Bangalore, followed by the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, is leading the way in attracting IT professionals with good pay packets. They are followed by Mumbai and Pune, with Gurgaon and Delhi bringing up the rear. These were some of the findings of the Cyber Media Dice 'Salary Survey' conducted by market research agency TNS India.

The survey studied the average salaries of IT professionals across regions and sectors and also looked at trends in job opportunities and sentiments about the anti-outsourcing backlash.  It was conducted online among more than 3,000 IT professionals across 15 cities in India.

The average per-employee cost to company for Bangalore stood at Rs 6 lakh per annum � the highest in the country, followed by Rs 4.7 lakh in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad along with Pune. The study also noted that, for IT professionals, a management background may not be able to hold its own against post-graduation with a technical background when it comes to earnings.

An engineer armed with a technical masters degree garners annual average CTC of Rs 8.62 lakh per annum while an MBA candidate's CTC stands at Rs 6.33 lakh per year.

For the Indian IT professional, the booming Indian telecom industry seems like a more attractive option compared to the Indian IT industry, with the average CTC being Rs 6.2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh respectively.

Highest compensation for IT professionals can be found in the telecommunications sector, followed by IT, banking, finance and insurance.

"The encouraging results of the TNS-CyberMedia Dice salary survey is that Indian MNC software companies are as attractive to prospective employees as non-Indian MNCs," said E Abraham Mathew, CEO, CyberMedia Dice.

On the attrition front, the survery indicates that uncertainty still looms over the number of years professionals wish to spend with their current company. More than half the respondents were not sure about their stint with the current employer in the future. Less than 10 per cent want to continue for more than three years. Key motivators for leaving the current employer or switching employers are better growth prospects and remuneration.

When asked as to what extent would anti-outsourcing backlash adversely impact job prospects in IT and/or the ITeS industry in India, 48 per cent of the respondents admitted that it could have some adverse impact while 35 per cent felt that the backlash had no impact.

Respondents in the lower income group were more apprehensive about the impact of the anti-outsourcing backlash. With increase in the number of years of experience, the fear of impact reduced.

People with specialty skills like Cisco Network Associates, Project Managers, Microsoft certified professionals, Sun Java programmers felt that the anti-outsourcing backlash would have no impact on their jobs.

""While there may have been some level of apprehensions over the impact of the global anti-outsourcing backlash, Indian IT professionals are less concerned about job security per se," said A Karimpanal, vice president, TNS India.

On difficulties in finding similar employment, more than half of the respondents (69 per cent) were confident about getting one and the opinion was similar across regions. Those respondents with an annual CTC between Rs 6-12 lakh expressed highest confidence levels about getting similar jobs. Newcomers and experienced professionals were slightly more apprehensive about job opportunities.

Despite India buzzing with opportunities and most IT professionals seem to believe so, two thirds of the respondents 'would consider' or were 'actively exploring' overseas job opportunities.

Those with more than 11 years of experience were made up the highest number of professionals who were currently not exploring overseas jobs.

Fewer women professionals wanted to explore job opportunities aboard. Altogether 44 percent of them said that they would prefer to work in India, compared to 28 percent of their male counterparts.