India’s IT services industry is hiring again, and this time the jobs look different. According to investment advisory firm Vallum Capital, 24 listed IT services companies have added more than 31,000 employees since April this year, twice the total recruitment the industry managed in the entire previous financial year that ended in March 2026. The recovery is real, but it is being driven by artificial intelligence, not by the old model of adding headcount for routine outsourcing work.
The September quarter numbers tell the story. The five largest IT firms together added 13,918 employees on a net basis in the July to September quarter, more than double the 5,480 added in the June quarter. In the first half of this financial year, their combined hiring stood at 24,398, against just 2,689 in the same period a year earlier.
Who is hiring, and how many
HCLTech led the September quarter with a net addition of 6,450 employees, reversing a reduction of 3,292 in the previous quarter. The company also onboarded 6,136 fresh graduates in the quarter, and expects to hire between 10,000 and 11,000 freshers in FY27.
Infosys added 4,480 employees in the quarter, taking its total headcount to 3,32,542 at the end of September. The Bengaluru-based company hired 8,000 college graduates in the quarter alone, and chief executive Salil Parekh reiterated its annual target of hiring 20,000 freshers, saying more than half of that target was already complete in the first half of the year.
TCS added 4,258 employees in the September quarter, its third straight quarter of workforce growth, taking its headcount to 5,98,056. The company onboarded around 10,000 freshers in the quarter, taking its first-half campus hiring to about 24,000. TCS had added 9,279 employees in the June quarter, its highest quarterly increase in four years.
Not every firm is growing. Wipro’s headcount fell by 6,716 in the September quarter to 2,36,328, though the company hired around 1,000 freshers in the first half and plans to step up recruitment in the second half.
AI-first roles now lead new demand
The bigger shift is in what companies are hiring for. Firms are increasingly looking for specialised skills in generative AI, data engineering, cloud and cybersecurity, rather than simply adding capacity for traditional outsourcing work.
“AI-first roles are now a little over 30% of new tech demand. The rest is still the wider engineering and delivery base,” Neeti Sharma, chief executive of TeamLease Digital, told The Financial Express. The newer requirements include Forward Deployed Engineers, who take AI applications from pilot projects to deployment at client locations, agentic AI engineers and professionals specialising in AI governance.
At mid-tier firm R Systems, hiring continues across full-stack and backend development, cloud, DevOps and data engineering, alongside newer requirements such as GenAI and LLM engineers, LLMOps engineers and AI solutions engineers. Data engineers who can build AI-ready pipelines and testing specialists familiar with AI-assisted tools are also seeing increased demand.
Routine work under pressure, core skills still in demand
The shift reflects the changing nature of the contracts IT companies are winning. A significant share of large deals now involves consolidation and modernisation of technology infrastructure, which needs employees who can integrate AI into existing systems and deliver more complex solutions. As a result, routine work in application maintenance, manual testing and L1 and L2 support is facing pressure, even as demand for software development, cybersecurity, cloud and solutioning stays healthy.
That does not mean traditional IT jobs are disappearing. “A tester or support engineer hired today is expected to use AI tools every day, so the job title stays the same while the work changes underneath it,” Raj Goodman Anand, founder of consulting firm AI-First Mindset, told The Financial Express. Pure AI specialist roles account for around 10 to 15% of new hires, he added, with the bulk of recruitment still happening across conventional services functions.
The skills shortage is the real bottleneck
The challenge for the industry is the shortage of people with advanced AI skills. Randstad Digital found that around 11% of machine learning and AI engineering positions, including roles involving AI integration, deployment and governance, remained vacant in the Indian job market. Companies will therefore have to balance hiring specialists from outside with retraining their existing workforce, said Milind Shah, managing director of Randstad Digital India.
For job seekers, the message is clear. A degree alone is no longer enough. Recruiters want candidates who can work with AI tools, build data pipelines, deploy models and solve client problems on the ground. Fresh graduates who pick up these skills early, through certifications, projects or internships, will find the door open wider than it has been in two years.
The IT hiring recovery is still selective, and it is still early. But after two years of freezes, layoff fears and AI anxiety, the numbers from the September quarter show an industry that is hiring again, on new terms.
FAQs
How many employees did Indian IT firms add since April 2026?
According to Vallum Capital, 24 listed IT services companies added more than 31,000 employees since April 2026, twice the industry’s total recruitment in the previous financial year.
Which IT company hired the most in the September quarter?
HCLTech led with a net addition of 6,450 employees in the July to September quarter, followed by Tech Mahindra with 5,446, Infosys with 4,480 and TCS with 4,258.
How many freshers did Infosys hire in Q2 FY27?
Infosys hired 8,000 college graduates in the September quarter and has kept its full-year target of hiring 20,000 freshers in FY27.
What share of new tech demand is AI-first roles?
AI-first roles are now a little over 30% of new tech demand, according to TeamLease Digital, while pure AI specialist roles make up around 10 to 15% of new hires.
Are traditional IT jobs disappearing because of AI?
No. Most hiring is still in conventional services, but job roles are changing. Testers, support engineers and developers are now expected to use AI tools daily, and routine work like manual testing and L1 and L2 support is under pressure.
India’s IT hiring story is moving fast. Keep an eye on the December quarter numbers for the next signal on fresher hiring and AI roles.
