'Sensing this sentiment, the top four companies declined to take part in the survey for the first time, citing confidentiality. These top four IT firms employ about 40 percent of the IT professionals in the country.'

Another interesting finding of the survey was a 15 percent drop in the attrition rates from 18 percent last year. But the average salary hikes also declined to a mere 1.4 percent. Hexaware showed a remarkable retention of 100 percent.

'The drop in the average attrition rate is not surprising in a year when the IT companies had taken the scissors out to trim flab, non-performing employees and do away with the bench,' said Ibrahim Ahmed, group editor of Dataquest.

'Companies are becoming increasingly responsive to the employee issues. But they appeared conservative in allowing their employees in taking risks,' Ahmed said, reflecting on the reasons to shy away from trying new ideas.