TCS CEO salary FY26: How K Krithivasan’s ₹28-cr pay package stacks up against India’s top tech leaders

In the fiscal year 2026, K Krithivasan, the CEO and Managing Director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), received a total compensation exceeding ₹28 crore, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 6.3% as detailed in the company's annual report. This financial disclosure comes at a critical time, as TCS faces employee dissatisfaction regarding salary adjustments and appraisal results. Despite this sizeable remuneration, Krithivasan's compensation places him in the middle tier among India's top IT executives. His pay package is notably lower compared to his peers at companies like HCLTech, Infosys, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra. The structure of his earnings was heavily influenced by performance incentives, with his FY26 package comprising approximately ₹1.67 crore in base salary, ₹1.43 crore in benefits and allowances, and a substantial ₹25 crore in commission, making variable pay the dominant portion of his earnings. The report also drew attention to the significant pay gap between TCS’s leadership and its employees, with Krithivasan's salary being roughly 333 times that of the median employee salary at the firm. This gap is particularly striking as discussions about employee pay revisions have intensified following claims from some TCS employees that their monthly take-home pay diminished after recent appraisal-related changes. Among Indian technology firms, HCLTech CEO C Vijayakumar stands out as the highest-paid executive, with a reported remuneration of ₹94.6 crore in FY25. His pay has skyrocketed from ₹27.8 crore in FY23 to nearly ₹95 crore, with potential increases that could push it to approximately ₹154 crore in the following year. This surge is attributed to the company’s compensation strategies, which emphasize performance-linked rewards and long-term incentives. Other notable figures include Salil Parekh, CEO of Infosys, who earned ₹80.62 crore in FY25, reflecting one of the largest increases among IT leaders. In comparison, Tech Mahindra's Mohit Joshi and Wipro's Srinivas Pallia each received around ₹54 crore. The trend of rising executive pay continues to attract scrutiny, particularly as the disparity between CEO compensation and median employee salaries grows. Recent analyses indicate that CEOs from the six largest IT firms collectively earned about ₹340 crore in FY25, while the compensation-to-employee salary ratio has escalated in various companies, with some CEOs earning over 750 times the median employee salary. As TCS prepares to potentially lay off around 12,000 employees, or nearly 2% of its workforce, the conversation surrounding executive pay juxtaposed with employee compensation is expected to remain a focal point in the coming months.