IT sector will add 250,000 new jobs in 2019, say TeamLease projections

Other than IT and startup firms, non-tech companies are also expected to absorb significant tech talents

The Indian IT industry is expected to add around 250,000 new jobs in 2019 further contributing to the growth of the sector, according to projections by HR and staffing solutions provider TeamLease Services.

While the ‘Digital India’ initiative has been one of the key contributing factors in the growth of IT, telecom and e-commerce sectors, some other reasons behind this optimism is increasing investments in digitisation and automation as well as improvement in financial services and digital businesses. With so many companies embarking on digital transformations, business-IT hybrid roles will emerge to help organisations fulfill their evolving digital visions, it said.

Furthermore, the demand in the IT sector has been quite positive the second half of 2018. Investment scenarios have become more conducive and more organisations are coming to play in the sector. Another lookout for 2019 is the run up to the launch of 5G services which will also increase the demand of technology professionals.

“The overall job landscape in the IT sector will undergo radical changes over the next few years and certain job roles will continue to see increased demand. Some of the areas wherein positive growth in hiring is expected are computer, mathematical, architecture and engineering related fields,” said Alka Dhingra, General Manager, TeamLease Services.

By 2020, the demand for data analytics in sectors will continue to increase employment opportunities by 25 per cent. Some prominent roles in demand will be computer software developers, information security analysts, machine learning, mobility, cloud engineers, DevOps professionals, network analysts and cyber security experts. “Health-Sciences and FinTech are two industries who are going to hire extensively for data analytics and machine learning”, added Dhingra.

The report also said that the IT sector salary hike in 2019 is expected to grow between 10 per cent to 13 per cent, more or less at the same level as it was in 2018. The highest paid technology areas are going to be big data & analytics, machine learning and AI developers. However, automation, artificial intelligence and robotics are expected to reshape workplace culture and skill requirements. Diversity hiring will also become increasingly important in 2019 and beyond.

According to the report, startups will be strong contributors in generating employment through the year because of their expanded adoption of AI, Robotics, Blockchain and IoT.  Addition of IT jobs will be witnessed across non-technology firms and will contribute to job growth due to the pervasion of digitisation across sectors, she added.

The IT industry is also at the onset of momentous creative influx which is paving the way for increase in demand for product designers and specialised sales representatives required to meet the requirements of the dynamic changes across industries. Lately, with all major IT players investing in design and marketing technology, the likes of Infosys have already indicated a shift towards hiring more from liberal arts and non-engineering backgrounds. Industry reports have also indicated a need for IT players to look beyond core STEM professionals towards other skillsets in order to boost their customer centric product offering.

The projections noted that organisations today prefer candidates with higher learning abilities (especially in the 0-5 year experience slab). Senior level hiring is likely to witness shrinkage in 2019 as mid-level hiring will continue to rise. Investments in IT re-skilling is also likely to increase by around 20 per cent in 2019.

Projected growth in job roles 

25% increase in big data, business intelligence and analytics

23% increase in cloud computing SaaS

18% increase in mobility roles

15% increase in machine learning engineers

12% global content solutions