Data Scientist Salary in India 2026: Fresher to Senior, by City and Company

Last updated: October 2026

Ask five people what a data scientist earns in India and you will get five different answers. One friend at a services company is on ₹6 LPA. Someone on LinkedIn says they cleared ₹50 LPA at a product company. Both can be true.

The gap comes down to three things: experience, the kind of company and what you actually build. This guide breaks the numbers down along those lines so you can work out where you stand and what the next step is worth.

Quick answer

• Typical salary: ₹8–16 LPA for most working data scientists (Glassdoor India puts average base pay at about ₹11 LPA)
• Fresher: ₹5–10 LPA at most companies; ₹15–25 LPA at top product firms and GCCs
• Senior (8+ years): ₹38–60 LPA, and higher at FAANG and top GCCs
• Highest-paying city: Bangalore
• Biggest pay lever: Moving from reporting-style work to models that run in production

Data Scientist salary by experience

Experience matters more in data science than in most tech roles, because companies trust you with live models only after you have shipped a few. Here is what the market looks like at each stage:

• Fresher (0–1 year): ₹5–10 LPA. Services companies sit at the lower end (₹4.5–7 LPA); analytics firms and product companies pay more.
• Early career (2–4 years): ₹12–22 LPA. This is where the biggest jumps happen, often through a job switch.
• Mid-level (5–7 years): ₹22–38 LPA. You are expected to own a problem end to end.
• Senior (8–12 years): ₹38–60 LPA. Lead data scientist and manager roles.
• Principal / Head (12+ years): ₹60 LPA–₹1 Cr+ at large product companies and GCCs.

Glassdoor's title-level data tells the same story: Data Scientist ₹7–16 LPA, Senior Data Scientist ₹16–28 LPA and Data Science Manager ₹20–30 LPA. The higher bands above come from product companies and global capability centres, where pay includes stock.

Data Scientist salary by city

Where you work still changes the number, even with remote roles around. Average data scientist pay by city:

• Bangalore: ₹16–20 LPA
• Hyderabad: ₹13–17 LPA
• Delhi NCR (Gurgaon, Noida): ₹13–17 LPA
• Pune: ₹12–16 LPA
• Mumbai: ₹12–16 LPA
• Chennai: ₹10–14 LPA
• Tier-2 cities (Kochi, Coimbatore, Indore): ₹7–11 LPA, roughly 20–25% below the metros

Data Scientist salary by company type

This is the single biggest factor. The same five years of experience can be worth ₹15 LPA or ₹60 LPA depending on who is paying.

• IT services (TCS, Infosys, Wipro): Freshers ₹4–6 LPA; about ₹10–16 LPA at 5 years
• Consulting and analytics firms (Accenture, Deloitte, Fractal): Freshers ₹5–11 LPA; ₹14–32 LPA at 5 years
• Indian product companies and unicorns (Flipkart, Razorpay, PhonePe): Freshers ₹14–26 LPA; ₹28–55 LPA at 3–5 years
• Global capability centres (Walmart, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs): ₹28–62 LPA at 3–5 years
• FAANG India: ₹50–80 LPA at mid level (L4), with a large share in stock

What data scientists earn at well-known companies

Median total pay reported by employees on Glassdoor India (October 2026). These are mostly early and mid-career figures, so treat them as a reality check rather than a ceiling.

• IBM: ₹15 LPA
• Accenture: ₹13 LPA
• Tiger Analytics: ₹16 LPA
• Fractal: ₹18 LPA

Data scientist vs ML engineer vs data analyst pay

These titles overlap, and that confuses a lot of people comparing offers. At the same experience level, pay roughly runs in this order:

• Data analyst: ₹8–16 LPA at 3–5 years. Reporting, dashboards and SQL.
• Data scientist: ₹18–32 LPA at 3–5 years. Statistics, experiments and predictive models.
• ML engineer: ₹25–45 LPA at 3–5 years. Getting models into production and keeping them there.
• GenAI / LLM engineer: ₹30–55 LPA at 3–5 years. The hottest market right now.

So if you enjoy engineering as much as statistics, drifting towards ML engineering is usually the fastest way to grow your pay. See our AI engineer salary guide for that side of the market.

Skills that push your salary up

Two data scientists with the same years of experience can be ₹15 LPA apart. These are the skills that usually explain the difference:

• Shipping models to production (MLOps, Docker, APIs). Usually worth a 25–45% premium over notebook-only work.
• LLM application work such as RAG, fine-tuning and evaluation. Currently the strongest premium in the market.
• Strong SQL and Python. Non-negotiable, and tested in almost every interview.
• Experiment design and causal inference. Valued highly at product companies running A/B tests.
• Cloud (AWS, GCP or Azure). Especially SageMaker, Vertex AI or Databricks.
• Business communication. The people who can explain a model to a VP get promoted faster.

CTC vs in-hand: what you actually take home

Offer letters quote CTC, but your bank account sees something smaller. Take a data scientist offer of ₹10 LPA with no variable pay. If PF is calculated on a basic of 50% of CTC, your monthly in-hand is roughly ₹73,000. If your company caps PF at ₹1,800 a month (many do), it is closer to ₹79,500.

Under the new tax regime, salaried people with taxable income up to ₹12.75 lakh (after the ₹75,000 standard deduction) pay no income tax, so at this level PF and professional tax are the main deductions. Variable pay, insurance and gratuity can lower the monthly number further. Our guide on CTC vs in-hand salary walks through a full payslip.

How to move up the pay ladder

Most people don't get a big raise by staying put. Data scientists in India usually see their biggest jumps (30–60%) when they switch companies, especially from services to product or from an analytics firm to a GCC.

1. Years 0–2: get very good at SQL, Python and one modelling area. Build two projects you can explain in depth.
2. Years 2–4: take a model all the way to production at least once. This is what product companies look for.
3. Years 4+: pick a specialisation (NLP and LLMs, recommendations, forecasting or computer vision) and become the go-to person for it.

Want the full role breakdown? Read our data scientist job description guide.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average data scientist salary in India?
Most working data scientists earn ₹8–16 LPA. Glassdoor India puts average base pay at about ₹11 LPA, with senior people at product companies earning far more.

What salary does a fresher data scientist get?
Usually ₹5–10 LPA. Services companies start at ₹4.5–7 LPA, while top product companies and GCCs can offer ₹15–25 LPA to strong graduates.

Is data science still a good career in 2026?
Yes, but the bar is higher. Roles that combine data science with engineering or LLM work are growing fastest and pay the most.

Can a data scientist earn ₹1 crore in India?
Yes, at principal or head level at large product companies, GCCs and FAANG, usually with 12+ years of experience and a large stock component.

Related guides

• Data scientist job description and responsibilities
• Data analyst salary in India 2026
• AI engineer salary in India 2026
• Machine learning interview questions
• Highest paying tech jobs

How we put these numbers together

Figures are approximate annual CTC in Indian rupees (LPA = lakh per annum) as of October 2026. We combined employee-reported salaries from Glassdoor India with 2025–26 hiring data published by Instahyre and Hyring, and cross-checked them against published industry salary guides. Where sources disagreed, we show a range instead of one number. Actual offers depend on the company, your interview performance and how well you negotiate.

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