Median salary for analytics professionals in India rose 8 pc in 2017: Study

The median salary for analytics professionals in India in 2017 stood at Rs 12.7 lakh per annum across experience levels and skill sets, an 8 per cent increase over the year-ago period, says a study.

The salary study by analytics learning platform Great Learning and Analytics India Magazine, noted that the median salary of professionals in this space is on an uptrend and there is more demand for senior professionals in this space.

"The monetary perk of a career in data analytics is huge. Organisations, irrespective of their industries, are looking for analytics professionals with diverse skill sets. Job roles like machine learning engineers, data scientists, data mining specialists, cloud architects and cyber security analysts are in heavy demand and command good salary," said Hari Krishnan Nair, Co-founder, Great Learning.

Sector-wise, telecom offers the highest average salaries in analytics, followed by retail and energy sectors.

The percentage of analytics professionals earning more than Rs 15 lakh per annum has increased from 17 per cent in 2016 to 21 per cent in 2017, to 22.3 per cent in 2018.

"Machine learning and analytics skills can easily yield a net package of 12-14 lakh per annum. However, to be successful in this profession, upskilling oneself with the latest technology is imperative. We are entering an age of lifelong learning," Nair added.

As per the report, there is still a long way to attain pay parity across genders, in this profession. Women analytics professionals earn 32 per cent lesser salaries compared to their male counterpart.

In terms of cities, Mumbai continues to be the highest paymaster in analytics at almost Rs 13.3 lakh per annum, followed by Bengaluru at Rs 12.5 lakh.

Chennai and Hyderabad are the lowest paymasters at Rs 10.2 lakh per year.

The study, however, noted that while the salary of analytics professionals across various industries and specialisations are improving steadily, the IT sector has shown a downward trend with lowest analytics salaries this year.

"IT service providers, primarily providing services to analytics clients across the globe, have been affected the most with their analytics salaries going down. This can be largely attributed to the overall negative impact on IT sector such as automation, and increased attrition rate in the IT space," said Bhasker Gupta, Founder and CEO, Analytics India Magazine.