India has been investing greatly towards building the country’s human capital to suit the future employment market in relation to AI, digital competencies, and the green economy. In 2025, the QS World Future Skills Index ranks in preparedness of the India job market second in the world, after the United States. This is in line with the country’s measure to takeover prepare its young people so that they fit the job market that is constantly changing.
Nevertheless, the facts unveiled by QS also point to quite a significant number of deficient skills that have to be closed. India stands at 37 too on the list of countries that workforce is ready for future jobs showing a large gap between the demand of skills that employers need and the skills possessed by the workforce. This gap is despite the fact that, in the area of economic transformation, India is ranked 40th.
The QS World Future Skills Index evaluates countries based on four broad indicators: Skills Match, Workplace of the Future, School Leavers’ Preparedness, and Economic Recovery. Finding India’s position of the aforementioned indicators is quite ambivalent.
Skills Fit
An indicator measured by the Skills Fit is the extent to which countries are preparing their graduates for the jobs that employers consider most relevant. In this category, India has secured 59.1 which was the lowest among the top 30 countries. This means that though India is on the right track toward skill development for its workforce for the future jobs, a lot more needs to be done to ensure that the graduating students have the skills needed for the required jobs according to the employers.
Future of Work
India excels in the Future of Work score-card that gives it the second position globally only behind the United States. A readiness index here measures a country’s preparedness to hire for the skills demanded in the jobs of the future. India’s high performance in this grouping is due to its Digital, AI and green skills.
Academic Readiness
Academic Readiness is used to determine the extent of readiness of a country to prepare for the future of work. However, as we can observe, the ranking in this particular category is lower than in the case of the Future of Work indicator, meaning that there is potential for development as regards integrating the Indian education system with its labour market demands. The most noticeable areas that have to be addressed are the development of cooperation with industries and providing graduates with competitive outcomes.
Economic Transformation
Economic Transformation thus applies a weighted index to determine the effectiveness of a country to drive the growth of the human capital and the future work and skills. This fact is proven by India’s rank of 40th in this aspect, which seems to require additional attention to the development of sustainable practices and vision of effective solutions. According to this report the Indian government should increase its focus in the area of innovation to enhance the rating in this sector, while more emphasis on sustainability.
Given these gaps, India has to concentrate in these areas for its human resources development. First, it is important to improve the cooperation between the industries in order to unify the requirements of higher education institutions with the needs of industries. This can be attained through increased collaboration between university and business firms to help the university graduate to market themselves adequately so as to meet the existing demand by the market.
Secondly, the concentration on digital, AI, and green sectors also need to be increased to meet employers’ needs. This entails spending in the development of training courses and education promotion more on such important facets.
Third, increase in the ranking of the Economic Transformation will require sustainable practices and forward-looking solutions in India. This includes embracing of innovation at different areas such as infrastructure and the environment.
World Future Skills Index 2025 of QS
The QS World Future Skills Index 2025 which was published by the London-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) measures how prepared countries are for the global workplace of the future. This index is important in how countries are ready equipping their population for future demands like digital skills, AI, green and sustainable skills.
Key Indicators
The QS World Future Skills Index assesses countries based on four broad indicators:
- Skills Fit: This explains how efficiently governments across the globe are preparing their graduates in relation to what employers are looking for in employees.
- Future of Work: This assesses the state’s preparedness to hire for the future demand of skills in jobs.
- Academic Readiness: This dimension is about how ready a country is for the future workplace.
- Economic Transformation: This employs a weighted formula to evaluate a country’s preparedness for the enhancement of growth, future, work and skills with referencing to different indicators.
The report also presents an analysis of countries in the “Future of Work” indicator where India leads the pack and stands only second to the United States. This index shows the extent to which the labour market is ready and equipped to provide for the increasing demand in more digital, AI and green jobs given the flexible world economy is shifting toward technological and sustainable sectors.
Still, the India ranking is much lower, 25th place, based on all these factors, which include skills gap, preparedness for academia, and economic reform. While India excels in certain areas, there are opportunities for improvement, particularly in sustainability-oriented innovation and higher education alignment.
The strengths include a high readiness to integrate AI in India and Venture Capital attraction besides a strong youth population and vibrant start-up ecosystem. These factors suggest that India is in a favourable place to be among the frontline globally as far as future-ready skills are concerned. On the other hand, India has its apprehensions in creativity education, problem solving, and entrepreneurship mind set. In Future-oriented innovation in sustainability, the country has been rated low, meaning that the need for sustainability and future innovations need to be embraced.
Why there is Skill Gap in India?
