India to add 1.4 mn jobs in Big Data, IoT & cybersecurity by 2027: Cisco

Driven by demand for a skilled workforce in emerging technologies such as cybersecurity, Internet of things (IoT) and Big Data, India will generate over 1.4 million new IT jobs by 2027, a Cisco-led study said on Thursday.

This represents a whopping 46 per cent growth in jobs primarily driven by essential digital transformation skills that organisations are seeking today, said the global networking giant Cisco who commissioned International Data Corporation (IDC) to conduct this study.

According to the findings, jobs like social media administrator, Machine Learning (ML) designer and IoT designer are among the most in-demand job roles in the country in the coming years.

“Nearly 89 per cent of hiring managers reported a higher level of trust on candidates having certifications, while 88 per cent of customers experienced an improvement in the level of service and support to end users,” showed the study.

“Witnessing the growing importance in a rapidly changing technological landscape, nearly a fifth of employees self-funded their certification courses while about 50 per cent of them underwent some training in 2017,” it added.

According to the study, as skill sets required in this digital age change for most industries, it’s also transforming how and where people work.

As a result, IT organisations might find it difficult to fill these niche roles which calls for upskilling the employee skill sets through certification programmes.

“Cisco, being a leader in certification courses, offers some of the most sought-after IT courses which were one of the pre-requisites for the 5.9 million new job postings in 2017,” according to the IDC “InfoBrief” study.

A Nasscom report in July highlighted the fact that nearly 1,40,000 jobs are vacant in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics segment across various sectors in the country, out of the total demand of 5,10,000 employees.

Of the total demand, 3,70,000 jobs are filled, it said. By 2021, the employee deficit would increase to 2,30,000, as the total demand goes up to around 800,000 employees, as per the report.