Top 10 ICT Companies Hiring H-1B Workers in 2026: Sponsors, Salaries, Roles

Why this list matters in 2026

The H-1B program remains the single largest legal pathway for skilled ICT workers to build a career in the United States. Every spring, USCIS runs a lottery against roughly 85,000 new cap-subject visas — 65,000 in the regular cap plus 20,000 reserved for US master's-degree holders — and every year the same handful of information and communications technology (ICT) companies dominate the petition list. This article looks at the ten companies that filed and were approved for the most new and continuing H-1B petitions in the most recent Department of Labor and USCIS disclosure cycles, what they pay, what roles they hire, and how their sponsorship pipelines actually work in practice.

The numbers below combine USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub approvals for fiscal year 2025, Department of Labor LCA disclosures through the second quarter of 2026, and public salary bands from company career sites and Levels.fyi. Where a company's approvals differ meaningfully between initial and continuing petitions, both are noted.

1. Amazon

Amazon has been the largest single H-1B employer in the United States for four consecutive fiscal years. In FY2025 the company received approvals for roughly 9,200 initial H-1B petitions and more than 14,000 continuing petitions across Amazon.com Services, AWS, Amazon Web Services, and its logistics and devices subsidiaries. The bulk of hiring is concentrated in Seattle, Bellevue, Arlington (HQ2), Austin, and the Bay Area, with growing volumes in Nashville and Boston.

Median base salary on approved petitions runs about $178,000 for Software Development Engineer II, $205,000 for SDE III, and $235,000 for principal engineers before stock and sign-on. The top job titles by petition volume are Software Development Engineer, Data Engineer, Applied Scientist, Business Intelligence Engineer, and Solutions Architect. Amazon files LCAs at a scale that lets it absorb the annual lottery volatility better than smaller employers, and its internal transfer pipeline from student OPT to full sponsorship is one of the most systematised in the industry.

2. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

TCS is the largest Indian IT services firm and the biggest non-US-headquartered H-1B sponsor. In FY2025 TCS received approvals for about 5,800 initial petitions and a much larger continuing-petition volume, reflecting its long-standing model of rotating consultants between India and US client sites. Roles skew heavily toward Systems Analyst, Software Developer, Application Developer, and IT Consultant. Median base salary on approved petitions is close to $92,000, with the majority of placements in Dallas, New Jersey, Chicago, and the Bay Area at client engagements for large banks, insurers, and retailers.

TCS's sponsorship path is different from a product company. Candidates are typically hired in India, complete internal training, and then rotated to a US client project for a two-to-three-year assignment before returning or transitioning to green card sponsorship. The salary gap versus Big Tech is real, but so is the volume: TCS files more petitions per year than most Fortune 500 companies file in a decade.

3. Infosys

Infosys sits just behind TCS in raw approvals and just ahead in headline-grabbing scrutiny. FY2025 approvals were approximately 5,200 initial and a large continuing base. Median base salary tracks TCS closely at around $95,000. Top roles include Technology Analyst, Technology Lead, Senior Systems Engineer, and Consultant. Hiring hubs mirror the TCS pattern with a heavier concentration in Raleigh, Indianapolis, and Hartford — cities where Infosys has invested in US innovation hubs specifically to hire domestic graduates alongside its H-1B pipeline.

Infosys's post-2019 US-hiring pledge means a larger share of its US workforce is now sourced domestically, but H-1B remains the primary channel for senior technical specialists moved from its Indian delivery centres.

4. Cognizant

Cognizant is US-headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, but its H-1B pipeline resembles the Indian IT services model. FY2025 approvals were roughly 4,700 initial petitions with a very large continuing base. Median salary sits near $98,000, with top titles including Programmer Analyst, Senior Associate, Technology Lead, and Business Analyst. Hiring is heavy in New Jersey, Dallas, Phoenix, and Atlanta, with a large healthcare and financial-services client footprint.

Cognizant has been rebuilding its sponsorship program after several years of settlement scrutiny and now runs one of the more transparent LCA disclosure processes among the IT services tier.

5. Google

Google's parent Alphabet received approvals for approximately 4,400 initial H-1B petitions in FY2025 plus a substantial continuing base. Median base salary is among the highest in the program: around $192,000 for Software Engineer III, $225,000 for L5 senior engineers, and $265,000 for L6 staff engineers before stock, bonus, and refresh grants. Top roles are Software Engineer, Research Scientist, Data Scientist, Product Manager, and Site Reliability Engineer.

Hiring is centred in Mountain View, Sunnyvale, New York, Seattle, and Cambridge (MA), with growing volumes in Chicago and Austin. Google's process is well-documented on the outside: intern-to-full-time conversion is the highest-probability path, followed by Ph.D. new-grad, followed by senior industry hire. Sponsorship is nearly automatic for approved offers, and the company handles the transition from OPT to H-1B to green card entirely in-house.

