What is the average data scientist salary for a fresher in India?

PayScale (self-reported, 307 salaries, updated September 2026) shows about Rs 6.0 lakh a year total pay for data scientists with under 1 year of experience.

How much does a data scientist earn after 5 years?

PayScale does not show a rupee figure for plain data scientists at 5 to 9 years. Senior Data Scientists with 5 to 9 years average about Rs 24.2 lakh total pay (133 salaries).

Which city pays data scientists the most?

Indeed India (October 2026) lists Mumbai first at about Rs 13.8 lakh, followed by Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurgaon and Bengaluru.

Will AI replace data scientists?

No source we opened says so. Naukri shows AI/ML hiring up 32% in October 2026, and WEF lists AI and big data specialists among the fastest-growing jobs. Routine tasks are being automated, so judgement and AI skills matter more.

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Data Scientist Salary India 2026-2031 PDF

Key takeaways

PayScale (self-reported, 1,122 profiles, updated 5 September 2026): Data Scientist average base pay about Rs 10.1 lakh, typical range Rs 3.1 lakh to about Rs 20 lakh.
Entry level (under 1 year) averages about Rs 6.0 lakh total pay (307 salaries), and 1 to 4 years about Rs 10.0 lakh (668 salaries).
Senior Data Scientists average about Rs 23.9 lakh base on PayScale, and about Rs 24.2 lakh total pay at 5 to 9 years (133 salaries).
Indeed lists Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurgaon and Bengaluru as top-paying cities, at about Rs 12.2 lakh to Rs 13.8 lakh on average.
Python, machine learning, SQL, statistics and deep learning are the skills PayScale lists most. AI skills now appear in 15.4% of tech job descriptions (Naukri).

How to read these numbers

Every salary in this report comes from a page we opened on PayScale India or Indeed India. Both sites collect pay that people report themselves, and Indeed also uses job postings. So treat the numbers as a guide, not a promise.

Base pay vs total pay. Base is your fixed yearly salary. Total pay adds bonus, profit sharing and other cash. PayScale's experience-level numbers are total pay.
Sample size. A figure built on 668 salaries is more reliable than one built on 25. We give the sample size each time.
Update date. Pay moves every year, so we show when each page was last updated.
Your offer will differ. Company type, city, degree, skills and interview performance all change the number.

We tried to open AmbitionBox and Glassdoor salary pages for this report, but they blocked access, so no AmbitionBox or Glassdoor numbers are used.

Data scientist salary by experience

Experience	Average pay (per year)	Based on	Source
Fresher (under 1 year)	Rs 5.95 lakh (total pay)	307 salaries	PayScale, Data Scientist
1 to 4 years	Rs 10.0 lakh (total pay)	668 salaries	PayScale, Data Scientist
All levels (average base)	Rs 10.1 lakh	1,122 profiles	PayScale, Data Scientist
All levels (average base)	Rs 11.9 lakh	283 salaries	Indeed India, Data Scientist
Senior Data Scientist, 1 to 4 years	Rs 20.2 lakh (total pay)	55 salaries	PayScale, Senior Data Scientist
Senior Data Scientist, 5 to 9 years	Rs 24.2 lakh (total pay)	133 salaries	PayScale, Senior Data Scientist

PayScale's typical base range for Data Scientists is Rs 3.1 lakh to about Rs 20 lakh (10th to 90th percentile). Indeed's range is about Rs 6.8 lakh to Rs 20.9 lakh. PayScale does not show a rupee figure for plain Data Scientists with 5 to 9 years, so for the 5-year mark the Senior Data Scientist numbers are the best guide. The jump from about Rs 6 lakh at entry to about Rs 24 lakh for senior people shows how much the title and skill level matter.

Salary by city

Indeed India (updated 30 October 2026) lists these top-paying cities for data scientists. Indeed does not give a sample size for each city.

City	Average base pay (per year)
Mumbai	Rs 13.8 lakh
Hyderabad	Rs 13.5 lakh
Chennai	Rs 13.5 lakh
Gurgaon	Rs 13.4 lakh
Bengaluru	Rs 12.2 lakh

The gap between these cities is small. Big hubs also have higher rent, so compare in-hand money after living costs, not only the CTC.

Salary by company type

Product and tech companies. Indeed's top-paying companies for data scientists, based on its job postings over the past 36 months, include Expedia Group (about Rs 23.6 lakh), Meesho (about Rs 23.1 lakh), Swiggy (about Rs 21.7 lakh), PayPal (about Rs 21.4 lakh) and PepsiCo (about Rs 21.3 lakh). These roles usually want strong coding, statistics and some work experience.

