India’s engineering talent market is witnessing a growing mismatch between the availability of candidates and the demand for hiring, with the gap being most pronounced at the entry level.
According to an analysis by the Engineers’ Day 2026 Foundation, professionals with zero to three years of experience make up nearly 45 percent of the active pool of engineering candidates, but account for only 28 percent of job openings.
The supply and demand equation changes significantly with experience. There are 9.5 candidates for each engineering position at the zero to three years level, compared with about four to five candidates for each position across all cohorts with more than three years of experience.
Engineers with four to ten years of experience hold 54 percent of engineering positions, despite making up about 42 percent of the active candidate pool.
Overall, it is estimated that there are 39.59 lakh active candidates for engineering positions as of August 2026 against 6.68 lakh vacancies requiring engineering background, which translates into 5.9 lakh candidates for each position.
However, the combined ratio varies significantly depending on the engineering stream, from approximately 1.2 candidates for positions in automotive/automotive engineering to 11.5 in electronics and instrumentation engineering.
“Today, an engineering career is no longer defined by a single sector or traditional career path. As demand expands across technology, manufacturing, infrastructure, automotive, electronics and energy, engineers have more choices to build their careers. The opportunity is to continue to evolve with the direction industries are moving and apply their engineering fundamentals to new areas of demand,” said Tarun Sharma, CPTO, Founder.
Candidate availability is highest early in an engineering career and declines significantly after three years of experience.
While engineers with zero to three years of experience make up the largest pool of candidates, the applicant-to-position ratio drops by more than half compared to the over 15-year cohort, from 9.5 to 4.1.
The four- to 10-year segment captures the majority of engineering demand, accounting for 54 percent of jobs.
Technology remains the largest field for engineers, but most engineering opportunities now lie outside of it.
IT, software and services, and global capability centers (GCCs) account for 33 percent of engineering jobs, with the remaining 67 percent spanning other industries.
Manufacturing and industrial companies are the second largest vertical, accounting for 15 percent of opportunities, followed by construction, engineering and real estate at 13 percent.
Electronics and semiconductors, automobiles and electric vehicles, and power and renewables together account for another 26 percent of opportunities.
The overall availability of 5.9 candidates for engineering positions also varies dramatically depending on the specialization.
Automotive/Automotive Engineering has only 1.2 candidates per job opening, followed by Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering with 1.4 and Chemical Engineering with 2.9.
Computer Science/IT, despite being the largest individual engineering pool, is close to the market average with 5.8 candidates per job.
On the other hand, Electronics and Communications/Telecommunications and Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering have 10.9 and 11.5 candidates for each vacancy respectively.
Bengaluru remains India’s largest hiring center for individual engineers, accounting for 19 percent of vacancies, or 1.27 million jobs.
This is followed by Delhi-NCR with a share of 13 percent, Hyderabad with 12 percent, Pune with 10 percent, Chennai with 9 percent and Mumbai with 8 percent.