According to nextSource Inc. there has been a sharp rise in IT rates in India and smaller increases in the US. This data has been accumulated and reported through “The People Ticker,” nextSource’s rates and compensation tool that monitors market hourly and salary compensation in real-time. According to The People Ticker data, India’s consulting firms have raised IT consulting bill rates by 35 percent in 2004 and have already increased the same rates by 12 percent in 2005. This is most likely due to the increase in contracts from outsourced projects and the associated recruitment of additional qualified workers to accomplish the increased workload. In contrast to the billing rates — the rates paid by customers of India based IT consulting firms — the actual pay of these consultants has risen by less than half of the total increase, approximately 14 percent.
In comparison, US IT salaries and consultant rates have seen only a 5-6 percent rise in the same 2004 period. In addition, The People Ticker reports hourly consulting bill rates for IT professionals from 2004 to 2005 have increased an average of 7 percent. This increase is due to both a rise in the pay going to the consultant as well as a rise in the cost of candidate recruitment. US IT consultant pay rates have increased an average of 5-6 percent from 2004 while suppliers’ markup and service charges have increased by an average of only 1-2 percent. However, rate increases are not uniform across all experience levels of a given skill set. Senior level and above workers are responsible for the upward trending while entry level and mid level workers have remained unchanged or decreased slightly.
