India’s technology sector is undergoing a major transformation as artificial intelligence reshapes traditional roles, reduces demand for repetitive work and raises the bar for employability.
While traditional IT services companies continue to navigate cautious hiring, restructuring and workforce adjustments, Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are emerging as an increasingly important source of technology jobs.
GCCs—specialised offshore units of multinational companies—have evolved well beyond their traditional back-office functions. According to a recent PwC report, they are increasingly involved in advanced analytics, product engineering, cybersecurity, AI research and development, enterprise transformation and even global profit-and-loss responsibilities.
The shift raises an important question: Can GCCs absorb talent across experience levels that is no longer finding enough opportunities in traditional IT services? And what skills and salaries are commanding a premium?
GCCs emerge as a major source of tech jobs
Industry experts increasingly view GCCs as an important engine for new technology employment.
“GCCs are clearly becoming a bigger engine of net new tech jobs than the IT services companies. In FY26, GCCs added around 2,00,000 net employees, compared with roughly 110,000 in IT services,” said Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital.
Data from staffing firm Xpheno also shows that GCCs have overtaken traditional IT services companies in net annual headcount additions over the past three financial years.
GCCs’ share of India’s overall technology-sector workforce has edged up from 24% to 25% during the period.
Hiring demand has remained relatively stable in 2026. Xpheno estimates that active GCC openings, based on vacancies posted within the previous four weeks, stood at around 17,000 in August, down from 18,000 in July.
The number of active openings has remained between 17,000 and 18,000 over the past four months, following a peak of around 19,000 in March.
“GCCs and traditional IT services firms are responding to the same macro forces, but arriving at very different talent strategies,” said Anuradha Mohanty, Associate Partner, Human Capital Solutions, India, at Aon.
One of the clearest differences is compensation. According to Aon’s latest Salary Increase Survey, projected salary increases for GCC employees stand at about 9.3% in 2026, compared with 6.6% for technology consulting and services companies.
“Compensation is often the most powerful indicator of employer confidence,” Mohanty said, adding that higher pay indicates where companies see future value creation and are prepared to invest for growth.
AI, cloud and cybersecurity skills command demand
The biggest opportunities are increasingly concentrated around emerging technologies.
The PwC report says GCCs are looking for professionals who can develop AI models, build the data infrastructure required to support them, manage associated risks, secure AI deployments and turn AI capabilities into products and platforms that generate measurable business outcomes.
TeamLease Digital’s Sharma identifies AI and generative AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity, data, automation, product engineering and AI deployment among the areas witnessing the strongest demand.
India currently has around 4.2 lakh AI professionals against estimated demand of 6-6.5 lakh, according to Sharma. That demand could rise to approximately 13 lakh professionals by 2027.
“The people who may struggle are those whose skills are heavily dependent on legacy technologies or repetitive, standardised work,” she said.
The opportunity, she added, is increasingly shifting towards professionals who can combine technology expertise with AI capabilities, business understanding and problem-solving skills.
Sharma expects GCCs to add around 4-6 lakh professionals over the next two to three years if current hiring trends continue.
GCCs paying a premium for freshers and specialised talent
Hiring is also showing signs of recovery at the entry level.
Sharma said GCCs have hired around 1.3 lakh candidates at the entry level, compared with approximately 85,000 last year.
Fresh graduates can also command a salary premium. GCCs are offering packages of around Rs 5.5 lakh CTC compared with approximately Rs 4.5 lakh at traditional IT services companies, representing a premium of roughly 20-30% for certain skills.
But the larger change is not simply the number of jobs being created—it is the nature of the roles.
GCCs are increasingly seeking specialised professionals who can own products, develop AI capabilities and collaborate directly with global business teams.
At the mid-career level, demand is particularly strong for professionals who combine technical expertise with business and domain knowledge.
At senior levels, hiring is concentrated around architects, AI leaders, product leaders and specialists in cybersecurity and cloud technologies.
Engineering and IT dominate GCC hiring
According to Xpheno, engineering and IT roles account for nearly 55% of current active GCC openings.
Finance and accounting positions account for around 12%, while operations and programme management represent approximately 9%.
Together, these three functions account for roughly three-fourths of active GCC hiring demand.
