SynopsisMost lateral moves are not crossing industry lines at all. Talent is staying close to familiar sectors and moving mainly for better roles and wider ownership, with GCCs increasingly pulling in delivery-ready digital talent from IT services and enterprise technology functions.ETtechThe hottest hires in quarter one FY27 in GCCs are not new hires. Data scientists, data engineers, cloud engineers, and AI/ML engineers are laterally moving into next generation roles – model operations, applied AI, platform engineering, and AI agent development.Bengaluru leads as the epicenter of the shift, with Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, and NCR close behind.Most lateral moves are not crossing industry lines at all. Talent is staying close to familiar sectors and moving mainly for better roles and wider ownership, with GCCs increasingly pulling in delivery-ready digital talent from IT services and enterprise technology functions.ETtech
The pace of AI adoption is outstripping traditional reskilling efforts. Skill gaps are widest in production AI roles, where professionals in areas such as Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) and AI evaluation still need to bridge 50-70% of the required capabilities to be next-generation ready.Professionals with 4-12 years of experience saw the highest demand in Q1FY27, making up around 56% of hiring demand, compared with 54% in the previous quarter. ETtech
