AI Skill Index of India • Press and media
Quotable findings, charts you can embed and data you can download on AI hiring, skills and pay in India. Free to use with attribution. Every figure names its source, its date and the group it was measured on.
October 2026 edition • Data reviewed 13 October 2026 • Press kit first published 13 October 2026
The AI Skill Index of India is a sourced review of what published research says about AI skills, hiring and pay in India, maintained by Fireblaze AI School in Nagpur. It publishes no composite score, separates measured data from projections, and lists the 8 things it could not measure instead of estimating them. Journalists, educators and analysts may quote, embed and download from it, free, with attribution.
For journalists
Each finding is read straight from the index data. The copy button adds the source and a link. Caveats are part of the finding, so please keep them when you can.
Measured
AI/ML roles rose 20% year on year on Naukri in September 2026, the largest increase among the sectors and segments in Naukri's headline chart, while overall white-collar hiring rose 2% and IT and software services hiring fell 4%.
IT and software services hiring fell in the same month, so AI growth is a narrow band inside a falling sector.
Source: Naukri (Info Edge) (6 Oct 2026)
Measured
AI/ML hiring growth on Naukri peaked at +33% in Jul 2026 and was +20% in Sep 2026, against +2% for all white-collar hiring and -4% for IT and software services.
Monthly growth swings widely, so no single month is a trend. Info Edge's CEO said August's growth 'needs to be viewed in the context of the festive calendar', with more of the festive period falling in August last year and shifting to September this year. Within IT, Naukri reports AI/ML hiring grew 11% in September even as overall IT hiring fell 4%.
Source: Naukri (Info Edge) (6 Oct 2026)
Measured
The share of Indian job postings that mention AI rose from 8.2% in Sep 2024 to 14% in Jan 2026.
The clearest trend line available for India. Indeed's analysts caution that Indeed's India data skews toward the tech sector, so these shares are higher than the whole labour market. We found no newer India-wide point: Indeed's later 2026 India figures that we could find measure job titles and occupational categories, not the share of postings.
Source: Indeed Hiring Lab (25 Oct 2025), Indeed and NASSCOM (22 May 2026)
Measured
In September 2025, 38.6% of data and analytics postings in India mentioned AI, against 22.8% of software development postings.
Healthcare and retail are not broken out by this source.
Source: Indeed Hiring Lab (25 Oct 2025)
Measured
In December 2025, Bengaluru (25.4%), Delhi NCR (24.8%) and Mumbai (19.2%) held the largest shares of India's AI job postings, together about 70% of all AI openings.
Nagpur, Indore and Ahmedabad do not appear in this data. They fall below the source's reporting threshold, which means their share is small, not that it is zero.
Source: CBRE (19 Feb 2026)
Measured
Nagpur's all-role hiring grew 0.5% year on year in Sep 2026, against 2% for all-India white-collar hiring, per the Naukri JobSpeak index. This is all roles, not AI-specific.
This is all-role hiring, not AI hiring. Naukri's August 2026 report gives AI/ML growth for seven metros, shown separately on the index. The figures swing widely from month to month, so read the direction over several months rather than any one cell.
Source: Info Edge / Naukri (6 Oct 2026), Naukri (Info Edge) (6 Oct 2026)
Measured
PayScale reports average total compensation for a Data Scientist in India of ₹5.95 lakh under one year of experience and ₹10.05 lakh at one to four years, from 1,267 self-reported salaries.
Average total compensation, self-reported. Not the same measure as base salary.
Source: PayScale (Jul 2026)
Measured
LinkedIn ranks Prompt Engineer as the number 1 fastest-growing job in India for 2026, a new entry. Only three AI roles appear in the top 25.
Only three AI roles appear in India's top 25. Data Scientist, Data Engineer, Data Analyst and Machine Learning Engineer do not appear on India's list at all. A fast-growing job title is not the same as a high-volume one.
Source: LinkedIn News India (8 Jan 2026)
Measured
Within IT and software services in Sep 2026, AI/ML hiring grew 11% year on year even as overall IT hiring fell 4%.
Reported in Naukri's write-up of its monthly report. Monthly figures swing widely, so one month is not a trend.
Source: Naukri (Info Edge) (6 Oct 2026)
Measured
Google Antigravity, India: used at work by 15% of developers in India, up from 10% in January 2026, practically tied with Cursor as the third most-popular AI coding tool there.
The one India-specific tool figure we found. JetBrains does not publish the size of its India sub-sample, so treat it as indicative. Globally Antigravity is at 6%.
