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As traditional IT industry is facing rough weather because of macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges, the Global Capability Centre (GCC) space turns out to be a battleground for human resources. A sudden spurt in the growth of GCCs has triggered a huge demand for talent, which, in turn, is leading to poaching and GCCs scouting for the right replacement. The cohort of Indian GCCs has considerably increased its headcount year-on-year for the five years. “The active headcount of the cohort has moved from 1.3 million to a projected 1.9 million by end of current fiscal. The net headcount increase of 6,20,000 during this five-year period translates to a 48 per cent growth in headcount,” Kamal Karanth, Co-founder, talent solutions company Xpheno, told businessline. “While creating the 6.20 lakh new jobs, the GCCs’ cohort has also tackled attrition rates in the 12 per cent to 22 per cent range at different points during this period. The attrition linked replacement hiring (backfills) adds up to over 1.2 million for the five-year period,” he said. In all, the Indian GCCs’ cohort has registered a collective gross hiring (backfills+expansion hiring) of over 1.8 million people during this period. Hot GCC job skills in GCCs The engineering and IT function, with over 7.50 lakh headcount, accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the total active workforce of the GCCs in the country. Obviously, this skillset is in hot demand, constituting over 50 per cent of the active openings in the sector. The engineering and IT function is followed by other enterprise functions like business development and sales (11 per cent), consulting (9 per cent), operations and management (8.5 per cent) and finance and accounting (7 per cent). The top five functions collectively account for 73 per cent of the active demand and the remaining 27 per cent are from a long list of functions like HR, quality assurance, customer service, research and marketing. The overall sluggish hiring activity in the IT services sector, has caused a cooling down of the talent war for over six quarters now. “The lowered competition for talent, has caused a 30% - 40% moderation of the premium value paid by GCCs,” he said. For example, certain mid-senior level tech roles where 16 per cent to 20 per cent premium pay were in play, have moderated to 10 per cent to 12 per cent premium. However, high premiums remain in play for high niche and leadership roles. Santhosh Rao, Partner and Executive Director at IBM Consulting who also leads IBM’s GCC Business Unit for India and South Asia, recently said that the competition for talent was a challenge. He said that GCCs were thinking beyond the rigid experience requirements. Stating that the company worked on a “step ladder” career path and a synergy of technology and industry domain training to build its talent pool. Data science, AI and cybersecurity are rapidly evolving skills in the GCC sector. A crucial skill is the ability to cleanse data to be AI-ready. Consultancy firm EY said that new roles are emerging in the AI space. In its latest report, “The Evolution of GCCs in the AI Era”, it noted that job roles such as AI training engineers, context/knowledge engineers, responsible AI engineers, AI/agent manager, AI governance manager and AI risk and compliance manager are beginning to emerge. Published on October 27, 2025
