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India’s early-talent ecosystem is growing at a pace few other markets can keep up with. More than 1.7 Mn Engineering students are enrolled today, and over 8,260 institutions are shaping this talent pipeline.
The scale is huge, but what’s becoming even more interesting is how the make-up of this ecosystem is shifting: how readiness, expectations, compensation patterns, and employer behaviors are moving together.
That’s the story this report looks at.
Over the past year, compensation has moved in a steady, predictable direction. Fixed pay has inched up at roughly 4% CAGR, with MTech and non-engineering master’s programs seeing the sharpest rise. MBA graduates remain at the top of the guaranteed-cash ladder, around INR 16 lakh (P50), largely because of the leadership-oriented roles they step into.
We also continue to see clear sector variations. Software & Internet, and BFSI GCCs tend to lead the market for premium tech and analytics talent. Semiconductor and Automotive companies remain reliable destinations for students with niche engineering skills.
And while offers are still competitive, GCCs are approaching compensation with far more structure than before, balancing fixed, variable, and benefits to match both role complexity and the realities of the market. Students are tuning into this shift as well. In our survey, Learning & Development came up as the No. 1 factor shaping employer attractiveness (46% of respondents). Flexibility and faster growth pathways followed closely behind.
The hiring journey on campus is also changing. GCCs are showing up much earlier and far more often, through hackathons, case competitions, student-ambassador programs, and constant campus engagement. In fact, 8 out of 10 GCCs now run structured pre-placement internships, which signals something important: campus hiring is no longer a season; it’s a year-round funnel.
This naturally leads into the growing role of internships. They’ve expanded massively, opportunities have almost doubled in three years, and the growth is no longer limited to engineering. Data Science, Product, Design, Analytics, and several corporate functions now offer students meaningful, hands-on roles well before they graduate. Stipends reflect this shift too: BTech internships typically range from ₹28,000 to ₹87,000 a month, while MBA stipends can go as high as ₹1.75 lakh.
Once students join, the first 90 days matter more than ever. Companies are rethinking induction to focus on productivity, mentorship, and real-world immersion from day one. With compensation trends stabilising, these experience-based differentiators, learning depth, career visibility, mobility options, well-being, are increasingly becoming the way employers stand out.
Campus Compensation Trends 2025 is designed to give leaders a clear, grounded view of all these changes. It breaks down how compensation is moving, what the new generation values, and how GCCs are reshaping their early-talent engines, from pre-placement engagement to hiring, onboarding, and the metrics that show whether the system is working. The emphasis now is on intentional design, not scale for its own sake.
If you’re building or expanding a GCC in India, planning your campus strategy for the upcoming season, or simply trying to tighten the link between offer and on-the-job performance, this report offers a realistic picture of where the market is heading, disciplined, evolving, and increasingly defined by the overall experience you create.
The pool is large. The opportunity is larger.
And the organisations that succeed will be the ones that shape the entire journey, end to end.
THANK YOU
FOR YOUR RESPONSE
