PR Salary in India 2024 [For Freshers & Experienced]

Given the rise in the digital sector, more and more people need PR to represent them and manage their reputation. A PR job role revolves around maintaining and managing the public profile of clients. As a PR professional, you have to effectively monitor publicity and research market trends to match the expectations of clients and drive productive results.

With the expertise and skills of a PR, a business can form meaningful connections, sort concerns faster and more efficiently. For these reasons and more, PR is one of the highest-paid professions in India. 

In this article, we will explore the roles and responsibilities of PR executives, skills required, the career options one can pursue, and PR salary in India.

What Does a PR Specialist Do?

A Public Relations specialist job includes offering customized services to the client that helps them develop a positive reputation with the public. A PR assesses their client’s requirement and develops the most appropriate plan to help them promote and protect their brand.

Public relation specialists in India generally are self-employed who work for individuals or are a part of a firm where they are responsible for formulating strategies for multiple clients at a time.

The job of PR revolves around promoting and protecting a business or individual. As a promoter, they make use of unpaid communication channels like blogs, social media and others. While as a protector, they help their clients maintain a good public reputation and defend them during crises.

Let’s look at the various roles and responsibilities of a public relations executive:

1. They are responsible for responding to press conferences or information release requests from designated spokespersons or the media.
2. They are required to develop and maintain healthy relationships with the community, consumer, employees and public interest groups.
3. They are responsible for writing press releases or media communication that helps promote the client.
4. They take up planning and directing a program’s development to maintain favourable stakeholder and public views that help an organisation fulfil its agenda.
5. They are responsible for teaching their client representatives about effective communication with employees and the public.
6. They carry out studying the objectives of the organisation, the requirement to build public relation strategies and promotional policies which influences public opinion and promotes ideas, products and services.
7. They are responsible for updating and maintaining quality web content as and when required.
8. They connect with the managers to identify appropriate group interests and firms to provide advice on various business decisions.

Scope of PR in India

PR emerged as an industry in India during the nineties. Since then it has come far and wide to become one of the most rewarding and competitive careers in India. Although there is a huge requirement for PR, there is also a lack of qualified and skilled professionals. Therefore, there are lucrative opportunities for newcomers who have basic experience and polished skills.

There are various agencies coming up every day offering PR jobs. These companies help groom the public profile of individuals or businesses and showcase them in a positive manner.

PR Salary in India & Top PR careers

PR salary varies greatly depending upon the level of experience, location, client and skill set. However, on average, the PR salary in India is ₹521 k /year. As a fresher, one needs to gather knowledge and experience with which their salary will increase over time. Higher salaries in the range of ₹1,029,126 are achievable by professionals with more than 10 years of experience in the industry. When working with firms job benefits include dental, vision, medical, etc

The job roles of PR professionals revolve around promoting and protecting the public image of a client. Based on both aspects, here are the top PR careers along with their average salaries.

1. Public Relations Specialist 

Average Base Salary: ₹600k /year

As a public relations expert, a professional needs to convince the media to write and print positive stories about their clients through press releases, press conferences, and other media channels. A PR can also be responsible for managing investor relations, online and local community relations, and even acting as a spokesperson.

2. Content Creation

Average Base Salary: ₹287k /year

Content creators are responsible for crafting positive stories about their brand, which the media relation experts pitch to the journalist. 

3. Media Relations

Average Base Salary: ₹497 k /year

A media relation expert is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with journalists so that they can pitch their brand stories to them and look for interview opportunities for their clientele. Furthermore, they are also responsible for keeping track of all their social, press, and blog placements and report their PR campaigns’ effectiveness.

4. Social Media Marketing 

Average Base Salary: ₹393 k /year

A social media expert is responsible for tracking and managing the image of a client on social media platforms. They use various social media listening tools to improve the public reputation of the company. They also interact with their social media followers, make various announcements on behalf of the company on social media, and find the right influencers to promote their brand.

5. Corporate Communications

Average Base Salary: ₹676 k /year

A financial communication expert is generally appointed in a public company where he is responsible for improving relationships with analysts and investors to improve their financial reputation.

