The short answer: staying gets you 9.1% in 2026. Switching gets you 20–35% for an ordinary move, and meaningfully more for a few specific ones. The gap between those two numbers is the single biggest lever most people underuse in their own compensation.
What staying actually pays in 2026
This one is unusually well established. Three separate compensation surveys — Deloitte's Talent Outlook, Aon's Annual Salary Increase and Turnover Survey (now in its 32nd edition, covering more than 1,400 organisations across 45 industries), and EY's Future of Pay — all landed on 9.1% for 2026. Three different samples and three different methodologies converging on the same figure is about as close to a settled number as Indian compensation data gets.
It is also barely a rise. Aon recorded 8.9% actually paid in 2025 and Deloitte 9.0%, so 2026 represents something between a flat year and a rounding error — against inflation, close to standing still. And the average conceals an enormous spread once you look underneath it:
| Sector | 2026 increase |
|---|---|
| Real estate & infrastructure | 10.2% |
| NBFCs | 10.1% |
| Automotive & vehicle manufacturing | 9.9% |
| Engineering design services | 9.9% |
| Engineering & manufacturing | 9.5% |
| Retail | 9.5% |
| Life sciences | 9.4% |
| Energy | 9.4% |
| Technology — platform & products | 9.4% |
| Global Capability Centres | 9.3% |
| E-commerce | 8.8% |
| Banking | 8.8% |
| Chemicals | 8.3% |
| Life insurance | 8.2% |
| Technology — consulting & services | 6.6% |
Source: Aon Annual Salary Increase and Turnover Survey 2025-26. Deloitte's sector cuts differ slightly in framing — it puts pharma and manufacturing close to 10% and notes the technology sector trimmed its projections by 10-70 basis points versus last year.
The bottom row is the one worth staring at. Technology consulting and services at 6.6%is roughly a third below the national average — and it is the sector employing the largest single block of India's white-collar professionals. If you are in IT services, the stay-versus-switch gap is not the 9.1% headline. It is 6.6%, and it is the widest gap of any sector on this table.
What switching pays, by situation
On these numbers specifically:no public survey tracks switch hikes the way Deloitte, Aon and EY track increments — increments are reported by employers to a compensation-survey vendor, while switch hikes sit inside individual offer letters that nobody aggregates. The ranges below are Pathwise's own aggregation from offer data and reported recruiter bands. They are directional, and we would rather label them that way than dress them up with a citation that does not exist.
Percentages flatter small bases, which is why the fresher band looks so good and matters so little in rupees. A 50% hike on ₹6L is ₹3L. A 25% hike on ₹40L is ₹10L. Read the band as a sanity check on the offer in front of you, not as a target to optimise — the hike calculator will tell you where a specific offer lands inside these ranges, and what it actually means in hand per month.
Why switching pays more, structurally
This isn't random — it's a predictable effect of how compensation budgets work. Your current employer sets your raise against an internal budget, spread across everyone, constrained by what was approved months earlier. A new employer sets your offer against the market pricefor your specific skills today, with no obligation to keep pace with what they're already paying someone else in your seat. One is anchored to the past; the other is anchored to current demand. That is the whole gap, structurally.
Deloitte's 2026 data shows how tight that internal budget has become. The share of employees receiving the top rating on a five-point scale fell from 10% in 2024 to 7% in 2025, while roughly 16% of the workforce now sits in the bottom two ratings. Since the increment budget is distributed through the ratings, a shrinking top band means the "exceptional performer" raise is being rationed to fewer people — and if you are not one of them, your increment is being set closer to that 9.1% average than to anything exciting.
The one genuinely encouraging internal number: promotions went the other way, rising from 12% of employees in 2024 to 14% in 2025. A promotion typically carries something closer to a 15–20% step-up — real, and better than an increment, but still smaller than what the open market pays for the same jump in responsibility, because it remains constrained by your employer's internal pay bands. Whether you are actually in line for one is a separate question worth answering honestly before you count on it.
The 2026 twist: fewer people are leaving
The switching premium exists partly because employers have to compete to keep people. That pressure is easing. Aon recorded attrition falling to 16.2% in 2025, down from 17.7% in 2024 and 18.7% in 2023 — back near pre-COVID levels after three consecutive years of decline. Deloitte's sample reads slightly differently, at 17.6% in 2025 against 17.4% in 2024, essentially flat. The two disagree on the direction, and we would rather show you both than pick the one that makes a neater story. What they agree on is that the frantic churn of 2022 is over.
For anyone thinking about a move, that cuts both ways. Less churn means fewer open roles and less panic-buying of talent, so the average switch is likely to sit at the lower end of these bands rather than the top. But the premium hasn't collapsed — it is being aimed more precisely, at people with skills that are genuinely scarce. The market is getting better at telling the difference, which raises the return on being specific about what you are worth and lowers the return on simply being available.
What this means practically
If you're relying entirely on annual increments to close a pay gap, the math is working against you — a 9% raise on a salary that's already 20% behind market never catches up, because the market moves too; the gap compounds instead. The realistic ways to close a real gap are: get a promotion (partial correction), negotiate a market correction in place (uncommon, but possible with real leverage), or test the market directly — factoring in what your notice period does to that timeline. None of these require quitting immediately. But knowing which one applies to your situation requires knowing your real gap first, rather than guessing from a LinkedIn post.
Survey figures are cited to their source and current as of July 2026. The switching ranges are Pathwise estimates, as flagged above. All of it is a starting benchmark rather than a floor or a ceiling — your actual outcome depends on skill scarcity, city, company tier and how well you negotiate. Not financial or career advice.