“With the entry of mainstream AI enablement of operations, all enterprise functions and talent that don’t invest in visible AI upskilling and AI-driven transformation will find themselves left behind in the race,” said Xpheno co-founder Kamal Karanth.
Can GCCs absorb displaced IT talent?
GCCs are already attracting experienced professionals from traditional IT services companies. Lateral movement from IT services firms into GCCs currently stands at around 23%.
However, experts caution against assuming that every professional leaving a traditional IT services company will automatically find a job at a GCC.
“There is certainly absorption happening, particularly at the mid-career and senior levels where expertise, leadership, and domain knowledge are in high demand,” said Aon’s Mohanty.
But she added that the decline in traditional IT services hiring is no longer automatically translating into equivalent growth in GCC hiring.
Historically, there was a relatively direct flow of talent between the two segments. Professionals leaving IT services could move into GCCs, and the reverse was also common.
“That relationship has weakened considerably. The talent being released from one segment is not always aligned with the capabilities being sought by the other,” Mohanty said.
Who stands the best chance of getting hired?
The mid-career segment appears to offer the greatest opportunity in terms of scale.
Karanth said GCCs need this layer to build and expand their capabilities. However, senior professionals also remain in demand, particularly those with specialised expertise.
“Senior IT professionals are in demand at GCCs, but specialisations become the filter,” he said. Because these are specialised positions, they are unlikely to generate hiring volumes large enough to compensate for the broader slowdown in traditional IT services employment.
GCC hiring demand reportedly increased to around 12-14% in the March quarter from 4-6% in December. GCCs now account for nearly 27% of India’s IT hiring demand, up from about 15% in 2024.
Professionals with four to 10 years of experience are emerging as the core talent pool.
GCCs are also rebuilding campus hiring pipelines, with fresher recruitment rising about 12% in FY27 so far. This contrasts with traditional IT services companies, where fresher hiring declined by around 11% in FY26.
GCC growth faces geopolitical risks
The expansion of GCCs is not without risks.
Karanth pointed to the heavy concentration of US-headquartered GCCs in India as a factor that could influence future growth.
“Any projection on GCC hiring should factor in the current events in the US and the pace at which other geographies are catching up on the GCC count and composition,” he said.
Under the current environment, Karanth estimates that Indian GCCs could potentially absorb between 1.5 lakh and 2 lakh professionals annually over the next two to three years.
Crossing the 2 lakh mark every year, however, would require more favourable geopolitical and economic conditions, stronger greenfield GCC investments and significant expansion of existing centres, he said.
The biggest challenge: finding the right talent
Despite rising demand, GCCs face a fundamental constraint: a shortage of professionals with the right combination of skills.
According to PwC, the biggest challenge facing GCCs is the lack of professionals who combine deep domain expertise with advanced technology capabilities.
This is followed by intense competition from other GCCs, traditional IT services companies and startups competing for the same limited talent pool. A shortage of senior leaders with strategic capabilities suited to the AI era is another major concern.
“The hybrid, senior, AI-fluent talent with domain expertise that India’s GCC ecosystem needs most is hardest to find, most expensive to acquire, and most fiercely competed for across the market,” the PwC report said.
The challenge is therefore not simply about creating jobs. It is about ensuring that the workforce has the skills required to fill them.
IT services still dominate by sheer scale
Despite the rapid rise of GCCs, traditional IT services companies remain much larger employers and continue to dominate India’s technology workforce.
According to Xpheno, the IT services cohort added more than 9.7 lakh net employees over the past five financial years, compared with over 6.5 lakh net additions in the GCC segment.
When replacement hiring linked to attrition is included, gross hiring in IT services approaches 20 lakh during the period. GCC gross hiring, meanwhile, was slightly above 13 lakh.
“The sheer scale of talent action by volume remains highest in the IT services cohort compared to the GCCs cohort,” Karanth said.
IT services companies continue to account for more than 34% of total technology-sector headcount.
GCCs may have emerged as the “dark horses” of India’s technology sector over the past three financial years, Karanth said, but traditional IT services remain the sector’s “sleeping giant.”
The emerging picture is therefore less about GCCs replacing IT services and more about India’s technology employment engine becoming increasingly divided between two very different models: high-volume IT services hiring on one side, and specialised, higher-value GCC hiring on the other.
