New Delhi: For most of India’s content creators, odd jobs on the side are reality. Indeed, some just work on content and pay their bills with brand deals, but only about 10-15% make it work consistently. The others are starting to look for steady jobs, and the goods news is that Indian companies are hiring them to tap their skills.
“India minted millions of creators post-covid, but the economics never scaled for most of them. The feed is flooded, organic reach is shrinking, and now AI is producing content at a volume no individual can match," said Dhruv Khurana, cofounder of Astatine AI, an influencer marketing platform. "For a creator in India without a top-tier following, the hustle rarely pays the rent.”
India has 2-3 million professional creators with over 1,000 followers each, says Khurana.
“What brands are realizing is that this talent, already trained in storytelling and audience thinking, is exactly what their marketing teams were missing,” Khurana added.
Postings for creator-related roles on jobs platform Indeed grew over nine times between 2020 and early 2026. Five years ago, these roles were about 1 in every 1,000 marketing jobs on the platform. Today they account for nearly 1 in 100.
Rise of new-age jobs
The hiring goes well beyond influencers to the entire ecosystem. Companies are recruiting scriptwriters, video editors, thumbnail designers, community managers and social media strategists, and even in-house “doomscrollers” whose job is to track internet trends and turn them into posts within hours.
“A lot of creators in India are creating content informally or on the side. Many do it full-time and get paid through brand deals, but the success rate is as low as 10-15%,” said Neeti Sharma, chief executive officer of staffing firm TeamLease Digital.
“New roles such as doomscrolling are gaining popularity, wherein companies hire people to create short, quick, trend-based content.” She said some companies are also moving employees with large social followings into these jobs internally.
The shift is partly about cost. Companies have realized hiring for these roles is much better to create content and gauge eyeballs than going with external agencies that bring in creators to run campaigns for them, Sharma added.
Brands are using these hires exactly as they used the external influencers. “Companies are hiring influencers to amplify their reach. They make them the face of the brand and build a team of other roles around them to support content production,” said Kartik Narayan, chief executive officer of jobs platform Apna. “Companies used to outsource this to agencies because someone needs to keep a constant eye on the latest trend. Now they are hiring internally.”
Apna’s own data shows where the demand is concentrated. Postings for brand coordinators grew 34.5% in calendar 2025, while the January-March 2026 quarter saw a 38.5% year-on-year rise. Video editor roles were up 13% in 2025 and 21.7% during the March quarter. Postings seeking script writers rose 3.2% in 2025 and 24.3% during the quarter, while for thumbnail designers they were up 27.8% and 8.5%, respectively.
There were outliers too; two roles saw a recent dip—postings for community managers were down 2.6% year-on-year while those for short-form content specialists tanked 15.6% during the March quarter as AI is now doing a chunk of that work, including drafting captions, first-cut scripts and thumbnail ideas. Tighter marketing budgets and changing platform algorithms have added to the pressure.
The starting pay offered is almost comparable to other traditional sectors. Narayan said influencers hired into corporate roles can earn up to ₹10 lakh a year, with editors and writers in supporting roles drawing ₹7-12 lakh.
At the entry level, a fresh creator without an audience of their own can start at ₹3-6 lakh, said Anshuman Das, chief executive of recruitment firm Careernet. This is not very far from what an engineering graduate earns in the first year at a large IT services firm, and roughly in line with starting salaries in public relations.
For many creators, this brings comfort. “Even though creators may earn more through brand work, their incomes are not static, and they lack benefits that come with regular employment—credit access, insurance…” Das said. “They trade-off higher earnings for regular income and benefits.”
Das said content teams have existed in marketing departments for years, but their function has become far more fast-paced in the age of AI and social media, which is driving the hiring.
The work is also being spread across more roles than before. Indeed’s data shows 40% of creator-related listings are explicit influencer jobs. Another 20% are marketing executives, 17% are marketing interns, and the rest is split across video production, community management and content operations.
Basis job postings on Apna, the advertising and marketing sector leads the demand for such roles at 10–12% of the total, followed by IT services and consulting at 7%, Narayan said.
“Companies are not just hiring influencers. They are hiring across the chain: creator partnerships, community management, video editing, audience development, social strategy,” said Saumitra R. Chand, career expert at Indeed.
Recruiters, he said, increasingly look at portfolios, follower counts and engagement as evidence of whether someone can actually build and hold an audience. Most of this hiring is concentrated at the entry and mid-level roles, he added.