TeamLease Digital CEO Neeti Sharma told The Times of India that AI architects in India with at least 15 years of experience earn median annual pay of ₹10.86 million, highlighting a wide skills-based wage gap.
Sharma said the figure describes a senior role rather than typical pay across the technology workforce. TeamLease Digital’s fiscal 2026-27 Digital Skills & Salary Primer draws on 37,000 technology and digital roles. The company identifies AI, data, cloud and cybersecurity as skill areas drawing higher pay.
The study also puts annual pay at ₹10.2 million for industrial data architects and ₹9.58 million for operational technology security architects. The 15-year experience qualification comes from Sharma’s description of the AI architect role.
The study puts entry-level median annual pay for AI-core roles at ₹1.32 million. In the same comparison, it reports ranges of ₹900,000 to ₹1.02 million for AI-adjacent jobs and ₹480,000 to ₹540,000 for AI-support work. The adjacent and support figures are ranges, rather than single medians.
TeamLease groups the roles by how workers use the technology. AI-core staff build and take responsibility for systems; AI-adjacent staff apply AI within existing work; and support staff help keep AI-enabled operations running. The company says 16% of India’s IT professionals have AI skills.
TeamLease links the pay premium to demand for people who can deploy AI systems and oversee security and governance. Sharma said employers’ growing use of automation is putting pressure on repetitive support duties, including routine testing and standardized reports.
The gap also appears in the company’s outlook for fiscal 2027-28. TeamLease projects salary growth of 16% to 21% for AI-core roles, 13% to 18% for AI-adjacent roles and 7% to 8% for AI-support jobs. Those figures are projections, not pay increases already recorded.
