India is fast emerging as a key semiconductor talent hub, but industry leaders warn that a widening skills gap could undermine the country’s ambitions even as government and private sector investments accelerate.

According to Quess Corp, India has one of the largest semiconductor talent pools globally, with over 250,000 professionals across design, verification, embedded systems, EDA tools and ATMP. This makes it the second-largest semiconductor talent hub after the US, supported by over 55 semiconductor GCCs, 95 sites and 60,000 engineers.

The sector is scaling quickly, with 43,000 new semiconductor job postings recorded in 2024–25 alone. By 2030, the country’s semiconductor workforce is projected to expand by over 120 per cent to nearly 400,000 professionals.

Alongside, the government’s plan to fast-track India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0 with a proposed $20 billion allocation for fabs, ATMP units and design incubation will accelerate demand for skilled professionals across the entire value chain.

Yet, a talent crunch looms. Omprakash Subbarao, CEO at IISc’s FSID CORE Labs, shared that by 2027, there will be an estimated shortage of 2,50,000 to 3,50,000 qualified professionals in fields, including sophisticated packaging, design, manufacturing and R&D.

“The Indian government has already established a model to develop a pool of 2,75,000 chip designers by 2032. This is part of a larger plan to create 1.2 million semiconductor experts over the same time frame. While these efforts are commendable, the pace of skill development must accelerate to keep up with the rapidly evolving semiconductor industry. Collaboration between educational institutions, industry stakeholders and government bodies is essential to create a sustainable pipeline of skilled professionals,” he said.

Among the various subsectors, talent demand will remain the strongest in design and verification, Kapil Joshi, CEO – IT Staffing, Quess Corp, noted. Certain roles are seeing sharp growth — ASIC verification engineers are expanding at 24 per cent, with 3,600 professionals available against a need for 4,300, while FPGA design engineers are growing at 20 per cent, with 2,100 available versus a requirement of 2,500. Chip designers, RTL engineers and physical design engineers are also in high demand, each growing between 16 and 18 per cent.

Subbarao echoed this, adding that chip design is a stronghold, with India contributing around 20 per cent of the global semiconductor design talent. This includes expertise in areas like VLSI, embedded systems, analog design and the integration of AI and ML into chip design. The demand for skilled professionals in design roles continues to grow, especially for roles requiring knowledge of EDA tools, process engineering, yield analysis and cybersecurity in embedded systems.

With new fabs and OSAT/ATP units coming up, demand is also rising for engineers skilled in wafer fabrication, process engineering, quality control, advanced packaging and equipment operation and maintenance.

Hareesh Chandrasekar, CEO & Co-founder, AGNIT Semiconductors, noted significant talent shortages in packaging design and reliability engineering.

“Assembly and testing jobs can be taught fairly quickly, but packaging needs years of hands-on work with materials, heat management and advanced designs. Reliability engineering is even more challenging because it requires expertise in finding the causes of failures, running long-term durability tests and ensuring products meet global standards. These skills are still limited in India today. Test automation for RF and GaN devices is another growing gap,” he said.

To bridge these gaps, AGNIT has launched a 90–120-day role-specific upskilling program with IISc, Bengaluru to transform talent from adjacent fields like materials science, chemical engineering and electronics into specialists in GaN and OSAT through classroom learning, lab work and on-the-job rotations.

Startups like Indiesemic face similar hurdles. Nikul Shah, the co-founder of the semiconductor design company, shared that it currently employs over 30 professionals across design, engineering, testing and support.

“Sourcing experienced packaging and reliability engineers has been difficult, leading us to invest in extensive on-the-job training for early-career hires. Tool-specific expertise is limited; each new piece of equipment requires vendor-led training that can take weeks. Retaining mid-level engineers is a challenge because global hubs offer higher salaries, which makes career growth pathways and project ownership critical for retention. Finally, local supplier ecosystems are still developing, which sometimes delays projects,” he commented.

To overcome these, the company is focused on structured training, partnerships with ISM and regional institutes and close collaborations with tool vendors. While efforts have allowed the company to build capacity, deep specialisation remains its long-term priority.

AGNIT today is a 22-member team of engineers and scientists spanning GaN materials, device fabrication, RF subsystem integration and reliability. Over the next 12 months, the company plans to add 12–14 specialised roles across RF design, device engineering, reliability and fabrication nearly doubling its OSAT capabilities and accelerating the move towards pilot production.

One major draw for talent is compensation, with semiconductor roles offering far higher pay than adjacent IT fields. Quess’ The Chip Catalyst: India’s Emerging Semiconductor Ecosystem report shows SoC architects, senior design engineers and analog IC designers earn ₹50–85 lakh annually, well above most engineering domains. In comparison, AI/ML engineers earn ₹35–45 lakh, cloud engineers ₹25–35 lakh, and full-stack developers ₹18–28 lakh at similar mid-senior levels. This translates to a 30–70 per cent premium for semiconductor specialists, particularly those in leadership-ready roles.

Published on September 14, 2025