According to the report, the engineering talent market is facing a growing mismatch between the number of available candidates and employer needs. Specifically, among entry-level applicants, 45% of the pool is present, while only 28% of vacancies require this category.
The talent platform foundit, formerly known as Monster, found that the largest gap between demand and supply of engineering specialists is observed precisely at starting positions. Specialists with 0 to 3 years of experience account for almost 45% of the active candidate pool, but they occupy only 28% of all available vacancies.
This report is based on an analysis of active job postings placed in August, collected from various online platforms, while candidate data was obtained from the foundit database. As of August 2026, there are 3.959 lakh active engineering candidates in the market against 6.68 lakh jobs, meaning there are 5.9 candidates per vacancy.
However, the ratio of candidates to jobs varies significantly depending on the engineering specialty: it is 1.1 candidates per vacancy in automotive/automotive engineering, but reaches 11.5 in electronics and instrumentation.
The report also established that candidate availability is highest at the beginning of an engineer's career and significantly decreases after three years of experience. Although engineers with 0–3 years of experience form the largest group of candidates, the candidate-to-vacancy ratio more than halves for the cohort with 15 or more years of experience, dropping from 9.5 to 4.1.
The segment with 4 to 10 years of experience attracts the majority of demand in the engineering sector, accounting for 54%. Tarun Sharma, CPTO of foundit, noted: 'Modern engineering careers are no longer defined by a single industry or traditional path. As demand expands across technology, manufacturing, infrastructure, automotive, electronics, and energy, engineers have a broader scope to build their careers. The opportunity lies in continuous development alongside industry trends and applying their engineering base in new areas of demand.'
Furthermore, the report revealed that technology remains the largest field for engineers, but most engineering opportunities are now outside this sector. The IT/software and services/GCC sectors account for 33% of engineering jobs, while the remaining 67% are distributed across other industries. Manufacturing/industry is the second largest area at 15%, followed by construction/engineering/real estate at 13%. Electronics/semiconductors, automotive/electric vehicles, and energy/power/renewables together account for another 26% of opportunities.
Geographically, Bengaluru remains the largest center for hiring engineers in India, providing 19% of all opportunities, or 127 thousand jobs. It is followed by Delhi-NCR with 13%, Hyderabad with 12%, Pune with 10%, Chennai with 9%, and Mumbai with 8%. Other Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities collectively provide 29% of engineering opportunities, or 194 thousand jobs, with demand covering sectors such as manufacturing, IT, infrastructure, and industrial engineering.