Infosys Ltd chief executive Salil Parekh’s salary rose 21.7% last year to touch ₹80.62 crore, the company’s latest annual report released on Monday showed, as he retained his position as the second-highest paid CEO among India’s top information technology (IT) services companies.
A little more than three-fifths, or ₹49.5 crore, of his compensation came from shares exercised by him in FY25, while ₹23.18 crore came from bonuses, variable pay, and incentives. The remaining ₹7.94 crore was part of his fixed salary.
To be sure, the highest paid IT executive remains HCL Technologies Ltd’s C. Vijayakumar, according to the company’s FY24 annual report.
Parekh’s 22% pay hike comes as Infosys remained the second-best performing company among the Big Five in FY25. The Bengaluru-headquartered company ended FY25 with $19.28 billion in revenue, up 3.85% from a year earlier.
Parekh’s salary is three times more than Tata Consultancy Services Ltd CEO, K. Krithivasan, whose salary increased 4.6% to ₹26.5 crore. Fourth-largest Wipro Ltd paid ₹53.6 crore to CEO Srinivas Pallia, marking a 10% increase.
Tech Mahindra Ltd’s Mohit Joshi is the lowest paid among the five, with a salary of 1.34 million pounds, or around ₹15 crore as of March 2024. The Pune-based tech services company is yet to disclose its annual report for the year.
₹84.16 crore in FY24.”>Indian IT’s top-earning CEO is third-largest firm HCLTech’s CEO C. Vijayakumar. who earned ₹84.16 crore in FY24. The Noida-based company, which grew the fastest among top five, is yet to release its annual report for FY25.
HCLTech ended March 2025 with $13.84 billion in full-year revenue, marking a 4.3% increase.
A spike in bosses’ salaries at IT services companies underscores their performance, at least for Infosys and HCLTech.
Parekh and Vijayakumar have been CEOs of their companies for at least seven years, making them Indian IT’s longest serving bosses. Both companies have also grown fast in the last couple of years. While HCL grew the fastest among peers for the last two years, Infosys was the second-fastest last fiscal.
The pay jump for India’s IT bosses also reflects the companies’ attempts at shedding their decades-old approach of being a conservative paymasters.
However, it is not just Parekh at Infosys – the company added nine more crorepatis last fiscal year. Infosys now has 112 employees earning more than a crore rupees.
Median increase in salary for employees
While certain senior employees entered the one crore club, the median increase in salary for employees including those in the junior and middle level was 9.63%. However, this increase was more than last year’s 8.65%.
In contrast, TCS increased salaries of its employees up to 7.5% last fiscal, against 9% in FY24. Infosys with 323,578 employees, has almost half the employees of TCS, which ended last fiscal with 607,979 employees.
The salary hikes at India’s largest IT outsourcers come amid questions on growth because of an uncertain macroeconomic environment and fewer large deals. While Infosys projected its slowest growth for the fiscal at the start of the year in a decade, TCS reported its slowest growth in four years.
TCS won orders worth $39 billion, 7.7% lower than last year whereas Wipro’s order book was down 4% last year to $14.3 billion. Infosys reported large deals, or those exceeding $50 million in annual revenue, worth $11.6 billion, which was down 34% on a yearly basis.
“As we contemplate the developments of the last few months, we know we are in an era of uncertainty that we have never seen before. Multiple trends are colliding and leading us to reexamine the fundamentals of our businesses,” said Nandan Nilekani, chairman of Infosys, as part of his message in the company’s annual report.
