India Workforce Report - Professional Edition | India | H2 2018

Published on April 10, 2019

Our vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.

The India professional workforce report is a half-yearly report on key trends among the professional workforce in the Indian economy, as represented by members on the LinkedIn platform. It is divided into two sections : a national section that provides insights into national level trends in jobs hired for, skills in-demand and preferred destinations for talent migration, and city level reports that provide insights into localised trends in the top 10 Indian cities attracting talent : New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Vadodara, Jaipur

Over 55 million professionals in India have LinkedIn profiles; over 1 million company pages; over 350,000 open jobs and over 50,000 skills added by members to their profiles to showcase their professional brands. That gives us unique and valuable insight into India's workforce trends.

Whether you are an employer, a recent graduate, or a policymaker, we hope you will use insights from our report to better understand and navigate the dynamics of today’s professional workforce.

1. Top jobs being hired for

Software & IT services, manufacturing and finance followed by corporate services and education remain the most sizeable sectors^[1] observed on our platform.

During the previous year, finance, wellness and fitness, and real estate followed by legal and entertainment^[2] experienced the highest growth in terms of net inflows^{^[3]} of existing professionals on the platform into these sectors. The top jobs and skills in these sectors during H2 2018 are highlighted below.

Across India’s principal industries, software engineer is a leading position being hired for. The largest industries on the platform show high demand for software engineers. This trend has been observed in both H1 and H2 of 2018. Interestingly, even in the rapidly growing wellness and fitness industry, there is a high demand for software engineers, particularly amongst related web and mobile applications, data analytics companies and online pharmaceutical players.

[1]Software and IT services includes computer and network security in addition to software, internet, and IT services. Manufacturing is inclusive of mechanical or industrial engineering, electrical and electronic manufacturing, machinery, automotive, industrial automation, aviation and aerospace, railroad manufacture, ship building, glass ceramics and concrete, chemicals, packaging and containers. The category also includes paper and forest products, renewables and environment, food production, textiles and plastics. Finance refers to venture capital and private equity, investment banking, investment management, capital markets and banking, insurance and other financial services. Corporate services comprises of management consulting, accounting, human resources, staffing and recruiting, professional training and coaching, outsourcing and offshoring, facilities services, information services, events services, environmental services, executive office, business supplies and equipment and security and investigations. Education refers to primary, secondary and higher education, education management, e-learning and research.

Besides software engineers, business management roles also have a high share in jobs hired for. These range from business analyst to business development manager positions across multiple industries. In addition to the leading industries in India, employers for business managers range from consumer goods, media, healthcare, recreation and travel to logistics and retail industries.

Another interesting trend is the rising share of data related jobs, for example, we notice the position of data analyst gaining prominence in legal and healthcare industries.

2. Top skills in-demand

Examining the most frequently observed skills associated with jobs and professionals in the leading sectors provides an indication of professional proficiencies that are relevant to today’s job market.

The top three soft skills appearing across all these diverse industries are management, team management and leadership. These also featured as the top soft skills during the first half of 2018. Moreover, these are the soft skills in which India is a leading exporter to other countries. Besides, customer service and project management are other frequently observed soft skills amongst Indian professionals.

The top tech skills observed amongst professionals in India are SQL, Java and programming language C across software & IT and finance and autoCAD across manufacturing, construction, energy & mining, and design industries.

India remains a leading exporter of tech skills in IT & services and computer software industries, most notably SQL, C, Java, C++, html and javascript.

3. Top destinations attracting talent

The top five cities which are proving to be hubs for talent moving within India are New Delhi (NCR inclusive of Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida), Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai. About half of the professionals who switch cities within India move to these destinations. The next five cities that talent is moving to are Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Vadodara, and Jaipur.

Almost 1 out of every 3 emigrants from India moving outside take up a position in the US. Other common destinations are UAE, Canada, UK and Australia. Together, these top 5 destinations account for almost 70% of migrants from India.

Germany, followed by US, UK, Australia and Canada have the highest in-demand migration, i.e. percentage share of emigrants from India taking up jobs that have the highest volume of hiring in destination countries. Interestingly, 1 of every 5 Indians migrating to Germany is taking up an in-demand job such as software engineer, project manager, or research assistant. The US and the UK are also countries in which a high share of emigrants from India are taking up similar in-demand jobs as software engineers and project managers.

Germany was the largest in-demand corridor^[4] in H2 2018 whereas it was Australiain H1 2018.