is paid 535,438; a software engineer gets 347,607; or a project manager 1,056,185 on an average. Although the salary structure varies from organization to organization, the common salary trend gives an idea about the paying patterns of each city. As the economy further improves, the salaries are expected to go up and a change in the pattern is sure to occur. However, the dominance of Bangalore over other Indian cities in IT pay scale is here to stay as the garden city is the favorite of IT giants.