Five digital talents, including Gen-AI and data analytics, are in high demand.

Development roles (28%) held the largest percentage of the functional skill sets with the highest intent-to-hire in Q1FY2024.
Expertise in SAP(16%) has continued to be in great demand.

The IT sector has emerged as the leader with the biggest share when it comes to the demand for technical skills across all industries, with a share of 15%.

According to ‘The Skills Report’ by Quess Corp, a business solutions provider, digital skills like generative AI and data analytics are in high demand and this demand will only grow, signaling exciting opportunities for India’s talented workforce. According to the research, technical personnel with expertise in development, systems, applications, and products (SAP), automotive design, testing, and infrastructure support were in high demand during the first quarter of FY24.
sought-after functional suites

It has been shown that only five IT skill suites account for 78% of the total demand. Development roles had the biggest share of functional skill suites with the highest desire to hire in Q1FY2024 (28%). Developers knowledgeable in more than 65 different technology platforms and proficiencies were in high demand. Interesting demand patterns for full stack capabilities were observed in the consulting, automotive, banking, and telecom industries.

The need for SAP knowledge, which accounts for 16% of competence, has consistently remained high and includes both implementation and developmental aspects. The need for these skills, particularly in the consultancy and global capabilities center (GCC) client areas, increased significantly, according to Quess.

Another key ability that is highly sought-after is automotive design, which accounts for 14% of the desired competence. The demand for qualified personnel is currently rising noticeably in both the international and Indian automotive sectors. This increase might be ascribed to the industry’s increasing adoption of digital technology as well as the rising demand for workers skilled in various technological areas.

Additionally, there is a noticeable increase in the need for testing expertise (12%), which is relevant to both manual and automated domains. The high need for expertise in tools like Selenium, TOSCA, Workday, and ServiceNow is particularly evident.

The requirement for IT infrastructure support skills (8%) is consistent across many businesses and includes both Level 1 and Level 2 support tasks. This requirement covers a broad range of more than 30 distinct topics. Alongside these functional skill sets, there is a demand for proficiency in a number of related fields, including data science, DevOps, cloud computing, enterprise resource planning (ERP), cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design, among others.

The requirement for various hiring procedures

According to the report, the sector must investigate ways to improve the availability of a competent workforce through a variety of hiring practices in order to overcome the gap between talent need and supply. The use of Center of Excellence initiatives, which keep a pool of qualified candidates who have already been evaluated, helps speed up the hiring process for employees with traditional technological capabilities.

Companies can undertake hire-train-deploy efforts to enable applicants to improve their abilities and keep current with modern technology in places where there is a lack of technological competence.

Demand for computer skills by industry

The Information Technology (IT) sector (15%) has emerged as the leader when analyzing the distribution of demand for technical skills across various industries. It is closely followed by the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector (15%) and the digital engineering sector (13%).

Positive attitude shifts have also been observed in the telecom and healthcare sectors. The oil and gas industry is under pressure to update its business strategies and decision-making procedures in order to maintain its competitiveness as the world’s attention turns to renewable energy sources.

Companies are embracing digital solutions in response to this problem in order to find new opportunities for income generation, improve production efficiency, and lower operational expenses. Modern tools like data analytics, AI, and the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) are enabling these organizations to optimize complex operations and respond more quickly to changing market conditions, unanticipated interruptions, and other difficulties.

According to CEO of Quess IT Staffing Vijay Sivaram “The IT services business is experiencing a decline in hiring of between 25% and 30% amid macroeconomic headwinds affecting the US and Europe. With GCCs stepping up talent acquisition and predicting a projected workforce strength of 1.4 million, recruiting is set to expand by 10%, this circumstance has, however, created new opportunities.

IT centers have a concentration of tech recruiting

In India, the IT centers in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Haryana saw the majority of the hiring activity. The increase in employment activities in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities has been facilitated by the predominance of remote work policies and the improvement of the data services infrastructure.

Within businesses that provide financial services and e-commerce, this trend is especially obvious. For instance, Quess has placed workers effectively in a number of places, including Jaipur, Coimbatore, Indore, Kochi, Gulmarg, Siliguri, and more.