Bengaluru Leads GCC Hiring As Firms Reskill Techies For AI Roles, Quess Report Shows
Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in Bengaluru are increasingly reskilling their existing technology professionals into specialized AI and digital roles rather than relying solely on external hiring, according to a Q1 FY27 report released by staffing solutions firm Quess Corp on July 15, 2026. The study highlighted that while Bengaluru remains the country's largest GCC tech hub by hiring share, firms are shifting toward "ready-to-deploy" talent to address a significant supply-demand gap in emerging technologies.
The report, titled "India GCC Tech Talent Landscape – Q1 FY27 Report," revealed that tech professionals are transitioning into highly specialized roles. Backend developers are moving into applied AI engineering, data scientists are transitioning into machine learning and model operations, and DevOps engineers are being reskilled into DevSecOps roles. Other transitions include QA automation engineers moving to autonomous QA, and cybersecurity analysts moving to cloud security.
According to the report, experienced professionals are in high demand, with those having four to twelve years of experience accounting for 56% of the total hiring demand in Q1 FY27. Overall hiring in GCCs remained steady, growing by 5% to 6% quarter-on-quarter, with demand concentrated in AI, data and analytics, platform engineering, cloud, and cybersecurity.
Despite the steady growth, a significant supply-demand gap of 36% to 40% was recorded in the AI, data, and analytics sectors. To counter this, companies are focusing on role-adjacent training. Kapil Joshi, CEO of Quess IT Staffing, stated that GCCs are investing in reskilling existing engineering talent into AI, cloud, and platform specialists rather than competing for a limited pool of external talent.
While Bengaluru held the largest share of hiring, the report noted that Hyderabad is growing at a faster rate due to demand in cloud, data engineering, and fintech infrastructure. Additionally, tier-2 cities increased their share of hiring demand to between 11% and 13%.
The report also found that smaller GCCs with fewer than 500 employees recorded the fastest hiring growth at 8% quarter-on-quarter. Meanwhile, mid-sized organizations with 1,000 to 5,000 employees accounted for 40% of the total hiring demand. By sector, manufacturing and industrial remained the largest hiring segment with a 25.1% share, followed by BFSI at 20.9%, and professional services and consulting at 10.3%. Telecom and networks was the only sector that experienced a contraction during the quarter.
