The average data scientist salary in India is about ₹12 to 15 LPA in 2026. Freshers usually start at ₹6 to 9 LPA, mid-level data scientists earn ₹15 to 30 LPA, and senior and staff data scientists at top companies earn ₹60 LPA to ₹1.5 Cr including stock.
AmbitionBox data puts the national average close to ₹12 LPA, while Glassdoor India reports about ₹15.6 LPA, with most data scientists between ₹10 and 23 LPA. The difference comes from which companies each site has more data from.
Data scientist salary: the interview decides your band
The same three years of experience can get you ₹14 LPA at an analytics firm or ₹35 LPA at a product company. The difference is the interview: ML fundamentals, a coding or SQL round, a case study, and for senior roles, ML system design. A mock interview with an experienced data scientist shows you which round would cost you the higher offer.
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Data scientist salary by experience
[[table]]
Experience | Typical role | Salary (LPA)
0 to 2 yrs | Data scientist, associate | 6 to 12
2 to 5 yrs | Data scientist | 12 to 25
5 to 8 yrs | Senior data scientist | 25 to 45
8 to 12 yrs | Lead or staff | 45 to 80
12+ yrs | Principal, head of DS | 80 to 150
[[/table]]
The top two bands are mostly at big tech companies, global capability centres and well-funded startups, where stock can make up a large part of total pay. AmbitionBox data shows the average rising from about ₹15 LPA at four years to about ₹22.6 LPA at eight years across all company types.
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Data scientist fresher salary in 2026
A fresher data scientist in India usually earns ₹6 to 9 LPA in 2026, or about ₹45,000 to ₹65,000 a month in hand. The range is wide because freshers enter the field from very different routes.
[[table]]
Fresher route | Salary (LPA)
IT services or analytics trainee | 4 to 6
Analytics firm (Fractal, Tiger, Mu Sigma) | 6 to 10
Product company or startup | 10 to 18
Big tech (top colleges) | 15 to 25
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In 2026, more companies hire freshers as data analysts or ML engineers first and move them into data science roles after a year or two. Pure "data scientist" titles for freshers are less common than they were a few years ago.
What gets freshers the higher offers:
- Strong Python and SQL. Most first rounds are coding or SQL tests.
- Solid ML basics. Be ready to explain bias and variance, regularisation, evaluation metrics, and when to use which model.
- Real projects. An end-to-end project with messy data, a clear metric and a deployed model beats a notebook from a course.
- GenAI exposure. Even a small project using an LLM API, embeddings or retrieval stands out in 2026.
Data scientist salary by company
These are average salaries across all experience levels, from AmbitionBox data reported in 2026.
[[table]]
Company | Avg salary (LPA)
Flipkart | 33.6
Walmart Global Tech | 31.7
Google | 27.5
Swiggy | 27.4
Microsoft | 23.7
Amazon | 21.8
Zomato | 21.3
Fractal Analytics | 18.7
IBM | 18.4
Tiger Analytics | 16.9
Deloitte | 14.9
Accenture | 14.2
Cognizant | 11.6
[[/table]]
These averages hide a lot. They mix freshers and seniors, and they often leave out stock. At Google, Amazon and Microsoft, senior data and applied scientists earn well above these figures once RSUs are included, and staff-level roles can cross ₹1 Cr.
Practise for a product-company data science loop
Data scientist salary by specialisation
[[table]]
Specialisation | 4 to 6 yrs (LPA)
Generalist / analytics DS | 12 to 18
Machine learning (ML) | 18 to 30
NLP | 20 to 32
Computer vision | 18 to 30
GenAI / LLM | 22 to 40
MLOps / ML platform | 20 to 35
[[/table]]
These are typical mid-career ranges from 2026 salary roundups and job listings, so treat them as estimates.
GenAI and LLM roles carry the biggest premium right now. Companies building products on large language models are short of people who can fine-tune models, build retrieval systems, evaluate outputs and keep costs under control. NLP experience transfers well into these roles.
ML and MLOps specialists earn more than generalist data scientists because they ship models into production, which is harder to hire for than analysis work.
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Data scientist salary by city
[[table]]
City | Average (LPA)
Bengaluru | 14 to 16
Gurugram / Delhi NCR | 11.5 to 16.5
Mumbai | 12 to 13
Hyderabad | 11 to 12
Pune | 11
Chennai | 10 to 11
[[/table]]
Bengaluru and Gurugram trade the top spot depending on the data source. AmbitionBox currently shows Gurugram slightly ahead, while most other trackers put Bengaluru first because it has the most product companies and GCCs.
What ₹15 LPA means in hand
Here's a rough breakdown for a ₹15 LPA data scientist, assuming basic pay is 40% of CTC and the new tax regime.
[[table]]
Item | Per year
CTC | ₹15,00,000
Less employer PF and gratuity | ₹1,00,900
Less your PF | ₹72,000
Less professional tax | ₹2,400
Income tax (with cess) | ₹81,800
In hand | About ₹12,43,000
[[/table]]
That's roughly ₹1,03,600 a month. Your actual figure depends on your salary structure, bonus and any stock, so check your offer letter.
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How to grow your data scientist salary
In your first two or three years, go deep on one area (ML, NLP, experimentation or GenAI) and learn to ship models into production. Data scientists who only work in notebooks hit a salary ceiling quickly.
After three years, the biggest jumps usually come from switching to a product company or GCC. Those interviews are harder. Expect a coding round, an ML theory round, a case study on a real product problem, and from senior levels, ML system design, where you design something like a recommendation or fraud detection system end to end.
Senior data scientists who want to cross ₹60 LPA usually need two things: experience leading ML projects that changed a business metric, and the ability to explain those decisions clearly in an interview. Our system design interview preparation guide covers the design side.
FAQs
What is the average data scientist salary in India? About ₹12 to 15 LPA in 2026, depending on the source. Most data scientists earn between ₹10 and 23 LPA.
What is the data scientist fresher salary in India in 2026? Usually ₹6 to 9 LPA. Product companies pay ₹10 to 18 LPA, and big tech can pay ₹15 to 25 LPA to freshers from top colleges.
Which company pays data scientists the most in India? On AmbitionBox averages, Flipkart and Walmart Global Tech lead. Including stock, Google, Amazon and Microsoft pay the most at senior levels.
Do GenAI data scientists earn more? Yes. GenAI and LLM specialists earn among the highest salaries at the same experience level in 2026.
Can a data scientist earn ₹1 crore in India? Yes, at staff or principal level in big tech or top startups, usually with 10 or more years of experience and stock included.
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Land a Higher Data Science Offer: Take a Mock Interview
Your interview performance decides which salary band you land in. Practise ML theory, coding, case studies and ML system design with an experienced data scientist, get honest feedback, and walk into your next loop ready.
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