India’s active technology job market has reached an 18-month high, but the most important signal in the latest hiring data is not simply the recovery in vacancies. It is the way demand is being distributed: towards experienced workers, full-time office roles and technology employment beyond the country’s largest established hubs.
According to staffing firm Xpheno’s Active Tech Jobs Outlook, active technology openings reached 1.2 lakh in October, rising 5% from September and 17% from a year earlier. The increase extends a four-month recovery from the record low recorded in June. IT services firms were the main driver, with active openings in the segment rising 16% sequentially to 66,000. That was also 57% higher than in October 2025.
The figures describe vacancies that were published or refreshed by employers and accepting applications during the reporting period. They exclude hiring mandates and positions routed through recruitment and staffing agencies. That distinction matters because the data is a measure of visible, active employer demand rather than a complete count of all technology recruitment activity.
Even with that limitation, the direction of the market is clear. The recovery is being led by IT services, while global capability centre technology hiring remained unchanged from September at 18,000 openings. GCC openings were nevertheless 64% higher year-on-year and accounted for about 15% of total active technology demand. The two segments point to different forms of urban economic activity: one is expanding through large-scale services hiring, while the other continues to represent a significant source of specialised corporate demand.
The distribution of vacancies by experience level provides the first important qualification to the recovery story. Mid-senior positions accounted for 68,000 openings, or 55% of total demand. That segment grew 6% month-on-month and 19% year-on-year. Entry-level openings, by contrast, fell 6% sequentially to 15,000, despite remaining 15% above the level recorded a year earlier. Mid-junior openings rose 40% month-on-month to 7,000.
This means the increase in vacancies does not translate evenly across the labour market. A larger market can still be difficult to enter for first-time applicants if the strongest demand is concentrated among workers with prior experience. The October data shows both conditions at once: technology hiring is recovering, but the recovery is tilted towards established skills and mid-career talent.
That pattern has an urban dimension. Technology hubs do not only provide jobs; they also organise demand for offices, transport, housing and supporting services. When openings are concentrated among experienced workers, the immediate effect may be to strengthen competition for specialised talent in locations that already have technology employers, rather than distribute opportunity uniformly across the wider workforce. The supplied data does not establish how many people are relocating or how rents and commuting patterns are changing, but it does show where active demand is accumulating.
The second major shift is the return of office-based work. Full-time work-from-office openings reached 1 lakh in October, accounting for 81% of active technology jobs. Such openings rose 9% month-on-month and 32% year-on-year. At the same time, full-time remote jobs fell 9% sequentially and 23% year-on-year to 10,000. Hybrid openings declined 7% month-on-month and 19% year-on-year to 13,000.
The change is significant because the geography of employment is also the geography of daily urban movement. A work-from-office role is tied to a workplace, and therefore to the capacity of a city to support commuting, office districts and the services used by employees. The data does not identify the buildings, neighbourhoods or transport systems involved, so it cannot support conclusions about vacancy rates, congestion or housing costs. It does, however, show that the active jobs market is becoming more closely connected to physical workplaces rather than remaining distributed through remote or hybrid arrangements.
The office shift is accompanied by a continued dominance of full-time employment. Full-time roles accounted for 93,000 openings, or 76% of total demand, after rising 3% month-on-month and 11% year-on-year. Contract positions increased 33% sequentially to 4,000. Internship and part-time openings also rose 33% to 4,000 and were 95% higher than a year earlier. These smaller categories grew quickly, but they remained a limited share of the overall market.
The composition of functions reinforces the importance of core technical work. Core technology and engineering remained the largest category, with 61,000 openings, or about half of total demand. Tech business development, sales and marketing accounted for 14,000 openings. Tech consulting and advisory had 5,000 openings, up 25% sequentially.
This distribution suggests that the recovery is not confined to one narrow hiring function. However, the largest pool remains concentrated in core technology and engineering. The data does not provide a detailed breakdown of occupations within that category, so it cannot show which specific skills are most sought after. It does show that the market’s centre of gravity remains technical, even as consulting and commercial roles also expand.
Xpheno’s freshness index adds another layer to the reading of the figures. The index, which measures openings published or refreshed in the preceding two weeks, stood at 49% in October. It was three percentage points higher than in September and six percentage points higher than in October 2025. A higher freshness level indicates that a substantial portion of the listed demand was recently updated or newly published, rather than being carried forward unchanged.
That makes the October recovery more meaningful than a simple accumulation of old listings. At the same time, the index is not a measure of jobs filled, and active openings do not guarantee that every position will result in a completed appointment. The report establishes employer demand and application activity, not final hiring outcomes. This distinction is especially important when interpreting a rebound from a recent low.
The geography of the market may be the strongest structural signal in the report. India’s six major technology hubs accounted for 83,000 openings, or 67% of active demand, after rising 9% month-on-month. Bengaluru remained the largest market with 31,000 openings. Hyderabad recorded the sharpest increase among the major cities at 27%, followed by Mumbai at 20%, Chennai at 14% and Bengaluru at 11%.
At the same time, tier-2 and tier-3 locations accounted for 40,000 openings. Demand in these locations fell 2% month-on-month, but was 67% higher year-on-year. The contrast is important. The largest established centres still hold the majority of active demand, yet smaller urban locations are showing a much larger annual expansion from their earlier base.
This is not evidence that India’s technology economy has become decentralised. With 67% of openings still concentrated in six major hubs, the established centres remain dominant. But the 40,000 openings in tier-2 and tier-3 locations indicate that the geography of technology employment is broader than the traditional metropolitan map. The shift could reflect the expansion of employers, the availability of talent or changing business locations, but the supplied report does not identify the causes. It is therefore safer to describe the data as evidence of wider distribution rather than proof of a completed relocation of technology activity.
For city administrations and infrastructure planners, the distinction between concentration and expansion matters. Major hubs continue to absorb the largest absolute volume of demand, with Bengaluru alone accounting for 31,000 openings. Smaller locations, however, are becoming more visible in the active jobs market. Their future urban requirements may not be identical to those of established technology centres, but the data indicates that technology employment is no longer relevant only to the largest metropolitan economies.
The October figures therefore present a recovery with three simultaneous features. The overall market is expanding, but experienced roles are stronger than entry-level positions. Office-based work is dominant, while remote and hybrid openings are declining. Major hubs retain the largest share, yet tier-2 and tier-3 locations show substantial year-on-year growth.
What remains uncertain is just as important as what the report confirms. The data does not establish how many openings will convert into hires, whether the same positions are being listed across multiple employers, or how the changing location of jobs is affecting housing, mobility and municipal services. It also does not explain why remote and hybrid demand has fallen or why smaller cities have recorded such strong annual growth. Those questions require evidence beyond the active listings tracked by Xpheno.
The immediate signal, however, is that India’s technology labour market is recovering in a more office-centred and geographically wider form than the headline total alone suggests. The next indicators to watch are whether entry-level demand strengthens, whether tier-2 and tier-3 growth continues, and whether the renewed concentration of office jobs produces corresponding changes in the cities and districts that host them.
