ProNearMe survey finds skilled trades earnings grew 15% in FY26, compared to 9% for corporate jobs. Platform verification and faster payments drive the gap.
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Skilled trade workers in India are seeing wage growth that overshoots the corporate average by roughly five percentage points, driven by a supply shortfall and the formalisation of the home-services sector, according to a survey by ProNearMe.
The platform, which operates home-services across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, surveyed 1,000 service professionals in four trades: air-conditioning service, plumbing, electrical work, and carpentry.
The average year-on-year earnings growth reported by these workers for FY26 was 15 per cent.
Aon's India Salary Increase Survey for the same period put corporate India's average pay rise at 9 per cent, broadly in line with the 9.1 to 9.7 per cent range the firm has tracked over the previous three salary cycles.
The gap between the two labour markets has been building since the pandemic recovery, when home-services demand returned faster than the supply of trained technicians.
Simranjeet Singh, founder of ProNearMe, said that as urban housing density rises and air-conditioner ownership in major cities crosses 30 per cent, service work has grown faster than the pool of certified technicians. A skilled technician who is verified, KYC-completed, with a digital badge and a tracked transaction history earns 30 to 40 per cent more per booking than a comparable worker in the informal economy, he added.
The payment structure itself shifts income. In the unorganised market, technicians wait a week or two for payment. App-based platforms settle in 24 to 48 hours through UPI or direct bank transfer. That improves the technician's effective income, said the company.
The Periodic Labour Force Survey from the National Statistical Office does not capture this liquidity premium because it records gross monthly earnings rather than realised cash flow, ProNearMe noted.
Average monthly earnings for an AC service professional with 18 months or more of platform tenure range between ₹52,000 and ₹78,000 across the three cities surveyed, up from ₹40,000 to ₹58,000 a year earlier. The peak summer season this year brought a sharper surge-pricing cycle than 2025.
Plumbing and electrical work cluster in a similar band, with monthly platform earnings between ₹38,000 and ₹62,000 for active full-time professionals, up from ₹32,000 to ₹52,000 in the comparable period.
Carpentry, traditionally the slowest-growing of the four trades, posted the smallest gain at 11 per cent year-on-year. Absolute earnings there are also lower, between ₹28,000 and ₹46,000 a month.
Each booking that migrates from a neighbourhood arrangement to a platform invoice also attracts 18 per cent GST on the service fee.
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