How AI skills are becoming integral to both fresher and lateral hiring in IT firms

For the Indian IT sector, artificial intelligence and agentic AI are not just bringing a structural shift in the way companies look at their business but also at their own composition within organizations. While the sector is no longer adding headcount at the pace seen in the past, the focus is now on talent that meets new needs.

During Q1FY27, India’s largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services, with nearly 5.9 lakh employees, added 14,000 campus graduates in the quarter.

On the company’s talent roadmap, Sudeep Kunnumal, Chief HR Officer, said that the company was looking at a combination of fresh hires and experienced professionals, with the focus on digital and AI-native talent, especially when it comes to campus hires who can then be put through the training program.

"Our lateral hiring is focused on domain-specific and AI-native talent. Over 50% of the lateral hires already possess next-generation skills and we expect this share to increase as we continue to build talent depth," he said on the earnings call.

Similarly, peer company Infosys, which recruited 20,000 college graduates in FY26, plans to hire a similar number of college graduates this year, with 4,000 already recruited in Q1FY27. On managing the talent supply, CEO & MD of the company Salil Parekh said that today’s college graduates are coming in with a lot more native understanding of the AI landscape and the toolset, and the company trains this talent on Infosys’s Fabric and Topaz, as well as on pre-AI tools, to give them a sense of how software development works.

"We have some recruitment, which is lateral as well. Even there, we need a little bit of reskilling or training but not massive. There is a good understanding. But that, of course, is in short supply. So, we will still rely more heavily on bringing talent in from colleges and training them, which by design is a longer-duration process," he added, alluding to the shortage of AI skills at more advanced levels.

With the industry decoupling its revenue from headcount, companies today are zeroing in on talent with the ability to build AI-native organizations where higher productivity and innovation are at the core. Sachin Alug, CEO, NLB Services, sees the investments across AI, cloud, cybersecurity, data engineering and platform modernization also having a spillover effect on the talent landscape.

"Over the next 12–18 months, we expect nearly 70% of incremental technology hiring to be concentrated in high-value skills such as GenAI engineering, AI/ML, cloud architecture, platform engineering, cybersecurity, data science and AI governance, while demand for traditional maintenance and support roles is likely to remain muted," he said.

With increasing use of AI tools within organizational functions, autonomous operations and outcome-based delivery models, even the roles and functions within organizations are seeing a wave of change. For instance, Tech Mahindra, which delivered a standout Q1FY27, posting market-beating sequential growth of 2.6% (constant currency), saw its IT services headcount decline by nearly 7% year-on-year, from 79,987 in Q1FY26 to 74,689 in Q1FY27.

Mohit Joshi, CEO & MD, Tech Mahindra, during the investor call, said the company’s productivity for fixed-price engagements was below its expectations, and that this was why the company relied on AI for a higher level of productivity, which meant lower headcount.

"At times, that headcount has therefore been repurposed to other engagements, either FP or T&M, and that has meant that we have not had the need to backfill as much as we traditionally would have," Joshi added.

According to global staffing firm Adecco, it is seeing a 12–15% quarter-on-quarter increase in demand for specialized talent across AI, cybersecurity and digital engineering, alongside sustained hiring momentum from GCCs and IT services, which account for 17% of active technology talent demand, and project-based hiring. The firm is also seeing talent demand strengthening across L2 and L3 roles in sectors such as BFSI, healthcare & pharma, manufacturing, IT, IT services, retail & e-commerce, particularly in software engineering, cloud and infrastructure, enterprise platforms including SAP, Oracle Fusion and ServiceNow, cybersecurity and data engineering.

Sanketh Chengappa KG, Director and Business Head, Professional Staffing, Adecco India, said, "As AI adoption and enterprise transformation accelerate, organizations that invest in specialized talent, continuous upskilling and flexible workforce models will be better positioned to sustain productivity and long-term growth."

In fact, even during its latest earnings call, staffing firm Quess Corp, which added 36 new contracts for professional staffing during the quarter, said that it has an open mandate for 1,100 positions primarily in niche and high-value technology roles.

Apart from organic talent demand, given the sector's active acquisition of specialized firms, IT companies are also adding domain-specific talent through such acquisitions. For instance, Bengaluru-based Wipro, which has been struggling with growth compared to peers for years, has seen its headcount go up from 233,232 in Q1FY26 to 243,044 in Q1FY27.

Though in Q1FY27 the company saw an addition of 888 people, the company said that, excluding Mindsprint, the Olam Group’s IT and digital services business that the company acquired earlier in April, the headcount has gone down by 2,500 people.

With the company launching an AI-focused unit and Applied AI Center of Excellence for Claude models recently, on the investor call, Srini Pallia, CEO & MD, Wipro, said, "We have laid the foundation, strengthened the team with specialized AI-native leadership talent and defined our roadmap to establish clear priorities for the next phase of growth."