India IT faces up to 60% GenAI cloud skills gap
India's IT sector is facing a big skills gap (up to 60%) in Generative AI and cloud roles, according to a new TeamLease Digital report.
Only 16% of IT professionals are holding AI skills, even though demand for GenAI talent could top 1 million jobs by 2026.
India GenAI salaries reach ₹34.5L
With so few skilled people around, salaries for GenAI roles are rising fast. A GenAI developer can start at ₹11.2 lakh and reach ₹34.5 lakh after a few years.
But here's the catch: the article only says that only about 16% of IT professionals are holding AI skills.
As TeamLease Digital CEO Neeti Sharma puts it, "AI is changing what it means to be capable. Using AI tools is now the baseline, what the market rewards is the ability to build, run and govern AI in production. That is why we look at talent through three tiers, AI-Core, AI-Adjacent and AI-Support, because with only about 16% of IT professionals holding AI skills, 'AI-skilled' means very different things at each level."