Hirings at LTI, Coforge, other mid-tier tech cos to outpace the Big Five this fiscal
Mid-sized tech services companies in India are expected to continue hiring, driven by agile operations and shorter projects. In FY26, these firms might hire about 16,000 employees, outpacing the Big Five. Where are the opporunities opening up for freshers and experienced hands?
India's mid-sized tech services companies, which have grown business at a steady trot quarter after quarter while their bigger peers get buffeted by AI headwinds, are expected to hire more and also end with more people on rolls this fiscal, continuing a two-year trend into its third.
Hiring experts expect the second-tier information technology, or IT, services companies to achieve this feat on the back of shorter projects, agile operations, and better-paced overall growth amid uncertain demand.
To be sure, this projection is based on trends of the past few years and current growth trajectory holding out for the remaining four-five months of this fiscal year.
The mid-sized IT firms under consideration by experts include LTIMindtree Ltd, Coforge Ltd, Mphasis Ltd, Persistent Systems Ltd, Hexaware Technologies Ltd, Sonata Software Ltd, L&T Technology Services Ltd and Firstsource Solutions Ltd, which make between $1 billion and $5 billion in revenue a year.
Seven of these eight mid-sized IT services companies added 7,802 employees in the April-September 2025 period—lower than their addition in the same period a year before but more than double the hires the large caps made (3,097) in the first six months of this fiscal.
Sonata Software is yet to announce its second quarter results and Hexaware follows a January-December financial calendar as against most Indian IT companies, which follow an April-March fiscal calendar.
The group of eight mid-tier IT companies had added 16,583 people in the first half of fiscal 2025 and 1,860 in the first half the previous fiscal, data from their financial results showed.
In contrast, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd, Infosys Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro Ltd, and Tech Mahindra Ltd, which make the Big Five in Indian IT, cumulatively added 11,171 employees in the first half of FY25 and cut headcount by 40,744 in H1FY24.
This followed a trend of the last two fiscals during which the mid-caps added more to their headcount than the larger peers in absolute numbers. The mid-cap IT services companies added 22,518 employees and 7,853 in FY25 and FY24, respectively. The Big Five added just 12,718 in FY25 after cutting headcount by 70,607 in FY24.
AI, automation impact
Seasonality is likely to play out in the second half this fiscal year, like in the past, due to reduced billing and temporary job cuts because of more holidays and fewer working days.
Increase in usage of automation tools further reduces human dependence for tasks like coding, customer support and application development and maintenance. This is expected to further dent hiring prospects for the rest of fiscal 2026.
Mid-sized IT services companies added 7,036 employees in the April-September 2025 period—lower their addition of the same period a year before but more than double the hires at the large caps in the first six months of this fiscal. Much of the decline in total headcount additions at the top five was caused by TCS, which announced layoffs in July of almost 15,000.
According to Bengaluru-based staffing services firm TeamLease, the five mid-tier tech services companies are expected to end FY26 with more hires than the Big Five of Indian IT.
The headcount addition at the big five is expected to be about 1% more from the previous year, which translates to around 15,400 considering the Big Five ended last fiscal with 1.5 million employees.
On the other hand, the mid-caps, which ended with less than a fifth of that total headcount number, are expected to hire about 6% more. This translates to about 16,000 employees in FY26, marginally more than the Big Five, data from TeamLease shows.
Large IT companies continue to hire but their new employee strength has not grown much, said Neeti Sharma, chief executive of TeamLease Digital. “They are focussing more on digitisation, reskilling, and productivity improvement, instead of just adding headcount. Even though they continue to hire, the total number of new employees has not grown much."
Being nimble helps
Mid-caps are expected to fare better as most have continued to grow their delivery teams.
“Mid-sized companies, on the other hand, have been more active in hiring," said Sharma, adding that “their flexibility in taking shorter term projects, agility and strong presence in fast-growing areas like digital and BFSI, and the steady expansion of GCCs (global capability centres) have helped them maintain steady hiring".
In the first half, hiring was led by Infosys for the large IT firms and LTIMindtree for the smaller peers, both adding 8,413 employees and 2,140 employees, respectively.
A second expert voiced a similar opinion.
“The mid-caps usually have better resource efficiency and with rising clients demand for cloud, AI and analytics talent combined with smaller deal size provides a favorable environment for them to grow headcount," said Ashutosh Sharma, vice-president, research director at Forrester Research.
In comparison, he added, the large deal pipeline has slowed for the large caps and their growth challenges are forcing them to optimize utilization which is reflected in their headcount.
Forrester’s Sharma also added that the larger companies “are looking to increase productivity of existing employees rather than adding more people".
Bias for freshers
Most of this increase in mid-caps hiring more people last year was because of higher fresher addition in roles including AI engineers, data analysts, and roles in cybersecurity, according to TeamLease data. While the large IT firms added 2,100 freshers incrementally, the smaller peers added 2,400 graduates.
For the 1.5 million students graduating from engineering colleges every year and many among non-tech grads looking to land jobs at India's IT firms, that is good news.
One of the companies stated its intentions of continuing fresher hiring.
“I think our fresher hiring program that we are remaining committed to and under which we hired more than 2,600 freshers in this quarter, will start playing out once they get trained and they start getting deployed," said Vipul Chandra, chief financial officer of LTIMindtree, during the company’s post-earnings press conference on 16 October.
For now, the expectations of greater hiring at mid-caps are not isolated. According to a Mint report on 7 November, mid-cap IT services companies are expected to grow their revenues faster than the Big Five for the second straight year.
The top five ended the first half of FY26 with revenue between $3 billion and $15 billion whereas the mid-caps ended the half-year with revenue between $524 million and $2.3 billion.
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