India’s GCCs saw AI, data, and cybersecurity hiring reach 30.3% in the July-September quarter of 2026. A Quess Corp report said this demand rose 4.5 percentage points. Companies now face a talent shortage, with gaps in these fields. To bridge this, firms use internal reskilling and move staff into new roles.
Synopsis
India's GCCs are directing a greater share of technology recruitment towards specialists who can deploy AI, manage data and secure enterprise systems, according to the India GCC Tech Talent Landscape - Q2 FY27 Report by staffing and workforce solutions provider Quess Corp.
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Artificial intelligence (AI), data and cybersecurity accounted for 30.3% of technology hiring demand at Global Capability Centres (GCCs) across the country in the July-September quarter of 2026, up 4.5 percentage points from the preceding quarter, a report said on Thursday.
India's GCCs are directing a greater share of technology recruitment towards specialists who can deploy AI, manage data and secure enterprise systems, according to the India GCC Tech Talent Landscape - Q2 FY27 Report by staffing and workforce solutions provider Quess Corp.
Together, AI, data and cybersecurity represented 30.3% of tech hiring demand in July-September 2026, up from 25.8% in the preceding quarter, a gain of 4.5 percentage points.
The report estimates a 38-42% supply gap in AI, data and analytics and a 30-35% gap in cybersecurity and risk management.
Also, it said 87-88% of advanced-skill hiring remained concentrated in tier 1 cities.
The report further identified pathways to address these shortages through transitions from adjacent roles, including data scientists moving into model operations, data engineers into applied AI, and cybersecurity analysts into cloud security.
Structured reskilling and internal career pathways can complement external recruitment as AI requirements deepen across sectors, the report added.
The Quess Corp's report is based on secondary data, job postings on multiple job sites and information available in the public domain.
"India's GCC ecosystem continues to expand, but its growth is also changing the skills companies need. AI, data and cybersecurity accounted for 30.3% of tech hiring demand in the second quarter of FY27, while Coimbatore recorded around 30% quarter-on-quarter growth in GCC tech hiring," Quess Corp CEO - IT Staffing Kapil Joshi said.
Coimbatore stood out with approximately 30% Q-on-Q growth in GCC tech hiring demand, helping drive overall tier II growth of 13%, compared with 8-10% in the first quarter of FY27.
Among tier I cities, Pune was the only market to grow, recording a modest 2% increase, while all other metros saw demand decline.
Hyderabad and Mumbai recorded the steepest declines among metros, at about 10% and 9%, respectively.
However, tier I cities continued to account for approximately 84-86% of total GCC hiring demand, the report added.