6. Press Release/Spokesperson

Average Base Salary: ₹429 k /year

As a spokesperson, a PR professional is the face of the brand. Their job revolves around staying in public on behalf of the company during TV appearances, press conferences to respond to criticism.

7. Protective PR

The protective aspect of a PR is smaller but is of great importance. There are two popular career paths you can pursue on this side of PR, which include:

1. Reputation Management

Average Base Salary: ₹315 k /year

A reputation manager is responsible for improving the client’s public image by monitoring brand sentiments on social media. With this information, the professionals identify the brand’s complaints and quickly solve them through social media and other online communication channels.

2. Crisis Management

Average Base Salary: ₹274k /year

The crisis manager is responsible for helping the client deal with major problems created due to human error or malicious intent. They reduce the company’s damage by releasing statements that take responsibility for the issue and spread awareness of the plan to solve the issue through owned and paid marketing channels. Also, they appoint an official spokesperson to respond to the criticism on behalf of the client.

8. Marketing Communications Manager

Average Base Salary: ₹787 k /year

The job of a marketing communications manager revolves around supervising brand marketing operations and implementing marketing campaigns that target brand awareness and customer retention. As the title suggests, they require good communication and interpersonal skills. They must also possess in-depth knowledge of business advertising and marketing concepts and must stay updated with the changing trends. 

PR Skills Required

A public relations specialist needs to have a superset of skills for deriving and managing the right strategies that help maintain the client’s public image. They must stay updated with the latest details and smart thinking ways because the client’s image entirely lies on their shoulder. With one wrong step, the client will get negative attention or worse lose the entire attention at all. 

A PR works to efficiently deal with people inside and outside the company in an effective way to develop quality relationships. However, to be successful in the industry you must be a master in certain PR skills ranging from research to time management and international updates.

Here are the top 7 essential public relation skills that one needs to master.

1. Research Skills

A PR needs to have excellent research skills. As experts, they need to interact with different clients from various Industries. So, having adequate knowledge about their market and brand will help speed up the relation-building process. A good PR agent keeps up with the latest trends and updates of the marketing and advertising industry. 

2. Communication Skills

Good communication skills are the key to a successful career in PR. As a public relation expert, one must have strong communication and listening skills. Also, one needs to be a good public speaker. This is because as a professional, the PR needs to interact and deal with various people from different cultures speaking different languages across countries.

3. Creative Thinking

A PR needs to think creatively as they come across images of opportunities that can help promote business and approach new clients.  The PR must-have new and creative ideas to succeed in their career. With a creative mind, they will grow and achieve the desired salary.

4. Writing skills

Having great writing quality is essential for a PR to master their profession. A PR is expected to write contents like guest posts, press releases and other stuff for various clients across different industries. The candidates who have strong writing ability tend to be more successful in the industry.

5. Time management

To be successful as a PR one needs to have excellent time management skills. Having this quality ensures the PR can efficiently deal with all their clients equally and complete the projects timely.  The industry requires them to master deadlines and prioritize tasks. 

6. Social media skills

To have a successful career as a PR one needs to have the ability to manage social media efficiently. A good PR not only knows which online portal to use during what situation but also has the ability to utilise those channels to their fullest potential.

7. International know-how

A PR must have good knowledge of the international mind because they need to deal with different clients from a varying territory with different native languages. In some cases, they need to write content for the websites in different languages. A PR fluent in multiple languages is in great demand and has numerous job opportunities that bring him a high salary. The more language skills a PR will have the higher will be his success chances.

Final Thoughts

The world has become a competitive place, where every business enterprise and individual is striving to maintain a good public relation to achieve their goals. This is why the job outlook of PR in India will always increase. However, a PR job requires commitment towards upskilling and staying updated with the latest trends to excel in the industry. But the benefits and the perks one stands to gain overshadow the struggles endured.

To land a good position as a PR in one of the best firms, you must pursue higher education to gain experience and knowledge. You can take up a certification course or pursue a postgraduate degree to achieve your career goals.

If you wish to learn more about PR, check out the Master of Arts in Public Relations you can pursue through upGrad from the University of Mumbai. Offered in three languages, it is a 2-year UGC Recognised course with in-built internship programs to help you learn new-age digital media skills.