New Delhi: India’s private space startups are finding it hard to get top-notch talent as there aren’t enough graduates trained in niche topics and specialized skills. And even the small number of candidates available prefer companies overseas because of low salaries back home.

While companies are increasing their average pay and also training employees, niche talent in rocketry, propulsion technologies, photonics and sensors—the differentiating factors among space startups—is in short supply, according to founders, analysts and industry observers that Mint spoke with.

Around 175 institutions in India offer undergraduate degrees in aerospace engineering, while 75 offer postgraduate courses, according toMint’s analysis of five educational services platforms.

Around 8,000 aerospace engineers graduated last year, accounting for just 0.5% of the 1.5 million engineers who pass out of Indian colleges annually. That includes the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), which is affiliated with the Union government’s Department of Space.

Chicken and egg situation

But it’s more like a chicken-and-egg situation: while there are few qualified candidates, the salaries also aren’t good enough to encourage students to select such courses.

While none of the startups disclosed their salary offers, citing confidentiality and competition, Mint found that freshers, working on low-value software engineering or satellite assembly projects are offered packages as low as ₹4 lakh a year. 

However, for niche roles, fresher payouts go up to ₹30 lakh a year—or even ₹60 lakh per annum for engineers with about three years of experience in allied industries.

“About 30% of our hires are freshers directly out of colleges, but we recruit the rest from various industries such as automobiles,” said Pawan Kumar Chandana, cofounder and chief executive of Hyderabad-headquartered Skyroot Aerospace. “For most engineers that we hire, we’ve set up skilling and training programmes, and it takes about six months to a year for them to get ready to work on various projects.”

According to Anirudh Sharma, cofounder and chief executive of Bengaluru-based Digantara Research and Technologies, India doesn’t have enough formal university courses or research programmes in skills such as photonics and optical engineering. “For instance, National Institute of Technology, Warangal (in Telangana) ran about five batches and produced some of the best optical communications engineers in the country—but they are a finite pool, out of which some are employed across industries and others have moved abroad,” he said.

In most cases, startups like Bengaluru-based Bellatrix Aerospace hire from other engineering streams. “For instance, we take recruits with chemical and metallurgical engineering backgrounds and train them to work on our proprietary rocket propulsion technology,” said Yashas Karanam, co-founder and chief operating officer.

Not many courses

Specialized space courses are also rare. Towards the end of 2023, Pawan Goenka, chairman of government-affiliated Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (In-Space), had said that the agency is working with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to introduce space curricula in engineering institutes. On 28 July, In-Space announced the introduction of a short-term skill development course for “space technology in agriculture” with Amity University, Noida.

However, it is only a certificate course and does not offer the kind of deep dive that would produce the niche skills that Chandana, Sharma and Karanam are looking for.

Fewer jobs

Industry stakeholders said the lack of adequate talent is also due to fewer job opportunities.

The Indian space industry at the moment is “not offering opportunities that go beyond the existing roles at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)”, said Narayan Prasad Nagendra, chief operating officer of Netherlands-based space services marketplace SatSearch.

“Since a mass exodus to the IT (information technology) sector in the 1990s, Isro has steadied the ship—and now sees engineers sticking with it for a decade or more. In my conversations, engineers who gather such levels of experience only look for career opportunities outside in Europe or Japan,” said Nagendra. “Indian space firms are yet to offer perks and salaries that go beyond what Isro or private global firms do, which leads to top talent leaving the country beyond a point.”

According to Chaitanya Giri, a space fellow at the global think tank Observer Research Foundation, it is still early since the privatization of the space sector only took place three years ago.

Giri said the sector will never see demand in thousands or millions, but only hundreds, and that too for core products and niche applications. “Getting talent from other industries is only a stop-gap solution because automobiles and other core sectors can always have more room for growth,” he said.

“What is needed now are niche specialization courses at top universities, and generous research budgets,” Guri said. “Until that happens, India’s space industry will remain starved of the kind of talent that helped the US build the global majors we know today.”

