Why Do Scrum Masters Get Paid so Much?
10K- by Mukundan Bashyam
- 10th May, 2019
- Last updated on 30th Sep, 2019
- 9 mins read
Is Scrum Master the best paying job? Do Scrum Masters are highly paid individuals? Though these two questions look very simple in asking but are very difficult in answering. Let’s dig in and find out the salary range that Scrum Masters are earning.
The survey conducted by ‘Age of Product’ (Stephen Wolpers and Sumit Mehta) in 2017, included Scrum Masters from 13 countries around the world. The salary of a Certified Scrum Master varies from country to country.
Collated below are the salary ranges in USD for three important countries:
US: 100,001 – 125,000
UK: 60,001 - 70,000
India: 20,001 – 30,000
The monthly income of a Certified Scrum Master can be listed as follows-
US: 8333 – 10416
UK: 5000 – 5833
India: 1667 - 2500
The weekly income of a Certified Scrum Master, assuming 52 weeks for a year, the certified scrum master makes the following salary (in USD):
US: 1923 – 2403
UK: 1154 – 1346
India: 384 - 577
The hourly salary of Certified Scrum Master (CSM) makes the following(in USD):
US: 48 – 60
UK: 29 – 34
India: 9.6 – 14
Note: The figures mentioned here are in USD.
Additional compensations for this job
The certified scrum master can get additional compensations if he/she can take up a training for the community or get further certified in the line of his/her career.
Salaries by company
Here are some of the average salaries paid by the top companies to the certified Scrum Masters:
- TCS: 11,11,500/year
- IBM: 16,07,000/year
- Amdocs: 14,00,000/year
- JP Morgan: 16,52,000/year
- Philips: 19,96,000/year
![CSM salaries by top companies]()
Why do scrum masters get paid so much?
According to Glassdoor, it is one of the 25 highest paying jobs in America.
In an era in which software is constantly being updated and flying out the door, the ability to keep everyone connected and communicating, face to face if possible, is critical. A breakdown in communications leads to a breakdown in software. And a breakdown in software leads to a breakdown of the business.
As companies are moving more to Agile, they have realized that scrum master is the core and important role in making the team productive, self -organized and follow the practices of Agile diligently.
Job Description for certified scrum master
Below are the on-job responsibilities of the Certified Scrum Master (CSM):
Essential Duties:
- Guiding the team and organization on how to use Agile/Scrum practices and values to delight customers.
- Guiding the team on how to get the most of out of self-organization.
- Guiding the team on self-organizing to fill in the intentional gaps left in the Agile/Scrum frameworks.
- Assessing the Scrum Maturity of the team and organization and coaching the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and organization.
- Removing impediments or guiding the team to remove impediments by finding the right personnel to remove the impediment.
- Building a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution, or being judged, with an emphasis on healing and problem-solving.
- Facilitating getting the work done without coercion, assigning, or dictating the work.
- Facilitating discussion, decision making, and conflict resolution.
- Assisting with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating information.
- Supporting and educating the Product Owner, especially on grooming and maintaining the product backlog.
- Providing all support to the team using a servant leadership style whenever possible, and leading by example.
- Required Skills/Experience:
- Experience in playing the Scrum Master role for at least one year for a software development team that was diligently applying Scrum principles, practices, and theory. (Adjust based on your necessity)
- Good skills and knowledge of servant leadership, facilitation, situational awareness, conflict resolution, continual improvement, empowerment, and increasing transparency.
- Knowledge of various well-documented patterns and techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in the Scrum approach(example: numerous Burndown technologies, various Retrospective formats, handling bugs, etc.).
- Preferred Skills/Experience (Any of these is a plus):
- Experience is playing the Scrum Master role for at least two years for a software development team that was diligently applying Scrum principles, practices, and theory. (Adjust based on your necessity)
- Knowledge of other Agile approaches: XP, Kanban, Crystal, FDD, etc.
- Awareness and experience with widely successful Agile techniques: User Stories, ATDD, TDD, Continuous Integration, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing, Agile Games.
- Applicable knowledge of the technologies used by the team.
- The experience in applying a wide variety of well-documented patterns and techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in the Scrum approach (example: various Burndown technologies, many Retrospective formats, handling bugs, etc.).
- Excellent communication and mentoring skills.
Tasks of the Certified Scrum Master
- Helping the Development Team to create high-value products
- Coaching the Development Team in self-organization and cross-functionality
- Removing impediments to the Development Team’s progress
- Facilitating Scrum events as requested or needed
- Coaching the Development Team in organizational environments in which Scrum is not yet fully adopted and understood
- Ensuring that goals, scope, and product domain are understood by everyone on the Scrum Team as well as possible
- Finding techniques for effective Product Backlog management
- Helping the Scrum Team understand the need for clear and concise Product Backlog items
- Understanding product planning in an empirical environment
- Ensuring the Product Owner knows how to arrange the Product Backlog to maximize the value
- Facilitating Scrum events as requested or needed
Companies that prefer Certified Scrum Master
According to the Scrum Guides, “Scrum has been adopted by a vast amount of software development companies around the world.”
Scrum has been used in education, manufacturing, marketing, operations, and other fields. If you have the skills in dealing with conflicts and you are an experienced facilitator, then following are the top companies in the world that hire the skilled Scrum Masters like you. According to the latest data on Glassdoor, the top companies preferring Scrum Master are:
- Answer Financial Inc. – Encino, CA
- Pegasystems – Cambridge, MA
- Donnelley Financial Solutions – Glen Mills, PA
- IntraEdge – Phoenix, AZ
- Wipro Limited, Bengaluru
- Zensar Technologies Limited, Hyderabad
- JP Morgan Chase, Hyderabad
- Barclays – Pune
- Orange, Mumbai
- Fiserv – Pune, and many more
It is more surprising that the Scrum Master salaries have increased in such a short span of time. Moreover, being a Scrum Master is not an easy role as it requires more of a servant leadership skills. So, the aim of the Scrum Master is always to finish-up the project in time without compromising the quality.
Climb-up the ladder of Scrum with Scrum interview questions and answers! Find here.
Mukundan Bashyam
Mukundan Bashyam has more than 15 years of IT experience working in different roles such as Agile Coach, Scrum Master, and Product Owner. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Scrum Master(CSM) and Certified Agile Coach from ICAgile. He is an accomplished Agile trainer for many organizations and a contributing author for KnowledgeHut. Mukundan has a Bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology (BHU)-Varanasi and a Master’s degree in Industrial Management from National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai. He has worked with startups and large companies like Hewlett Packard(HP), Target Corporation India, Diageo, and Robert Bosch.
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One of my friend has shared me this article, I loved this article and the website thanks for providing such kind of use full to the people. Great information on the salaries of scrum master Now I am planning to take CSM certification will someone help me with this.