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Core Content
The report shows that the chip design industry sample covers the entire upstream and downstream supply chain, with the highest proportion of upstream companies (4,762), while the number of midstream manufacturing companies is smaller but has a significant salary sample size. The majority of companies are small and medium-sized, with a regional distribution concentrated in the East China region (Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, etc.), reflecting the advantages of regional industrial clusters. Representative companies in the industry chain include Cambricon, SMIC, and GigaDevice, highlighting the industry’s technology-intensive characteristics.
The key human resource indicators show that the industry’s salary growth rate is exhibiting a year-on-year slowdown trend, decreasing from 10.4% in 2021 to a predicted 2% in 2024, indicating that the industry is entering an adjustment period. The starting salary for fresh graduates shows a differentiation based on education level and function: PhD graduates have starting salaries exceeding 30,000 yuan (IT positions reach 35,000), and master’s graduates from key universities earn 23% more than those from ordinary institutions; technical positions have significantly higher salaries, with the median annual cash income for digital front-end engineers reaching 624,000 yuan. The salary disparity coefficient among cities is significant, with Shanghai (137.4) and Beijing (135.7) exceeding the benchmark city Ningbo by 37%, while cities like Guangzhou and Xi’an show a noticeable decline in salaries.
Future Trends
The industry will exhibit characteristics of “rigid demand for high-technical-threshold positions” and “contraction of basic positions”. The recruitment volume for core positions such as digital front-end/verification engineers and chip architects remains high (currently accounting for over 30%), with leading salary increases (the median annual salary for RF chip designers is 605,000 yuan). However, the overall recruitment volume in the industry is expected to continue to decline, with a year-on-year decrease of 73.6% in Q1 2025, and the proportion of companies expanding recruitment dropping to 22.5%, reflecting pressure from capacity adjustments and cost control.
The East China region’s agglomeration effect is strengthening, with cities like Hangzhou and Jiaxing experiencing counter-trend salary increases (reaching 9.5% and 4.5% respectively in 2023), and Suzhou becoming a new growth pole with a 58.6% increase in recruitment volume. The structure of enterprises will accelerate the transformation towards “specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative”, with the proportion of small and medium-sized R&D enterprises increasing to 76%, forcing the salary system to shift towards a “high-flexibility performance incentive” model. At the same time, the trend of talent reserve moving forward is becoming prominent, with fresh graduates from key universities earning a 32% premium over those from ordinary institutions, indicating that joint training between schools and enterprises and early talent retention will become competitive focal points.
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