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Salaries of senior executives in India have increased 8.9 per cent in 2022 from 7.9 per cent in 2021, a report said on Wednesday.

The report, by global professional services firm Aon, analysed data across 475 companies from more than 20 industries.

Pay at Risk - which is the sum of Variable Pay and Long-Term Incentives (LTI) to Total Compensation - for CEOs stands near 60 per cent, while C-level executives including the chief operating officer, chief financial officer, sales head and chief human resources officer followed closely behind at 50 per cent.

The annual long-term incentive for CEOs on average is 125 per cent of fixed pay. Most companies use a mix of performance and retention-based grants, with at least 50 per cent of the grant amount linked to performance measures such as shareholder return, profit, revenue and cash flows.

"Over the last few decades, a large percentage of India Inc has turned to outside talent instead of building from within. However, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, talent is in short supply and the cost of attracting, retaining and engaging leadership talent that grows business is rising rapidly," said Nitin Sethi, partner and CEO, India for Human Capital Solutions at on, in a statement.

"Not only has the average executive compensation increased the highest in five years, but variable pay and equity grants have also risen as companies cannot risk losing key talent at senior levels as this has implications on delivering business performance," he added.