India needs 30 million digitally skilled pros by 2026, says TeamLease

India will need 30 million digitally skilled professionals by 2026, according to a report by staffing firm Teamlease published on Thursday. The report further said that at least 50% of the current workforce should re-skill themselves digital technologies, including, artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics, internet of things (IoT) and cloud computing to bridge the digital skills gap.

According to the report titled: ‘Skills Strategies for a Strong, Sustainable and Balanced World of Work’ also said that over 2 million jobs in artificial intelligence (AI), cyber-security and blockchain are expected to remain unfilled in 2023. Additionally, the workplace is evolving so rapidly that 76% of the global workforce is not equipped with the requisite skills to function in the new digitally focused workplaces. 

“Today India has about 500 million people of working age and despite that we continue to face a skill crisis. Industry data suggests that only 49% of total youth (age group of 22-25 years) in the country is employable,” Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder and executive director, TeamLease Services and CEO of TeamLease Digital, said. 

She added that the TeamLease survey has indicated that 75% of companies face skill gap in the industry. “Even among people, who can stay in their current jobs, 40% of fundamental abilities are likely to change and thus re-aligning the skill strategy will be crucial for companies,” she said. 

Not just the Teamlease report that highlights this trend, another report published by Nasscom-Zinnov, published in February last year, also said that India is projected to face a shortage of nearly 1.9 million tech professionals by 2026. This translates to over 21% tech talent gap (as a percentage of supply), which is the lowest globally amongst all the leading economies. 

When it comes to the digital skills, the country in 2021 had 1.3 million digitally skilled professionals and faces a shortage of 0.5 million such professionals. By 2026, this could turn to a shortage of 1.9 million. The report also noted that the demand for the digital skills is expected to increase 3x by 2026 to nearly 1.8 million. 

In November 2022, US-based digital infrastructure company, Equinix, published a report in which it stated that 74% of IT decision-makers in India view shortage of personnel with IT skills as one of the main threats to their business. “In India, there is a prominent tech skill gap for IT technicians (38%), followed by professionals with data protection skills (33%) and security software developer (30%),” the report said. 

The report also showed recruiting talent continues to be a challenge as companies are struggling to reskill human capital from other industries, with 86% of Indian IT leaders said they reskill workers from similar industries, while 50% are trying to bolster their workforce with recruits from unrelated sectors.  

The World Economic Forum in January 2021 stated that investment in upskilling could potentially boost India's economy by $570 billion by adding 2.3 million jobs by 2030. Both the Equinix and Teamlease report, also said in their respective reports that adequate training and comprehensive skill programs based on real-life practices will be the future of skilling.