  Over the last four decades, a number of modified gravity theories have been
proposed to study cosmological phenomena as they can provide solutions for some
of the shortcomings of Einstein's gravity in explaining early and late time
accelerations of the observed Universe, the existence of dark matter,
singularities at center of Black holes etc. The theoretical and observational
challenges faced by the $\Lambda$CDM model also point towards the necessity for
looking beyond General Relativity. In this direction, recently $f(\phi, T)$
gravity has been proposed in literature where the non-minimal coupling of the
scalar field $\phi$ with the trace of energy-momentum tensor $T$ has been
introduced in the Einstein-Hilbert action. Considering the Hilltop potential,
we have studied the slow-roll inflation in the framework of $f(\phi, T)$
gravity. It is found that Hilltop inflationary models in $f(\phi, T)$ gravity
are viable when seen in the light of latest Planck data.
