Salary growth at traditional media and communications agencies in India has slowed to low single digits as companies have automated routine functions and pivoted hiring towards artificial intelligence-led capabilities, industry executives and employees said.

Employees working at traditional communication and advertising agencies said that their annual appraisals ranged between 1% and 5% in 2025. The low single-digit appraisals have triggered attrition pressures and mounting dissatisfaction among employees.

“If you get a 2% annual hike despite working so hard, you would want to switch jobs to make ends,” said one agency employee on an anonymous basis.

However, job switching has also become difficult, professionals said, as employers increasingly prioritise AI-enabled skills, analytics, and digital strategy over traditional creative roles.

Data from talent platform foundit’s Anupama Bhimrajka, VP Marketing showed that hiring at traditional agencies is stabilising around strategic growth areas rather than broad-based headcount expansion. Companies are focusing on domain expertise, client engagement, and project leadership, rather than execution-heavy roles.

Shreshth Trehan, senior manager at Accenture Song, said entry-level hiring is increasingly centred on analytical capability. “At the entry level, we are looking for people who have analytical skills and can progress large swathes of data to drive insights linked to demand planning and production efficiencies,” he said.

Mid-level professionals are expected to bridge the gap between creative and operational understanding, while being comfortable with workflow tools and data systems. At senior levels, companies are seeking leaders who can drive AI adoption, expand service catalogues, and design global operating structures capable of supporting 24/7 client needs.

Consequently, salary hikes at traditional agencies have been modest but differentiated by skills.

According to industry estimates, freshers saw salary increases of approximately 4% between 2024 and 2025, while mid-level professionals (with 3-8 years of experience) recorded around 9% growth, and senior roles experienced about 12% increases. However, AI and digital specialists recorded a premium of around 21% over traditional roles.

In contrast, media and communications Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in India are reporting stronger wage growth, particularly in AI, analytics, and digital transformation roles.

Bhimrajka told that mid-level roles in GCCs registered salary growth of about 12%, while senior roles saw increases of 17% year-on-year. AI and machine learning specialists earned a premium of as much as 32% over traditional agency roles in the past one year.

“Mid-level professionals have become the backbone of growth, as they operationalise AI within campaign execution and analytics environments,” the jobs platform noted.

Neha Chopra, leading brand strategist at advertising agency Enormous, said GCCs in India are evolving beyond back-end execution roles. “They are becoming capability factories- building the data spine, the martech plumbing, the measurement muscle and now the AI operating system that global marketing runs on,” Chopra added that the shift is driving new roles, organisational redesign and revised pay structures.

Trehan said agencies are increasingly losing talent to GCCs, which benefit from stronger main structures and efficiency gains.

“GCCs have better margin structures and qualitative solutions in delivering efficiencies, allowing them to produce more with less. This fundamentally affects their ability to pay higher than traditional agencies,” he said.

Executives said that the divergence underscores a broader restructuring of India’s marketing and communications workforce, as companies prioritise automation, data capabilities, and scalable AI-led operations over traditional creative hierarchies.

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