Generative AI going mainstream has led people to tailor their resumes as well as LinkedIn profiles. The share of Indian members who have added AI skills to their LinkedIn profiles is 14x as compared to January 2016, highlighted in the latest report by the professional networking platform.
The Indian economy contributes to the landscape with a workforce of 47 lakh techies. But even the world’s most techie populous nation has started to run out of the demanding AI workforce. While 416,000 professionals are engaged in AI and data science in India, a Nasscom report exposed a gaping demand for 213,000 more professionals, predicted to worsen in the next couple of years. The World Economic Forum’s recent report adds that India’s job landscape will shift by 22% in the next five years, largely due to emerging AI roles.
Searches > Posting
While the Indian economy grapples with the talent crunch, companies are ready to pay AI experts enough to retire early.
Job postings for genAI roles surged by 50% from July 2022 to July 2023 on Indeed, a job-seeking platform, according to Insider. Searches for these positions skyrocketed by 12,300% during the same period, highlighting the growing interest. Bangalore, often called the Silicon Valley of India, offers the highest salaries for ML experts, as per upGrad. In contrast, Chennai’s average ML salaries are 5% lower than the national average.
Companies like HyperVerge, Razorthink, IQVIA, are paying a handful of lakhs for machine learning engineer posts. Data analysts with programming skills can get the highest salary of data scientists in India as per upGrad. Computer vision engineers are being paid up to INR 21 lakhs. Furthermore, an AI researcher’s salary in India ranges between INR 3.0 lakhs to 35.0 lakhs with an average of 9.0 lakhs. Other roles like deep learning engineer, AI product manager and AI consultants have also seen a demand surge in the job market.
On the global payscale, some of these jobs, such as an AI-focused product-manager role at Netflix paying $900,000 a year, come with compensation well into the six figures. Other companies like Amazon, Google, Goldman Sachs et al. are also willing to pay top dollar for AI/ML experts well-versed with frameworks and language models.
Huge pay for AI skills isn’t new. Back in the olden days of 2017, Tom Eck, then the CTO of industry platforms at IBM, made a statement that top-tier AI researchers “are getting paid the salaries of NFL quarterbacks, which tells you the demand and the perceived value.”
GenAI In-Demand
Overall the number of job listings referencing GPT or ChatGPT on LinkedIn has substantially grown 21-fold since ChatGPT’s debut in November 2022. Not only are job postings increasing, but more members on the platform globally are adding AI skills to their profiles than ever before. In June 2023, the number of AI-skilled members was 9x more than in 2016.
The report covered 25 countries and tracked 121 AI skills highlighting noteworthy trends. In 2022, among the swiftly growing AI-related skills added to user profiles, all top five skills were “hinting at the emergence of generative AI”. These included abilities like question-answering, which saw an impressive 332% increase, as well as classification and recommender systems.
Likewise, Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index identified three essential skills by industry leaders: analytical judgment, flexibility, and emotional intelligence.
LinkedIn has also shown an increased emphasis on AI. Since April, posts about generative AI have risen by 25% monthly. Profiles mentioning specific genAI keywords, such as “GAI,” “ChatGPT,” “Prompt Engineering,” and “Prompt Crafting,” have surged by 75% per month since the start of the year. Owned by Microsoft, LinkedIn also introduced features in May enabling users to generate AI-based recruiter messages, job descriptions, and user profiles.
In theory, currently the estimation of AI job roles is proliferating the same as the rate adoption of the content creating technology. With the surge in demand, candidates need to upskill with the knowledge of the core programming languages, frameworks, and abstract concepts as the industry evolves.
The post India Races Ahead in AI Skills Race, Ranks 4th Globally appeared first on Analytics India Magazine.
