TCS offered me 25% hike on Rs 50 lakh CTC: EY employee says, stop trolling this IT company

An EY employee earning over Rs 50 lakh says TCS offered him a 25 per cent salary hike during a managerial-level interview, asking people to stop trolling the IT giant over its salary packages.

In Short

• Pankaj Kumar says TCS offered him a 25% hike on a Rs 50 lakh-plus CTC
• The EY employee says he confirmed the salary offer with TCS three times
• His comments come amid earlier concerns over TCS salary revisions and compensation changes

TCS is often criticised on social media over the salaries it offers to freshers, with users frequently pointing to packages of around Rs 3 lakh per annum. An EY employee has now pushed back against that criticism, saying the IT major offered him a 25 per cent hike even though his existing CTC was already above Rs 50 lakh.

Pankaj Kumar, a Hyderabad-based software developer, shared his experience in a social media reel. Kumar, who has more than 10 years of experience in building enterprise applications, said he was appearing for the final round of a managerial-level interview at TCS's Ecospace campus.

Before proceeding, Kumar said he wanted to be certain that TCS was prepared to meet his salary expectations. He claimed that he asked the company three times whether it would match his expected CTC.

“I confirmed with them thrice, ‘Are you going to match my expected CTC?’ My CTC in the last company was over Rs 50 lakh and TCS is also giving me a 25 percent hike. So stop trolling TCS,” Kumar said.

Based on the salary figure shared by Kumar, a 25 per cent increase on a Rs 50 lakh CTC would take the package to at least Rs 62.5 lakh annually. The actual compensation could be higher depending on his exact existing CTC and the structure of the new package.

Kumar's comments are significant because the criticism he was responding to largely concerns TCS's entry-level salaries. His case, however, involves a professional with over a decade of experience interviewing for a managerial position.

“If you troll TCS and claim that they only give Rs 3 LPA then you are wrong because TCS is changing its perception,” Kumar said.

The reel attracted a range of responses from social media users. Some congratulated Kumar for the offer, while others joked that a professional earning more than Rs 50 lakh should have been offered an even larger increase.

Some users also tried to explain why an experienced candidate could receive a substantially higher offer. One commenter suggested that TCS could be hiring people with specific expertise for projects involving Porsche and AI/ML. However, this was a social media user's view and was not confirmed by TCS.

TCS faced salary concerns earlier too

The discussion comes soon after TCS rolled out its latest salary revisions in May 2026. Some employees questioned the outcome of the appraisal cycle, with workers claiming that their revised salaries had either increased only marginally or fallen on paper despite an average hike of around 5 per cent.

The confusion was partly linked to changes in the way compensation was structured following India's new labour codes. TCS removed gratuity from the displayed CTC this year, although the benefit continues to be paid internally. A senior company source told Moneycontrol that gross salary and take-home pay were protected, and said employees were comparing the revised figures with older salary letters that included gratuity in CTC.

Employees also raised concerns about variable pay. Some claimed that monthly payouts had been reduced or moved to quarterly and annual cycles, while others alleged that bonuses and performance-linked payments were increasingly tied to work-from-office compliance.

The size of the hike also varied based on performance ratings. Employees in the A+ category reported double-digit increases, while some workers in the B and C categories said their increments were much smaller.

TCS defended the changes, saying the restructuring was done to comply with the new labour codes, standardise compensation across its India workforce and protect employee take-home pay while allowing flexibility for tax efficiency.

“In line with the announcement made during our Q4 earnings, we have rolled out annual increments to eligible employees. Additionally, we have completed the restructuring of compensation for all our India-based employees to align with the new labour codes,” a TCS spokesperson told India Today Tech.

The company also said it has continued to provide annual increments to eligible employees year after year.

- Ends