The Global Capability Centres (GCCs) sector is expected to see an 11 per cent increase in jobs, taking the total workforce count to 2.4 million by 2026 and 3.46 million by 2030, said a NLB Services report
According to the report, the GCC sector in India is expected to generate 1.3 million new jobs over the next four years. “India is at a critical intersection in its GCC 4.0 journey, building a unique and unmatched synergy of scale, skill and talent. Today, GCCs are no longer just exploring AI – rather, many have or are moving towards deployment. While AI thrust in this sector was expected, this year has seen a stronger drive for implementation,” NLB Services CEO Sachin Alug said.
The report is based on a study of 321 GCC leaders across 6 Indian cities and 10 sectors. It further added that as AI becomes mainstream, entirely new roles are emerging across GCCs, including Cybersecurity and AI Governance Architects, Prompt Engineers, GenAI Product Owners, and AI Policy and risk strategists.
Legacy role to see degrowth
The report said that at the same time, legacy roles such as those of L1 IT Support, Legacy Application Development, Manual QA, and On-Prem Infrastructure Management are being phased out as GCCs modernise towards AI-native, product-oriented teams, added the report.
Moving beyond metros
Furthermore, the report suggests that India’s GCC penetration is undergoing a major geographic shift, with tier II and III gaining prominence. The GCCs are moving away from metro cities to smaller cities to capitalise on the proposition of 10-12 per cent lower attrition rates, 30-50 per cent lower office costs, and 20-35 per cent talent cost advantages, said the report.
“By 2030, nearly 39 per cent of the GCC workforce will operate from tier II and III cities, enabling our shift from metro-focused to a more distributed workforce model. While tier I cities will continue to serve as centres for leadership, governance, and R&D, emerging tier II and III hubs such as Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, and Bhubaneswar are rapidly becoming specialised delivery centres. The new synergy across tier II/III cities will create 0.715 million net new GCC jobs by 2030,” NLB Services SVP and APAC Head Varun Sachdeva added.