6. Meta

Meta Platforms received approvals for roughly 3,900 initial H-1B petitions in FY2025 and continues to be one of the highest-paying sponsors in the program. Median base salary for E4 software engineers on approved petitions is about $205,000, rising to $245,000 for E5 and $285,000 for E6, before RSUs and sign-on. Top roles include Software Engineer, Research Scientist (particularly for GenAI Infra and FAIR), Production Engineer, and Data Scientist.

Menlo Park, Seattle, New York, and Bellevue account for the bulk of placements. Meta pulled back from broad new-grad hiring during its 2023 efficiency year but has resumed strong sponsorship for AI, infrastructure, and RL/AR roles through 2026.

7. Microsoft

Microsoft received approvals for approximately 3,700 initial H-1B petitions across Microsoft Corporation, LinkedIn, and its research subsidiaries in FY2025. Median base salary for Software Engineer 2 is around $172,000, Senior SE around $205,000, and Principal around $245,000. Top roles are Software Engineer, Data Scientist, Applied Scientist, Program Manager, and Cloud Solution Architect.

Redmond dominates placements, followed by Mountain View, Cambridge (MA), New York, and Atlanta. Microsoft's Azure and AI organisations are the largest single hiring drivers, and its acquisition of GitHub and LinkedIn has expanded the sponsorship footprint into additional metro areas including San Francisco and Sunnyvale.

8. Apple

Apple received approvals for roughly 3,400 initial petitions in FY2025. Median base salary is close to $185,000 for ICT4 software engineers, rising to $220,000 for ICT5 and above. Top roles are Software Engineer, Hardware Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Silicon Design Engineer, and Product Design Engineer. Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Austin, and San Diego are the primary hiring hubs, with a growing footprint in Seattle.

Apple's sponsorship pipeline is unusually silicon-heavy: a significant share of petitions are for hardware and ML-hardware roles tied to Apple Silicon, Vision Pro, and the internal AI platform work. Compensation transparency is lower than at Google or Meta, but base bands are well documented in LCA filings.

9. HCL America (HCLTech)

HCLTech's US subsidiary HCL America received approvals for approximately 3,100 initial petitions in FY2025 plus a large continuing base. Median base salary sits near $95,000 with top titles including Technical Lead, Software Engineer, Solution Architect, and Consultant. Hiring hubs are concentrated in Dallas, Cary (NC), New Jersey, and Frisco (TX).

HCLTech has publicly stated a strategy of expanding US near-shore delivery centres and cutting reliance on H-1B for mid-tier roles, but senior specialists — particularly in cloud modernisation, SAP, and cybersecurity — remain a major sponsorship category.

10. Wipro

Wipro rounds out the top ten with approximately 2,900 approved initial petitions in FY2025. Median base salary is close to $93,000. Top roles include Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer, Technical Lead, and Business Analyst. Hiring is concentrated in New Jersey, Dallas, the Bay Area, and Charlotte, with a strong financial-services and telecom client base.

Wipro has faced regulatory scrutiny in the past and has restructured its LCA and prevailing-wage processes accordingly. Its 2026 sponsorship pipeline is more selective than a decade ago, with tighter internal review of petition quality and a bigger emphasis on onshore hires from US universities.

The 2024 lottery reform and what it changed

The single biggest structural change to the H-1B program in the last few years was the 2024 shift to a beneficiary-centric lottery. Instead of counting registrations per employer, USCIS now counts unique beneficiaries. That change gutted the industry of duplicate registrations — where multiple employers registered the same worker to inflate lottery odds — and reset the effective selection rate closer to the raw registration-to-cap ratio. For genuine single-employer sponsorships, particularly at the Big Tech tier, the practical effect has been a modestly higher chance of selection and much less noise in the pool.

Fee changes that took effect in 2024 also raised the cost of filing significantly, particularly for larger employers. The financial disincentive to speculative filings is now real, which further favours employers filing petitions they intend to pursue.

What this means for candidates

If you are targeting an H-1B in ICT in 2026, three practical points fall out of the data. First, product companies pay meaningfully more than services companies, and the gap has widened in the last three years. Second, intern-to-full-time is still the highest-conversion path at Big Tech, and internships now open earlier in the university calendar than they used to. Third, IT services firms remain the largest absolute volume, and for candidates outside the top-tier university pipeline they are often the realistic first step into the US market.

Sponsorship terms vary. Ask specifically about who pays the premium processing fee, how quickly the company files the H-1B after selection, and what their track record is on green card sponsorship after two years. Those three questions separate a competent sponsor from a nominal one.

The regulatory outlook

The 2025 and 2026 administrations have both signalled interest in further H-1B reform, with recurring proposals around wage-tier weighting in the lottery, stricter LCA enforcement, and tighter site-visit programs. None of the biggest proposed changes have taken effect yet, but candidates and employers should plan on further rulemaking activity through 2027. The core cap of 85,000 new visas per year is set by statute and would require congressional action to change — a change that has been discussed for two decades and has never actually happened.

For now, the ten companies above will continue to absorb the majority of ICT H-1B petitions filed each year, and the compensation and role patterns described here are stable enough to plan a two- to three-year career move around.