TALENT TRENDS IN 2026- INDIAN TECHNOLOGY SECTOR

Talent Trends in 2026 for the Indian Technology Sector

Welcome to my yearly analysis of talent trends in the Indian Technology sector

2026 promises to be exciting- When will the AI bubble burst ? & if it does , – how does it impact the Indian IT sector, or startups or the stock market in general. As usual I am ignoring these questions and focusing on the basics!

The Indian IT sector was at 282 Billion USD in 2025 and expected to end Financial year 2026 with 300 Billion – a growth primarily boosted by Capability centres.

IT Services

Revenues are under strain & projections remain shaky and it’s reflected in cuts made by Big accounts- Deutsche Bank and Citigroup ( TCS), Daimler ( Infosys), Fannie Mae ( Hexaware), FedEx ( Mphasis) & Microsoft ( MindTree & Sonata). It would be interesting to see if the decline results in proportionate increase in the captive units these firms have in India

Fresher Hiring

After a dismal 2024 , fresher hiring rebounded to 120,000 in 2025, still a far cry from 500,000 in 21-22. . But 2026 will be gloomy – around 75,000 -85,000 projected to be hired
Outcome based deals combined with client demand to demonstrate AI/Automation impact-will force firms to automate low value processes & roles- reducing the demand for freshers
For instance, a British bank used Infosys Topaz ( AI Solution) to transform over 2000 customer service processes to operate in near real-time instead of a week.
As Gary Kasprov said – “ AI wins not because it is smarter than humans, but because it simply makes less mistakes “ . And that is enough for Low complexity & Low ROI roles.
Infosys has started the ball rolling – off campus fresher hiring for specialist roles with salaries between 7 and 21 lacs . There are no public figures available on numbers hired at these levels .
Replacement of high end coding jobs with AI is still far off , even then Coders in India might be “cheaper “ than AI costs which escalate with use ! Remember the Amazon stores “just walkout technology” which were basically done by staff in the India centre snooping on shoppers.
Over a period of time – I expect only Grade A, B campuses to have a semblance of Corporate Placement week – other institutes will have to figure out how to improve quality drastically, focus on deep tech which would require a lot of investments in both faculty and infrastructure or close down.

Middle/Senior Management

2025 was bad, and 2026 is going to be worse. TCS was honest enough to admit a 12,000 cut in middle and senior management – others resorted to what is called as “silent lay offs”. The reason it is silent is because unlike US/European IT services, layoffs in India do not result in increased stock prices ; The market understands layoffs in IT services = revenue are at risk.
When final numbers trickle in by 2026 April- I estimate, about 50,000 people in middle & senior management would have been fired. These are folks in their 40-50’s with high financial commitments & ( now) limited career options .
Compensation – As predicted Compensation 2025 increases were between 5-10% ,and top performers achieved 12-16% . I am afraid 2026 will again see less than Inflation increases.
Revenue per person 5% correction in number of workforce over 2025-26 – Revenue per person will gain by as much as 5-8%. So – Infosys might close at 60000 USD per person, Wipro ~ 52,000 USD & TCS ~ 55,000 USD per person-(official numbers are still pending. ).
fyi- Accenture ended 2025 at almost USD 90,000 per person
Accenture has more than 50% of its 17.7 Billion USD revenues from Consulting and has signed 92 deals of over $100 million each in the first three quarters of fiscal 2025. In contrast, Indian firms often classify deals over $30 million as ‘large
Indian IT services are still trying to create Consulting & Product Engineering muscle by paying 50-60% compensation compared to their biggest competitors

India- The world' s GCC destination

Total revenue from GCC’s jumped 40% to $64.6 billion in 2025. There are more than 1800 GCC units- employing 2 Million, should end 2026 with ~ 1875- 1900 units . Projected growth by 2030 is 2100 units employing in excess of 2.5 Million and Revenues in the range of 76 Billion USD