IT services companies (mass hiring). These hire many freshers at fixed packages. Business Today (25 December 2025) reported Infosys packages of Rs 7 lakh for Digital Specialist Engineer trainees and Rs 11 lakh, Rs 16 lakh and Rs 21 lakh for Specialist Programmer L1, L2 and L3, with Infosys group CHRO Shaji Mathew confirming packages of up to Rs 21 lakh. EnggWave (21 March 2026) reported TCS NQT packages of Rs 3.36 lakh (Ninja), Rs 7 lakh (Digital) and Rs 9 lakh (Prime) for undergraduates. We could not open an official TCS notice, so confirm these on the TCS careers site. The higher bands need strong test scores and coding or AI skills.

Analytics firms and consulting. PayScale lists Amazon, TCS, IBM India, Fractal Analytics, Accenture, Flipkart, Deloitte, Capgemini and EXL among common employers of data scientists, but it does not show pay for each employer.

Skills that raise your pay

PayScale lists these as the most common Data Scientist skills: Python, machine learning, data analysis, SQL, deep learning, statistical analysis, R, artificial intelligence, data modelling and big data analytics. PayScale does not say how much each skill adds, so use this list as a checklist.

Data scientists who move up faster usually:

Write clean Python and SQL that others can reuse
Understand statistics well enough to say when a result is real
Can take a model from a notebook into a working product
Know one business area, such as finance, retail or health
Explain results in simple words to managers

Next roles and their pay

PayScale averages (self-reported, base pay, all experience levels):

Next role	Average base pay	Based on	Extra skills usually needed
Senior Data Scientist	Rs 23.9 lakh	182 profiles (Sep 2026)	Model ownership, mentoring, business impact
Machine Learning Engineer	Rs 10.2 lakh	232 profiles (Jul 2026)	Deployment, MLOps, software engineering
Data Engineer	Rs 9.9 lakh	1,143 profiles (Oct 2026)	Pipelines, cloud data tools, Spark
Product Manager, Software	Rs 22.2 lakh	441 profiles (2026)	Product thinking, several years of work

Indeed India shows Senior Data Scientists at about Rs 14.9 lakh base, but this is based on only 25 salaries (updated 17 September 2026), so the PayScale figure has a much larger sample.

How AI changes the data scientist role

AI tools can now write code, clean data and build quick baseline models. That shifts what employers pay for.

Naukri's World AI Day Report 2026 (via Telangana Today, 17 July 2026) found AI skills in 15.4% of tech job descriptions, up from 0.9% in 2020. It names Data Science and Analytics among the functions that rely most on AI, and says people with AI skills earn higher median salaries.
Naukri JobSpeak for October 2026 (via CareerIndia) showed AI/ML hiring up 32% year on year, while overall white-collar hiring grew 14% and general software and QA hiring grew only 1%.
WEF's Future of Jobs Report 2025 (via People Matters) lists AI and machine learning specialists and big data specialists among the fastest-growing jobs, and says 86% of employers expect AI to transform their business.

The routine part of the job, like writing the same cleaning code again and again, is being automated first. The valuable part is choosing the right problem, checking data quality, judging whether a model is fair and safe, and turning results into decisions. Skills in large language models, retrieval and evaluation of AI systems are becoming part of the data scientist toolkit.

Year by year: what to learn and expect

2026

Learn Python, SQL, statistics and core machine learning. Build 3 projects on real data and publish them on GitHub. PayScale's entry average of about Rs 6.0 lakh is a fair benchmark for a first offer.

2027

In your first job, learn your company's data and tools. Practise deploying a simple model as an API. Use AI coding assistants, but always test what they write.

2028

With 1 to 2 years of work, aim for a raise or a switch. PayScale's 1 to 4 year average is about Rs 10.0 lakh. Add deep learning or NLP and one cloud platform.

2029

Aim for senior data scientist work: owning a model end to end and guiding juniors. Decide between deeper modelling, ML engineering or a product path.

2030

WEF says 39% of workers' existing skills will be transformed or outdated by 2030. Keep updating in generative AI, model evaluation and responsible AI.

2031

No source we opened publishes data scientist salary forecasts for 2031, so we do not give one. The safe guidance: with about 5 years of experience, strong statistics, production ML skills and one business domain, you are best placed for senior data scientist roles, which PayScale shows at about Rs 24.2 lakh total pay for 5 to 9 years today.

A 5-step plan for a student

Build the base. Python, SQL, statistics and Excel. Practise daily for 3 months.
Learn machine learning properly. Regression, classification, clustering, model evaluation. Understand why a model works, not only how to call it.
Make 3 strong projects. Use real, messy data. Write a short report for each, explaining the business result.
Add one AI skill. Learn how to use large language models with your own data, and how to check their answers.
Apply widely and compare offers. Apply to analytics firms, product companies and the higher bands at IT services firms. Compare every offer with the PayScale and Indeed numbers in this report.

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