There is no single foreman salary in India; each state sets a legal floor, and Himachal Pradesh names the grades. Its construction schedule pays a Mate Rs 13,560 a month, a Foreman Grade-II Rs 14,790 and an Assistant Foreman Rs 17,640, from 1 April 2025. Chhattisgarh lists Foreman (Mistry) as skilled. Government Foreman posts sit at pay Levels 5 to 7, up to Rs 44,900 to 1,42,400 basic for the Navy’s Foreman. Experience, hydro and tunnel work and certification move pay above the floor.

A foreman does not always earn more than the masons on the same crew. Tamil Nadu’s 2025-26 schedule of rates prices a Maistry at Rs 870.90 a day and a first-class brick mason at Rs 1,174. Maharashtra’s schedule gives both the same Rs 677. That is the first thing to understand about this job: the title is common, the pay is not fixed by the title, and the documents that set it treat the foreman in very different ways.

This piece completes the site salary ladder we have built from the site supervisor and the site engineer down to the machine operators. It uses only the wage notifications, schedules and recruitment rules an Indian employer can check, not job-board averages that mix in Dubai and Saudi Arabia.

Foreman salary in India: the legal floor, grade by grade

The clearest document is the Himachal Pradesh minimum wages notification of 24 June 2025. Its schedule for construction and maintenance of roads and buildings names three rungs of the supervisory ladder.

Grade (as printed) Band Per day Per month 2017 monthly
Mate Semi-skilled Rs 452 Rs 13,560 Rs 6,810
Foreman Grade-II, Workshop Foreman Grade-II Skilled Rs 493 Rs 14,790 Rs 7,625
Assistant Foreman, Workshop Foreman Grade-I Highly skilled Rs 588 Rs 17,640 Rs 9,435

The notification’s own definition explains the top band: a highly skilled worker is one who “supervises efficiently the work of skilled employees”. That is the foreman’s job in a sentence. The 2017 column, from the earlier notification of 22 July 2017, shows how far the floor has moved: roughly double in eight years for every rung.

Himachal’s hydro power schedule goes further. It lists the plain “Foreman” as highly skilled at Rs 588 a day, and its own worked table adds 25% on under-construction hydro projects in non-tribal areas (Rs 735 a day) and another 20% inside tunnels (Rs 882 a day). A foreman running a tunnel crew in the hills starts from a much higher floor than one on a town building.

Other states are less specific:

  • Chhattisgarh’s water resources schedule of rates (in force from 1 May 2025) lists “Foreman (Mistry)” as skilled, at Rs 456 a day or Rs 11,858 a month, figures it reproduces from a labour commissioner order of 25 September 2024. A diploma engineer sits one band higher.
  • Telangana’s roads and buildings schedule puts the Maistry and the Supervisor in the skilled band at Rs 14,346 a month for April to September 2026. It does not use the word foreman for building work.
  • Delhi’s order of 15 April 2025 sets Rs 22,411 a month for skilled workers in every scheduled employment, but names no jobs at all.

Classification is not uniform. A 2022 Jammu and Kashmir notification lists “Foreman/Fireman” in its unskilled construction list, which shows how loosely the title is used. Check the band your state gives the grade you are hiring, not the word on the appointment letter.

What government Foreman posts pay

Public-sector Foreman posts are a useful ceiling to compare against, because their pay levels are published. They are mostly workshop, dockyard and mines posts rather than building-site jobs, and the figures below are basic pay ranges on the 7th CPC matrix, before dearness and house rent allowances.

Post Document Pay level Route in
Foreman, Naval Dockyards (Group B) Recruitment Rules, S.R.O. 1 of 9 Jan 2024 Level 7: Rs 44,900 to 1,42,400 Chargeman (Level 6) with five years
Mechanical Foreman, Indian Bureau of Mines Circular dated 20 Mar 2026 Level 6: Rs 35,400 to 1,12,400 Mechanical diploma and five years
Foreman (Electrical), Puducherry PWD Recruitment Rules, G.O. Ms. 21 of 2018 Level 5 Electrician Grade-I with five years

Two patterns repeat across these rules. The foreman is reached by promotion after about five years in the trade below, and a diploma is the usual entry for direct recruits. Private contractors are not bound by these scales, but a foreman with a diploma and a decade on site will know them.

What a construction foreman actually does

The national qualification for a “Foreman Concrete”, approved at NSQF level 5 in May 2025 on the National Qualifications Register, describes the role plainly: reading drawings and specifications, making sure preparatory work is done before a pour, directing and monitoring the concreting, planning the resources and keeping the team safe. On a working site that means the foreman decides when the batching plant, pump and mixers roll, and when the crane lifts.

The law expects the role to exist. Clause 36(ii) of CPWD’s General Conditions of Contract (2014 edition) makes the contractor employ “such foremen and supervisory staff as are competent to give proper supervision to the work”. The Building and Other Construction Workers Central Rules, 1998 tell workers to report defects to their employer or foreman. In mines the title is statutory: a mine foreman needs a certificate of competency under the Metalliferous Mines Regulations, 1961.

The route from mason to foreman

The Foreman Concrete qualification sets four entry routes: a civil diploma with one year of relevant experience, a 12th pass with two years, a 10th pass with four years, or a level 4 Brick Mason with three years. The minimum entry age is 18, and the course runs 570 hours, of which 360 are on-the-job training. The next rungs are Supervisor Structure (Technical) at level 5.5 and Manager Structure at level 6. Parallel foreman qualifications exist for electrical works, formwork, reinforcement, scaffolding and roads.

For a mason, the step up is less about a pay jump on day one and more about the ladder it opens. The supervisor and engineer rungs above pay more, and the billing side of the site sits beside them.

What raises a foreman’s pay

Experience is priced in the government estimates themselves. Tamil Nadu’s 2025-26 schedule allows Rs 2,400 a shift for a “Foreman / supervisor / site engineer with minimum 5 years experience” on hydro-mechanical works, against Rs 1,664 for a grade-1 fitter. Five years of supervising is what earns that line.

The type of job matters as much as the years. Hydro and tunnel work in Himachal carries the 25% and 20% additions shown above, and tribal areas add 25%. Concrete-heavy jobs such as bridges, flyovers and metro work run on foremen who know formwork, reinforcement and pour sequencing, and a foreman who leaves mid-job is hard to replace.

For a contractor, the foreman is the cheapest insurance on a pour. A good one keeps the transit mixer drivers and operators moving and the labour gang productive. When you price a bid, cost the foreman above the notified floor, as our note on the labour rate per day explains for the gang below.

The bottom line

A foreman’s legal floor depends on the state and the grade. In Himachal Pradesh it runs from Rs 14,790 a month for a Foreman Grade-II to Rs 17,640 for an Assistant Foreman, with more on hydro and tunnel work. Government Foreman posts sit at pay Levels 5 to 7. The national qualification gives a mason a recognised route up after three years. Skill band, certification, experience and the kind of job decide where a foreman is paid above the floor.

Contractors building a crew for public work can find live work among current tender and contract opportunities, and anyone setting up their own outfit can start with how to become a labour contractor.

Wage rates are statutory minimums, government estimating rates or pay-matrix ranges on the dates shown, quoted exactly from the documents named; none is a market salary. Rates, schemes, specifications and prices change — confirm current terms with the state labour department, your employer or contractor, or the official source before deciding.