2025 ended with 88 Mega GCC’s – i.e. each having in excess of 5000 ; By 2030 India is projected to have 200 Mega GCC’s
Over 60% of the country heads for Mega GCC’s have technical/ engineering backgrounds, and half hold dual responsibilities, running the India center while also leading global functions like Engineering or Cybersecurity.
Extrapolating this trend to mid sized GCC’s is not correct. Leadership at the country head level is not just about Engineering; but Industry knowledge, governance, risk management, talent development & ability to manage global stakeholders
Apart from Mega GCC’s – Strategic Leadership of GCC’s is still largely concentrated at HQand consequently Indian operations get impacted by HQ/Corporate changes & shenanigans ( read politics 😉
CHRO & Head of TA will be as important as country heads for the success of a GCC
As a headhunter servicing GCC’s I have found the talent with RPO & BOT models – abysmal and there can be no replacement for a well structured TA function run by the company itself.
The influx of Non Resident Indian ( NRI) technocrats– to set up GCC’s in India will accelerate- the rise of right wing movements in the west & 2 -5 times compensation of local talent being additional motivations.
High end talent in terms of Product Engineering, AI, Data Science has seen phenomenal growth- and can reach almost 35-40% of installed capacity
Capacity to attract and retain niche talent is the biggest challenge for mid & small GCC’s.
Compensation increases in 25 & 26 are going to be subdued – HR leaders are indicating 10- 15% on average/ 15-22% for high performers & Market adjustment for hot skills like product engineering, Data Science, ML & AI .
RSU’s & well designed LTIP continue to play a significant role in retaining talent at middle and senior management
Acquiring captives which are struggling is poised to become a significant strategic practice for firms like Accenture, which possess strong consulting capabilities and deep sector expertise. This approach involves taking over GCCs that have failed to meet their initial productivity or scale objectives, enabling more efficient operations and value realization.
Paucity of leadership means new – Mid and Small GCC’s will be increasingly incubated in a BOT model by the GCC practices of firms like ANSR, EY, Deloitte , Accenture & even services firms like Wipro, Inosys. The reason is lack of offshoring expertise & experience at HQ , and push for rapid scale.
Product Engineering will continue to be demand – with more end to end portfolios/ products anchored from India- for instance JP Morgan & Wall Mart Technologies have significant product incubation and development being done from India
Does anyone else remember the SAAS being killed by AI agents hoopla? . SAAS & Product hiring will be subdued though.
India has the opportunity to become the Data capital of the world- Data Engineering, Data Architecture, Data Science, Data Analytics & moving upstream into Machine learning & Artificial Intelligence.
The labour arbitrage on data skills compared to North America & Most of Europe is so high that IT Services firms can compete on compensation with product and SAAS firms in India – but unfortunately they are at 60 percentile which means they miss this bus as well.
In terms of location Bangalore is still the numero uno–followed by Hyderabad and NCR/Delhi- which will have to pay the price for being a gas chamber and lose significant business & talent.
The biggest risk to GCC success is to consider labour arbitrage as the key indicator of success. I have seen the following script play out –
HQ is given limited leadership options by the retained search/ RPO provider , and a below par Country Manager is hired- who hires below par CXO-1 & 2 , but since the labour arbitrage is huge and delivery measurement is still in “honeymoon stage”- by the time reason & reality dawns the firm has 500 people & “not meeting expectations” on business parameters ( still great on labour arbitrage though). Now either someone owns up to a massive duck up or pretends everything is okay.

Startups

Indian startups raised $11 billion across 936 deals in 2025, representing an 8% decline from 2024.

Scam season – We are only at the tip of the iceberg in scams BlueSmart/Gensol, Builder.AI, Falcon invoicing, Verse , Byjus, Bharat Pe, Zilingo, Ola Electric. This is going to accelerate, and unfortunately the governance structure is built to evade and offload the problem to the public through IPO’s rather than do its job.
Most of the startup IPO’s have been a well orchestrated game of Musical chairs where initial investors and founders have offloaded their risk & made money off retail investors- who have caught the bait so many times that it is now impossible to feel sorry for them.
Gig economy firms continue to do well on the back of millions of unemployed youth available as cannon fodder. To the folks reacting against the gig workers recent strike as biting the hand that feeds them I am quoting Vivek Kaul’s response – “Desperation is not consent”
In terms of Tech talent -Full stack- Developers & Engineering managers AND server side folks– who have experience in scaling up B2C brands or Fintech firms- are still hot & so is their compensation.
Scale without the right culture and proper organisation design is a recipe for disaster. Founders have been investing in Product, Tech & marketing but keeping Talent Acquisition & HR teams woefully underfunded- resulting in a snowball effect on organisation effectiveness and culture.
Ageism in the startup ecosystem is even more stark than other IT sectors- 40 + is old and 50+ untouchable unless they are in government liaison.

Deep Tech Sector

Geo-political imperatives mean that this sector has state support.

The governments Indian Semiconductor Mission has a corpus of 10 Billion USD, and the private Deep Tech Alliance with investors like Nvidia, Qualcomm promises has pitched in with another 1 Billion.

Proven results in the Asymmetric war in Ukraine has made Drones a necessity for the Indian armed forces. NewSpace Research & Technologies ( NRT)- Delivered the Indian Army’s first large-scale Tethered Drone contract (approx. ₹250 Crore) in May 2025, Dhaksha Unmanned Systems Majority-owned by Coromandel International bagged a ₹165 Crore order for 200 medium-altitude logistics drones for the Indian Army

EV tech – Ather Energy , Ultraviolette Automotive with India based design and engineering teams bring hope amid the Ola generated gloom. . Utraviolette has launched its motorcycles in the UK, Spain & Portugal .

p.s.The flying flea by Royal Enfield is easily one of the most beautiful bikes you will find anywhere in the world.

Talent impact

Deeptech offers an opportunity for Indian Engineers to take the Indian Tech brand beyond coding & convert passion into global brands & Desi Intellectual Property. Awais Ahmed at Pixxel & Pawan Kumar Chandana at Skyroot converted childhood dreams into firms which are now attracting both Indian and international capital & clients.
The skill gap at Fresher level is huge – whether its space tech, AI or Drone technology- trained graduates are few and demand is fast outpacing supply of the right people. Apart from the top institutions , very few engineering colleges have the infrastructure or the faculty to meet the demand
Middle Management and Senior engineering talent is even more hard to find– Unlike IT Services/GCC expats with these skill sets rarely come back because they are working at the cutting edge in International markets and do not want a step down in their skill or impact.

HOT SKILLS-2026

Artificial Intelligence
Product Engineering
Data Science
Engineering- Drone & Space Tech
DevOps & Automation
Data Analytics

Cyber Security
Cloud IAAS
Server Side Scale up Experts
Anything to do with Semiconductors
Internet of Things