New Delhi: India’s private space startups are finding it hard to get top-notch talent as there aren’t enough graduates trained in niche topics and specialized skills. And even the small number of candidates available prefer companies overseas because of low salaries back home.

While companies are increasing their average pay and also training employees, niche talent in rocketry, propulsion technologies, photonics and sensors—the differentiating factors among space startups—is in short supply, according to founders, analysts and industry observers that Mint spoke with.

Around 175 institutions in India offer undergraduate degrees in aerospace engineering, while 75 offer postgraduate courses, according toMint’s analysis of five educational services platforms.

Around 8,000 aerospace engineers graduated last year, accounting for just 0.5% of the 1.5 million engineers who pass out of Indian colleges annually. That includes the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), which is affiliated with the Union government’s Department of Space.

Chicken and egg situation

But it’s more like a chicken-and-egg situation: while there are few qualified candidates, the salaries also aren’t good enough to encourage students to select such courses.

While none of the startups disclosed their salary offers, citing confidentiality and competition, Mint found that freshers, working on low-value software engineering or satellite assembly projects are offered packages as low as ₹4 lakh a year. 

However, for niche roles, fresher payouts go up to ₹30 lakh a year—or even ₹60 lakh per annum for engineers with about three years of experience in allied industries.

“About 30% of our hires are freshers directly out of colleges, but we recruit the rest from various industries such as automobiles,” said Pawan Kumar Chandana, cofounder and chief executive of Hyderabad-headquartered Skyroot Aerospace. “For most engineers that we hire, we’ve set up skilling and training programmes, and it takes about six months to a year for them to get ready to work on various projects.”

According to Anirudh Sharma, cofounder and chief executive of Bengaluru-based Digantara Research and Technologies, India doesn’t have enough formal university courses or research programmes in skills such as photonics and optical engineering. “For instance, National Institute of Technology, Warangal (in Telangana) ran about five batches and produced some of the best optical communications engineers in the country—but they are a finite pool, out of which some are employed across industries and others have moved abroad,” he said.

In most cases, startups like Bengaluru-based Bellatrix Aerospace hire from other engineering streams. “For instance, we take recruits with chemical and metallurgical engineering backgrounds and train them to work on our proprietary rocket propulsion technology,” said Yashas Karanam, co-founder and chief operating officer.

Not many courses

Specialized space courses are also rare. Towards the end of 2023, Pawan Goenka, chairman of government-affiliated Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (In-Space), had said that the agency is working with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to introduce space curricula in engineering institutes. On 28 July, In-Space announced the introduction of a short-term skill development course for “space technology in agriculture” with Amity University, Noida.

However, it is only a certificate course and does not offer the kind of deep dive that would produce the niche skills that Chandana, Sharma and Karanam are looking for.

Fewer jobs

Industry stakeholders said the lack of adequate talent is also due to fewer job opportunities.

The Indian space industry at the moment is “not offering opportunities that go beyond the existing roles at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)”, said Narayan Prasad Nagendra, chief operating officer of Netherlands-based space services marketplace SatSearch.

“Since a mass exodus to the IT (information technology) sector in the 1990s, Isro has steadied the ship—and now sees engineers sticking with it for a decade or more. In my conversations, engineers who gather such levels of experience only look for career opportunities outside in Europe or Japan,” said Nagendra. “Indian space firms are yet to offer perks and salaries that go beyond what Isro or private global firms do, which leads to top talent leaving the country beyond a point.”

According to Chaitanya Giri, a space fellow at the global think tank Observer Research Foundation, it is still early since the privatization of the space sector only took place three years ago.

Giri said the sector will never see demand in thousands or millions, but only hundreds, and that too for core products and niche applications. “Getting talent from other industries is only a stop-gap solution because automobiles and other core sectors can always have more room for growth,” he said.

“What is needed now are niche specialization courses at top universities, and generous research budgets,” Guri said. “Until that happens, India’s space industry will remain starved of the kind of talent that helped the US build the global majors we know today.”