For every 10 AI jobs in India—only 1 engineer exists
What's the story
India is facing a major shortage of artificial intelligence (AI) professionals, a new report by staffing firm Quess Corp has said.
The study, "Decoding the AI Talent Landscape in India," found that although there are 416,000 skilled AI workers in the country, the talent pool meets only 49% of the demand.
This highlights a significant gap as businesses across sectors rush to adopt technology.
Market gap
AI talent pool meets only 49% of demand
Quess Corp's report underscores a major gap in qualified professionals for mid-to-senior-level roles, especially in emerging fields such as Generative AI, natural language processing, and computer vision.
"Between March 2024 and March 2025, demand for AI and data talent grew nearly 45%. But in emerging fields like GenAI, there's just one qualified professional for every 10 open roles," said Kapil Joshi, Quess IT Staffing CEO.
This gap has become a strategic bottleneck, not just a hiring challenge.
Skill scarcity
Shortage extends to machine learning operations specialists
The report also highlights a dearth of specialists in machine learning (ML) operations, cloud data architects, and AI governance experts.
"India has the scale, capability, and potential to lead the global AI revolution. But to truly seize this moment, businesses, educators, and policymakers must act with urgency," Joshi added.
Companies are responding by offering 15-20% higher salaries for GenAI roles than traditional AI/ML roles at the same experience level.
GCC's role
Global capability centers drive demand for AI talent
Global capability centers (GCCs) are a key driver of the demand for AI talent.
These centers are no longer just operational support arms, they are also scaling GenAI platforms and building governance frameworks in India for global clients.
Last year, GCCs, system integrators, and product firms together made up over 70% of all AI and data-related hiring in India, with GCCS contributing 22.5% to the demand, Quess Corp's report said.
Talent shift
Tier-2 cities emerge as new talent hubs
The demand for talent has moved to tier-2 cities where GCCs are setting up bases in analytics delivery, cloud engineering, and early-stage experimentation.
About 14-16% of India's AI/ML hiring demand is now coming from small towns and cities.
Kochi, Ahmedabad, and Coimbatore top tier-2 AI hiring, accounting for nearly 70% of such recruitment, according to the report.
This marks a major shift in India's AI talent market's geography.