The automotive industry continues its lead over other sectors in terms of pay hikes, offering double-digit increments, outperforming average single-digit raises for most of India Inc.

Automotive companies will likely issue a 10.1per cent salary hike for FY25 compared to an average more than 8per cent for other Indian corporates, according to Deloitte's 'Performance and Rewards Trends Study' for automotive producers, shared exclusively with ET. Some companies have completed the appraisal process for FY25 in March this year while others are in the process of doing so as their financial year ends in June or even later.

Double-digit salary increases are mostly driven by a high in-demand talent pool across job functions like electric vehicles, R&D, product, digitalisation, automation, AI, and ML, said HR heads at Sonalika Group, Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), and Skoda Auto Volkswagen India Pvt Ltd. Top performers are likely to get double-digit or higher pay hikes this year, they said. For the fifth straight year, auto firms will see a double-digit salary increment though the percentage increase will decline for the third year in a row, said Neelesh Gupta, partner at Deloitte India.

Last year, the automotive sector issued a 10.5per cent pay hike. "Despite the drop, automotive producers continue to outpace the India Inc salary increment number which averages at 8.8per cent for FY25," said Gupta.

Salary increase expectations for this year is expected to be in the range of 9.5-10.0per cent, in line with overall auto industry expectations, said Amit Sharma, corporate HR head, Sonalika Group.