The increase in economic growth in India and its technological developments have made a need for professional human resource. However, the research shows that the market demands are not met currently due to a skills mismatch between the workforce and employers. Several factors contribute to this skill gap, including:
Education System Mismatch
Faulty education system is one of the main reasons for the prevailing skills divide in India due to lack of alignment between the educational format and the industrial needs. The old school structure in India is based on individual learning rather than actual skills of problem solving. This leads to graduates that are not employable, and who lack some requisite skills that employers look for. Industry should inform and define the curriculum so that it is more practical and focused on practical experience.
Absence of link with industries
The reason is found in the fact that there isn’t much co-operation that exists between researchers and industries in the country. This is because many of the current institutions have a poor link with productive sectors and therefore, the skills developed in the academic arena bear a little resemblance to those of the market place. This is because collaboration between industries and intuitions may go a long way in closing this gap as educational programs are made to fit industry requirements.
Lack of Adequate Workplace Skills Education
Vocational education is therefore important as it helps impart given type of skills which is important for different form of businesses. But the vocational training in India is still underrated is provided limited funding. Due to this, there is a requirement to encourage vocational education and training so that individuals can acquire certain characterized job skills.
Rapid Technological Changes
Technological growth has been very fast and has reached a level where the system of education cannot follow suit. There is increased development of new technologies and tools every now and then, and these results to the workers always updating their knowledge. The Education system has to match these changes.
Geographical Disparities
In India there are broad geographical differentials especially in terms of quality education and training opportunities. A rural setting is characterized by poor infrastructural and human resource development especially in delivering quality education and vocational training. This leads to a generation of employees who are not well equipped to face the challenges in the market this causes a challenge. It is important to deal with these issues in order to develop facilities that could fulfil the need of learning and training in the several territories.
Socio-Economic Factors
There are socio-economic factors that would have otherwise led to the establishment of companies that empowered India while closing the skill gap. In hardship it is tough for one to be in a position to be offered good education and training. This leads to a workforce that is not well equipped with the skills that could be helpful in the organization or business. Remediation of these socio-economic barriers is therefore vital in a way that will allow all people to gain the training they require to be employed.
Ignorance and Absence of Direction
Most students and job seekers in India have little or no understanding of the skills needed by employers and relevant training provisions. Special emphasis has been put on seemingly relevant career guidance and counseling to assist users in making proper decisions regarding education and careers. Informative guides on skills that are in high demand in the market as well as training courses available on the market can go a long way in filling the gap.
Way Forward
Filling the skill gap in India needs an integrated and structural solution. India should organize its priorities around sectors like education reform, industry academia partnerships, vocational training and socio-economic development so that it can address the problems and fill the chasm that exists between supply and demand for skills needed for employment opportunities.
Education Reforms
Educational restructuring is one of the most important measures that should be taken to fill in the skill gap and IT skill shortage. This makes the learning move from knowledge acquisition to ability and experience of HOW things have to be done. To address the employers’ concerns, enabling students to acquire the industry relevant curriculum, having the project based learning and the internships can work. Also, incorporating Digital Skills, Artificial Intelligence and Green Skills competencies into the curriculum can help prepare its students for the future workplace.
Enhancing Partnership between Industry and University
Lack of skills remains one of the major challenges faced by organizations, and this can only be addressed through the co-operation of the university and industry players. It is important for education institutions to have good relationship with industries to ensure that they prepare their students to fit a particular industry. This can be done in the form of collaborative research, study placements and being exposed to industrial practitioners. Such contexts from the industry could help to influence the curriculum offered to students and also afford the students practical experience.
Promoting Vocational Training
The role of vocational training is to prepare people by offering them training that would enable them pursue their careers in trades and other fields. It also means that increasing the sizes and starting to value vocationally oriented training programs can contribute to filling the gap. It involves an effort to make vocational training available and accessible; efforts to include certification programs; and education efforts that help people understand the value of vocational training. It is required that the vocational training therefore be part of the general education system so that the community members have other ways of acquiring the necessary skills.
Managing Inequalities across Geography
One of the major issues tagged with the skills development in India is geographical inequity in quality education and training. To that end, there is a dire call to invest in infrastructure and resource in the rural and remote regions. This includes construction of school, vocational institute, and making education available through technologies. A skilled workforce can only be developed if all regions receive quality training and education.
Improving Career Development and Counselling
This is a scenario that applies to many students and jobs seekers especially in India, where there is little knowledge on the skills demanded by the employers and the corresponding training offers. Improving the nature and extent of career information and guidance is relevant for enabling people make better choices regarding learning pathways and occupational choices. Relating users to information they need about skills and knowledge demand, training and potential job openings could assist in closing the skill gap.
Dealing with Socio Economic Factors
As highlighted above socio economic factors are key determinant of the skill gap in India. Most of the disadvantaged persons have limited chances for acing quality education and getting qualified for training. To overcome these barriers motivational strategies like scholarships, financial support, and support programs to the underprivileged students can help. For this reason, it is essential to guarantee that everyone can develop those skills that will help him or her find a job in order to reduce the difference in demands for skills.