Software developer salaries in India

A senior software engineer in India earns a median of about $17,537 a year (1,671,574 INR). Here's pay by level and stack, contractor rates, and how India's hours line up with UK and US teams.

Senior salary: $17,537; median per year
Senior contractor: $30–$72; per hour
Overlap London: 3h; UTC+05:30
Overlap New York: No overlap; English: low

Salary by level

Level	INR	USD	GBP
Junior (0–2 yrs)	753,561	$7,906	£6,225
Mid (3–5 yrs)	1,212,567	$12,721	£10,017
Senior (6+ yrs)	1,671,574	$17,537	£13,809

Annual medians. USD at the 2026-10-14 rate.

Senior salary by stack

Specialism	USD / year	Contractor / hr
Frontend	$15,082	$26–$62
Backend	$19,291	$33–$79
Mobile	$16,836	$29–$69
DevOps & Cloud	$21,044	$36–$86
Data & AI	$21,571	$37–$89

Country median adjusted by global specialism premiums (Stack Overflow 2025).

The India developer market

About 26,727,004 developers on GitHub (2026).
English proficiency: low (EF EPI rank 74).
India has the most GitHub developers outside the US. Octoverse 2025 reported 21.9M Indian developers on GitHub and about 5.2M new ones added in 2025.
Index.dev lists JavaScript, Java and mobile as the top Indian freelance skills. The main hubs are Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and the NCR.
Software services billed to foreign clients and paid in foreign currency are zero-rated exports under GST. Exporters registered for GST need a yearly Letter of Undertaking (LUT, Form RFD-11). Registration becomes mandatory above ₹20 lakh turnover.

Hiring from India?

Vetted engineers at about $30/hr all-in.

Contracts, payroll and compliance handled. A senior in-house hire costs about £48/hr loaded in the UK and $82/hr in the US.

Hire in India

FAQ

How much does a senior software developer earn in India?+

The median senior software engineer salary in India is about 1,671,574 INR a year (about $17,537), against about $12,721 for mid-level and $7,906 for junior developers. Senior remote contractors typically charge $30–$72 an hour.

What is the time difference between India and the UK or US?+

India runs on UTC+05:30 in winter. A 09:00–17:30 working day there overlaps 3h with London and no overlap with New York.

How much does it cost to hire a developer from India through OctogleHire?+

OctogleHire publishes one client rate: about $19/hr for a mid-level engineer and $30/hr for a senior, including vetting, contracts and payroll, with no placement fee. A comparable senior in-house hire costs about £48/hr loaded in the UK and $82/hr in the US.

Sources · Q4 2026

Method notes: Junior is PayScale's Software Engineer 'early career (1–4 yrs)' average total pay. Senior is PayScale's Senior Software Engineer average base salary of ₹1,671,574 (the median is shown only rounded, as ₹2m). Mid is the midpoint of junior and senior because PayScale gives no 3–5 year figure. These are averages, not true medians. Contractor rates are Second Talent's 'observed' full-stack bands (mid 3–6 yrs, senior 7–10 yrs). Arc's senior band ($25–60) and Index.dev's senior band ($40–70) are cross-checks. The developer count is GitHub accounts, not employed professionals. Salary basis: PayScale India, Software Engineer (updated 12 Jul 2026) and Senior Software Engineer (updated 13 Jul 2026).