Source: JetBrains (18 Aug 2026)
Published gap
No survey-grade source exists for Prompt Engineer salary in India. The platform figure we found rests on 6 reported salaries, far too few to publish.
Published as a gap, not filled with an estimate.
Source: Fireblaze AI School research review
Story angles
Three cities hold about 70% of India's AI job postings, and Nagpur does not appear in any serious AI city ranking we reviewed. The index separates what is verifiable about Nagpur (MIHAN units, all-role hiring growth, state GCC policy) from what is missing. See the data →
AI/ML hiring growth on Naukri was +33% in July, +31% in August and +20% in September 2026, while IT and software services moved from +6% to +11% to -4%. A real trend, inside a volatile month-to-month series. See the data →
LinkedIn ranks Prompt Engineer first in India for 2026, but we found no survey-grade pay figure for it. The platform figure we found rests on 6 reported salaries, so it is published as a gap. See the data →
Stack Overflow's 2026 survey has Claude Code used by 65.5% of those who answered its coding-agents question, while JetBrains finds 39% of professional developers using it at work. Different people, questions and weighting explain the gap, which is why the index never ranks across sources. See the data →
The index lists the claims it chose not to publish, and why. For a reporter, that is a checklist of widely repeated figures that could not be traced to a primary source. See the data →
Embed
Copy the code under a chart and paste it into your page. The code includes a visible link back to this index. The charts are responsive and load no tracking scripts.
Open data
Every row carries its source, date and type. Empty cells mean the source did not publish a figure.
Licence: our compilation is CC BY 4.0, so use it freely, including commercially, with attribution and a link. The underlying figures belong to the publishers named in each row. See README.txt for the full terms and what to read before using the numbers.
Cite
When you rely on a single figure, cite its original publisher as well. Each figure on the index links to its source.
Fireblaze AI School. (2026). AI Skill Index of India, October 2026 edition [Data set]. https://fireblazeaischool.in/ai-skill-index/. Data reviewed 13 October 2026.
Source: AI Skill Index of India, Fireblaze AI School (fireblazeaischool.in/ai-skill-index/)
<a href="https://fireblazeaischool.in/ai-skill-index/">AI Skill Index of India</a>, Fireblaze AI School
Method
Read the full editorial policy, or go straight to what we could not measure and every source in full.
Boilerplate
Fireblaze AI School is an AI education institute in Nagpur, founded on 31 October 2017. It trains students and working professionals in data science, AI and full-stack development across three centres in Nagpur and online, and is a NASSCOM partner for its PGP in Data Science and Analytics.
Fireblaze AI School is an AI education institute in Nagpur, founded on 31 October 2017. It trains students and working professionals in data science, AI and full-stack development across three centres in Nagpur and online, and is a NASSCOM partner for its PGP in Data Science and Analytics. It is a unit of Fireblaze Technologies Private Limited. The AI Skill Index of India is its public research project: a sourced review of published data on AI hiring, skills and pay, which names the source, date and sample behind every figure and publishes the gaps it could not fill. Fireblaze AI School sells training, so it has a commercial interest in people learning these skills. The index therefore publishes sources and caveats rather than a score.
Logo files and colours are on the brand guidelines page. Please do not alter the logo.
| Interviews, custom cuts of the data | info@fireblazeaischool.in |
|---|---|
| Corrections | corrections@fireblazeaischool.in |
| Source | The AI Skill Index of India |
FAQ
It is a sourced review of published research on AI skills, hiring and pay in India, maintained by Fireblaze AI School. Every figure names its source, date and the group it was measured on, and the index publishes a list of what it could not measure instead of estimating.
Yes. Embed the charts or download the data with attribution and a link to https://fireblazeaischool.in/ai-skill-index/. Our compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0. The underlying figures belong to the publishers named in each row, so cite the original source as well when you rely on a single number.
Copy the embed code under any chart on this page and paste it into your page. The code includes a visible attribution link. Charts are responsive and load no tracking scripts.
No. The figures come from surveys, job-posting indices and platform data measured on different populations at different dates, and there is no principled way to weight them into one number.
No source publishes AI or data-science hiring figures for Nagpur, and the index does not estimate one. It publishes what is verifiable, such as all-role hiring growth, and states what is missing.
Fireblaze AI School teaches AI and data skills, so it benefits when people want to learn them. That is why every figure is sourced, vendor-announced numbers are labelled as self-reported, and gaps are published.
Email info@fireblazeaischool.in. Please include the page or figure you mean. A confirmed factual error is corrected under the policy on the editorial policy page.
Fireblaze