The Future Of Engineering Students In India
It is important for engineers to know what the future of an industry looks like. The IT engineers (software, hardware and networking engineers) have contributed a great deal to the Indian economy.
Indirectly or directly, the IT sector adds about:
• 10% of the gross domestic product.
• This means 25% of exports and employing over 13 million people.
• 60% of this contribution comes from smaller IT companies.
• 35% of the work force comprises of women, making it one of the most diverse sectors in India.
• Today, India is the world’s greatest global sourcing destination with about 3.7 million direct employees who work in the IT-ITES industry.
While everything looked hunky-dory, automation along with several other challenges took over in the recent 2-3 years.
A research survey by TCS stated that in the near future, AI is bound to becoming an essential component in the IT industry, taking over operations in several IT companies. Full stack developers are also in great demand owing to the thinning of resources being hired.
What contribution India can make to the global talent pool of new technologies is yet to be seen. This has created a new wave of the big IT Indian players who are looking for new methods to adopt changes while also looking to see how business models need to be revamped to accommodate these changes.
The Amending Trends
The nature of work has been cheaply available, mundane and adaptable with working in foreign markets that have helped IT giants in hiring engineers in large numbers year after year. But changing times has seen a change in these very parameters. AI, automation, changing technologies, merging of roles and protectionist policies are forcing IT companies to rethink their policies of hiring.
The narrowing profit margins have gotten IT companies to revamp their business models, take over companies in order to make their core offerings diverse to suit the changing demands, and are gradually adopting newer technologies, AI etc.
to make internal processes more efficient. The hiring numbers have thus fallen. HfS’s research states that by the year 2021, India could lose 6.4 lakh low skilled posts in IT and ITES companies. There have been several reports of how IT giants like Wipro, Tech Mahindra, HCL have let go of their workforce because of adopting AI, hiring full stack engineers and revamped technologies.
What Engineers Can do
The above changing situation leaves engineers with no choice but to reskill, up skill or cross skill. Like everything else, this change to comes with establishing fresh parameters of looking for exciting opportunities. The demand for new technical skills like cloud computing, full stack development, big data, machine learning etc is taking over the IT world.
A large number of IT services and consulting companies are starting up. As per Gartner’s yearly global survey, it was found that the average IT budget in India is set to grow to 10.7% in the year 2017. This means, despite layoffs, the industry is still seeing growth. The high rates of attrition in the IT industry are attributed to the unresponsiveness of the academia to the change in demanded skill set.
India remains the world’s largest global sourcing destination with nearly 56% share. The hiring is still going to be high but for a whole new set of skills, this is why engineers have got to train and get hands on experience in demanded technologies. India has always been a disruptor when it comes to software building and delivering.
With increased foreign investment and government stressing on the need to go digital, the future for engineers sure looks promising, but only for those who have paid attention and have gone through upskilling training. A report by NASSCOM mentions that $100 billion worth revenue would still need 1.2 to 2 million professionals over the next few years.
A lot of this would depend on how the engineers would be able to access a higher quality of IT education while the industry also looks at newer methods of hiring. IIHT is one such institute bridging the gaping gap between IT education and industry demands. Get in touch to know how you can upskill!
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