This article is part of: Centre for the New Economy and Society

• Two-thirds of companies operating in India see a need to tap into more diverse talent pools to fill emerging roles, far above the global average of 47%, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025.
• Companies are taking it upon themselves to cultivate the skills they need, either by offering training or by removing degree requirements and offering apprenticeships.
• Retaining this talent once it has been trained is the next step, given that much of India’s top tech talent has historically looked overseas for higher salaries and career growth.

When Indian prime minister Narendra Modi began his third term in June 2024, he set out an ambitious tech agenda to help make the country a digital leader. This included the IndiaAI Mission and programmes to boost skills in areas from cybersecurity to data management.

He will hope that as well as attracting new talent to these areas, it will encourage existing talent to stay. Around 18 million people a year currently leave the country to find work – close to double the number leaving any other nation – and it is hitting the tech sector hard, with a third of top graduates from the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology among those emigrating.

This is creating a talent gap that the government must tackle to accelerate its digital drive. Skill India Digital Hub is just one example of how the country is trying to do this, by promoting and providing “continuous learning” in areas such as AI, machine learning and automation.

Nationwide initiatives such as this are also aiming to boost workforce participation by traditionally underrepresented groups such as women (around a third of whom work, compared with three-quarters of men in India and about 50% of women globally) to support emerging employment hotspots.

This is part of why 67% of companies operating in India expect to tap into “diverse talent pools” to fill the roles they have available over the coming years, far above the global average of 47%, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025.

Some of this diversity will come from overseas, including in the case of C-suite jobs, and some will come from employers removing degree requirements and moving towards skills-based hiring. Around 30% of companies in India plan to take the latter approach, compared with 19% globally, with an expected rise in apprenticeship programmes in the semiconductor sector in particular.

What does the future of work look like in India? It will see the country building on its strong IT sector by doubling down on digital. Its fastest-growing jobs are all expected to come in technology-related roles, with specialists in big data, AI and machine learning and security management all likely to be in high demand.

But a surge in upskilling and reskilling will be needed to make that happen, and unlike in the US and other Western countries, corporate sponsorship is expected to play a significant role in doing so, particularly around generative AI.

India’s key labour-market trends

According to the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey, India falls behind when it comes to the “ease of finding skilled employees in the local labour market” and “filling vacancies by hiring foreign labour”, scoring lower than the average for its income group and region – particularly in the case of finding skilled employees. Both are ranked at 3 out of 7, where 1 is the lowest possible score.

But the business landscape is transforming, with organizations citing three leading drivers of expected change by 2030: increased digital access, climate-mitigation efforts and geopolitical tensions.

The first two of these trends are driving heavy investment in AI, robotics and autonomous systems, as well as in energy technologies. Employers in India expect to outpace global adoption of certain technologies, with 35% believing that semiconductors and computing technologies will transform their operations this decade, while 21% see quantum computing and encryption as leading catalysts for change.

India’s intensifying need for skills

But to achieve this change, India will need far more of the types of talent that employers currently feel they lack – a gap they believe is slowing their ability to embrace new technologies. Around 63 in every 100 Indian workers will require training by 2030, according to the Future of Jobs Report, although 12 in every 100 are unlikely to be able to upskill, translating into more than 70 million workers that may not gain the training they need in the next five years.

In terms of desired public policies to improve the availability of relevant talent, India is broadly in line with global averages for funding and providing reskilling and upskilling opportunities, and the government is partnering with tech giants including Microsoft and Intel to launch training programmes in areas such as AI skills.

But with such strong appetite among businesses to move forward in AI and other digital realms, companies are increasingly taking it upon themselves to cultivate the skills they need, with almost 9 in 10 focusing on offering online learning platforms as part of a focus on career development, according to LinkedIn research.

At the same time, the Future of Jobs Report shows surging demand for people with an aptitude for analytical and creative thinking, as well as a strong focus on leadership skills along with resilience, flexibility and agility. This tallies with some of the offerings from Skill India Digital Hub, with its Employability Skills course including lessons in areas such as “communication, teamwork and goal-setting” – skills that are applicable across every industry.

India, with its population of more than 1 billion, already has one of the world’s biggest bodies of talent in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Yet much of the country’s top tech graduates heads to the US and Europe, where opportunities for career progression appear greater, salaries are higher and the overall work-life balance and potential quality of life seem more attractive.

However, initiatives such as the India Skills Accelerator are working to change this by showing the country’s young people that they can build skills and careers at home.

“India today stands at the confluence of three powerful forces – demographic advantage, digital transformation and a deep developmental commitment,” says Shri Jayant Chaudhary, the country’s Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, as well as Minister of State for Education. “With the world’s largest youth population and a vibrant skilling ecosystem, we are uniquely positioned to become the skill capital of the world. The India Skills Accelerator is not just a platform for dialogue about this issue, but a catalyst for systemic transformation, anchored in data and shared accountability to create innovation and targeted solutions.”

What’s next for India?

The public and private sectors need to continue their strong work to enhance tech skills among the population, embedding this not just within the workforce but within educational institutions at as early an age as possible.

“The National Education Policy has already initiated transformative changes – promoting flexibility, vocational pathways and digital skilling”, says Dr Sukanta Majumdar, Minister of State for Education and Development in India’s north-eastern region. “Our federal model of implementation, involving both central and state governments, can serve as a valuable model for others.”

Retaining talent once it has been trained is the next step, and salaries and career opportunities will be a key part of that. Wages are growing in India, but not as fast as the global average, with 43% of firms projecting growth through to 2030, versus a global average of 52%, which could be a missed opportunity in the country.

Job prospects will depend directly on companies’ ability to hold on to talent. If they are able to retain skilled staff, this will power progress in areas such as AI, semiconductors, big data and computing, and these same companies will then expand and create new roles.

Have you read?

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Preparing people for the jobs of tomorrow is a primary focus of the World Economic Forum’s Reskilling Revolution, which brings together businesses, governments and civil society to address the growing need to transform education, skills and learning in order to meet the demands of our rapidly changing world.

There is also increasing demand for India to bring in more foreign workers, with 34% of companies wanting to see new immigration policies, compared with 26% worldwide. This is clearly seen as one of the quickest ways to close the talent gap that threatens to hold businesses back, and given the lower wages India offers than the US and Western Europe, turning to elsewhere in Asia, as well as Africa and parts of the Middle East, may offer its best bet, with attractive visa policies likely to help.