Technology hiring demand at India’s Global Capability Centres fell 3.5% from the previous quarter in July-September 2026, according to the public summary of Quess’s Q2 FY27 report. Within that smaller pool of demand, specialist skills took a larger share.
PTI’s report, published by ETGCC on 6 November, puts AI, data and cybersecurity at 30.3% of GCC technology hiring demand, up from 25.8% in the preceding quarter. That is an increase of 4.5 percentage points. These composition figures come from PTI’s account of Quess’s report, while the overall decline is stated directly in Quess’s public summary.
A changing mix within a softer market
The two measures answer different questions: how overall recruitment demand changed, and which skills accounted for a greater share of it. A rising specialist share can coexist with a falling total. It does not establish that opportunities increased across every function.
For someone considering a job move, the useful distinction is between the sector’s overall direction and the requirements of a particular opening. Evidence of relevant skills and experience matters more than treating all GCC roles as one market.
What the evidence measures
PTI describes the report as drawing on secondary data, job postings and publicly available information. Those inputs measure demand rather than completed recruitment. They cannot, by themselves, establish how many people joined or left employers, or whether total employment fell.
The full Quess report is offered through a registration form and was not reviewed for this article. The public summary and PTI’s coverage do not expose enough methodological detail to assess the complete sample or how duplicate postings were handled.
This quarter adds a specific data point to the shift towards specialist GCC skills. It supports a selective reading of the hiring market, rather than a claim that GCCs have stopped growing or that weaker hiring demand proves layoffs.
Cover: original AI-generated editorial illustration of skill matching. It does not depict a real workplace or measured vacancies.
Leave your thoughts