Software engineering and business management skills most sought-after in India

India is one of the largest emerging economies in the world, with an estimated GDP growth rate of 7.3% in 2018-19. Boasting of one of the youngest workforces in the world, it is at the brink of transformation and immense growth. As we reach this inflection point, it is important to note that skill development and employment for the future workforce continue to be the key challenges that India faces in its next phase of growth.

This makes it imperative for professionals and employers to be empowered with the right actionable insights to help navigate their careers. Through LinkedIn’s Economic Graph – our digital mapping of the global economy with granular and real-time data – we generate insights that we hope will foster a responsive skill development ecosystem in India. In this bi-annual report, we look at aggregated data from India’s 55+ million members on LinkedIn, and we study trends in job movement, skills in-demand, industries gaining talent, attractive cities for job-seekers, and migration trends outside India.

The India workforce report helps us spot several trends; while some trends are seasonal, others have stayed consistent across 2018, and are solid indicators of where India is heading this year.   For instance, software engineers continue to be in-demand across industries all through 2018, as seen in H1 and H2 editions of the report. It also revealed that while tech skills were seen to be in-demand in India’s principal industries, a variety of management jobs were the most sought-after in some of the fastest-growing industries such as Finance, Wellness & Fitness, and Real Estate. Outside India too, these were some of the most coveted skills, as job roles of Software Engineer and Project Manager were amongst the Top 3 jobs in Germany, UK, Australia, and Canada.  

We want these insights to be a guide about jobs to aspire for, skills to acquire, and destinations in India and outside India to consider to keep pace with the changing jobs marketplace.

Here are a few key trends in the second half of the year 2018:

• Top Jobs Hired for | Across India’s leading industries, most notably software and IT services, manufacturing and finance, Software Engineer is the top position being hired for in terms of volume of hiring. Business Management jobs ranging from analysts to managers are in-demand in industries varying from corporate services, consumer goods, retail, and media to healthcare, recreation, travel, and logistics.

• Top Skills In-Demand | Soft skills such as Management, Team Management and Leadership are in-demand across manufacturing, finance, corporate services, education, wellness, real estate and entertainment industries. Tech skills such as SQL, Java and C are in-demand in the software and IT services industry. These skills are in-demand outside India as well – India continues to be an exporter of these soft and tech skills.

• Top Destinations - Outside India | About 70% of migrants who move out from India observed on the platform take up a job in the US, UAE, Canada, UK and Australia. The U.S. is the most preferred destination – with 1 in every 3 migrants taking up a position there. Germany had the highest in-demand migration, with highest share of professional migrating from India taking up an in-demand job there, such as software engineer, project manager and research assistant.

• Top Destinations - Within India | Within India, about half of the professionals who switch cities for jobs move to metro cities such as New Delhi (NCR inclusive of Noida and Gurgaon), Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai. The next 5 cities attracting talent are Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Vadodara and Jaipur.

The full national report is available here, which includes city-level insights for 10 cities:  New Delhi (NCR inclusive of Noida and Gurgaon), Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Vadodara and Jaipur.

Whether you’re an employer, a fresh graduate, or a policymaker, we hope our insights will help you better understand and navigate today’s job market.