56% GCC hiring demand is concentrated in professionals with 4–12 years’ experience and organisations are increasingly building new career pathways through role-adjacent reskilling
Quess Corp, India’s largest and a global leader in staffing and workforce solutions, today unveiled its latest India GCC Tech Talent Landscape – Q1 FY27 Report, which finds that India’s Global Capability Centres are increasingly creating AI and digital talent internally by enabling professionals with adjacent technical skills to transition into emerging technology roles. Rather than relying solely on external hiring, organisations are building specialised capabilities by enabling professionals with adjacent technical skills to transition into emerging technology roles.
The report finds that career mobility in Q1 FY27 was shaped by role adjacency rather than complete career reinvention. Backend Developers are moving into Applied AI Engineer roles, Data Scientists into ML and Model Operations Engineering, Data Engineers into AI Data Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineers into Platform Engineering, QA Automation Engineers into Autonomous QA Engineering, Cybersecurity Analysts into Cloud Security Engineering, and DevOps Engineers into DevSecOps Engineering. These transitions indicate a growing focus on developing specialised capabilities from existing engineering talent while responding to changing technology requirements.
Professionals with four to twelve years of experience accounted for around 56% of total hiring demand in Q1 FY27, underscoring GCCs’ continued preference for experienced talent capable of taking on specialised technology roles. Overall hiring remained steady during the quarter, growing by around 5–6% quarter-on-quarter, with demand concentrated across AI, Data & Analytics, Platform Engineering, Cloud & Infrastructure Engineering, and Cybersecurity as organisations prioritised critical digital capabilities.
Other key findings from the report include:
- Smaller GCCs record the fastest hiring growth while larger centres continue to account for the biggest share of demand
GCCs with fewer than 500 employees recorded the fastest hiring growth at around 8% quarter-on-quarter, supported by new GCC establishments and specialised AI and digital capability teams. At the same time, organisations with 1,000–5,000 employees continued to account for around 40% of total GCC hiring demand. The findings point to a two-speed GCC ecosystem where smaller centres are expanding specialised capabilities while larger GCCs continue to lead enterprise-wide technology programmes.
- Professional Services & Consulting emerges as the fastest-growing GCC sector
Professional Services & Consulting recorded the highest quarter-on-quarter growth at around 9% and accounted for 10.3% of total hiring demand. Technology & Product followed with around 7% growth, while Manufacturing & Industrial remained the largest hiring sector with a 25.1% share. BFSI accounted for 20.9% of hiring demand, while Telecom & Networks was the only sector to record a contraction during the quarter.
- Demand continues to shift towards advanced technology capabilities
AI, Data & Analytics remained the fastest-growing capability area, expanding around 10% QoQ and contributing 16.7% of hiring demand. Platform Engineering grew by around 8%, while Cloud & Infrastructure Engineering and Cybersecurity & Risk Management each recorded around 7% growth. Enterprise Applications & ERP and IT Service Management & Digital Operations recorded comparatively lower growth, reflecting the continued shift towards advanced technology capabilities.
- Specialised talent gaps remain across key technology domains
AI, Data & Analytics continued to report the largest supply-demand gap at between 36% and 40% followed by Platform Engineering at around 32–36%. Cloud & Infrastructure Engineering recorded a gap of around 28–32%, while Cybersecurity & Risk Management ranged between around 28–33%. The report indicates that organisations are increasingly complementing external hiring with structured reskilling and internal capability development to address these talent gaps.
- Tier-2 cities continue to expand their role in GCC delivery
Tier-1 cities continued to account for the largest share of hiring demand, while Tier-2 cities increased their share to around 11–13% after recording sequential growth of 8–10%. Coimbatore, Ahmedabad and Kochi continued to strengthen their presence in technology delivery, enterprise support and cloud operations, complementing advanced engineering work across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai and NCR.
Speaking on the development, Kapil Joshi, CEO, Quess IT Staffing said “India’s GCC ecosystem is entering a defining phase of maturity. Our Q1 FY27 report shows that while overall GCC hiring continues to grow steadily at 5–6% quarter-on-quarter, AI, Data & Analytics has emerged as the fastest-growing capability, expanding by around 10% and accounting for nearly 17% of hiring demand. At the same time, talent gaps of up to 40% across AI and data roles are fundamentally changing how organisations build their workforce. Rather than competing for a limited pool of specialised talent, GCCs are increasingly investing in role-adjacent reskilling to transform existing engineering talent into AI, cloud and platform specialists.
We are also seeing the ecosystem broaden, with smaller GCCs recording around 8% hiring growth and Tier-2 cities contributing 11–13% of hiring demand, signalling that innovation is becoming more distributed across India. The next chapter of India’s GCC growth will be defined less by the scale of hiring and more by the ability to continuously create new capabilities. Organisations that successfully combine AI adoption with workforce transformation will position India not just as the world’s technology talent hub, but as a global centre for enterprise innovation and product leadership.”
