Blog: Chief Technology Officer’s worth a crore!

Compensation & Benefits

Chief Technology Officer’s worth a crore!

A couple of days back State Bank of India announced its latest recruitment drive for the post of Chief Technology Officer, offering a pay up to Rs 80 lakh per annum to 1 crore to the suitable candidate. Is this a new benchmark?
Chief Technology Officer’s worth a crore!

Technology is hard to ignore anymore. It has finally made its presence felt in each and every facet of life. From shopping, ordering food to managing various processes at work, technology is required everywhere. Technology is maturing day by day. The solutions which were relevant half a decade ago are slowly losing significance. Companies are constantly on the lookout for talent that can help them build and deploy sophisticated solutions for their day to day business. The increased demand and use of technology have made the role of the Chief Technology Officer critical. 

As it is no news that the supply of this talent and skills is fairly shorter than the demand, organizations seem to be willing to pay huge sums of money. Joining the army of offering high pay to CTOs is SBI. In a recruitment drive launched recently, the bank is ready to pay up to Rs 80 lakh per annum to 1 crore to the suitable candidate. 

In a bank like SBI CTO's role is all the more important as he is responsible to keep the bank’s environment secure and stable besides being in charge of the bank's technological needs and IT architecture. 

While the offer sounds attractive, it is not easy to get. 

What does it take to become a CTO?

The skills and experience required for a sensitive role such as CTO are not easy to both find and have. SBI expects the candidates to have a minimum of 20 years' experience in the IT field, preferably with software development background. Additionally, the candidates are expected to have a minimum of 10 years experience in a senior executive level position, out of which minimum of three years should be in the banking & financial sector.

In terms of skills, candidates are required to have first-hand knowledge in supervising the development of large software solutions and have exposure to core banking solutions, digital banking, networking, IT infrastructure solutions and learning management solutions. They must also be up-to-date with the current and future IT that impact SBI's digital and financial assets and needs to possess the technical know-how as well as human capacity building skills in IT.

Well, the crore surely doesn’t come so easy! 

Considering the sum of money SBI is offering might catch a lot of eyes, the question is - would 1 Crore become the new benchmark for CTO Salary?

CTO Salary: What’s the trend in India?

As per PayScale, the average pay for a CTO is Rs 25,07,322 per year. With New Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai being the highest paying cities. 

Further, the data from Indeed suggests that companies and institutions like the United Nations Development Programme Chief Technology Officer and Zoeasy are offering salaries of Rs 10, 64, 892 and Rs 10, 39, 452 per annum respectively. And a bank like Bank of Maharashtra is paying as much as Rs 9, 18, 240 per annum on an average. 

Looking at the trend, the salary being offered by SBI seems to stand out. The high pay proposed by the bank might urge other banks to also follow the same as all of them would be competing for similar talent. 

SBI is probably following the footsteps of global organizations that offer as much as $81.845 Mn (Rs 57,61,969,845 crore) to CTOs. Back in 2016, the average median salary of a CTO in America was between $147,500 and $229,000. The amount has shot up now as the role becomes more important and the availability of skills and talent becomes more scarce. 

As India catches up to paying high salaries to the CTOs and SBI sets a new benchmark, especially for other banks in the sector, the competition is surely going to get more fierce and is something to look forward to. 

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Topics: Compensation & Benefits, Technology

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