AI skill demand surges 178 pc across India's CDMO sector: Report
New Delhi, May 28
India's contract development and manufacturing organisation sector is seeing a rapid realignment of hiring toward AI‑enabled capabilities, with AI‑linked skill demand up 178 per cent over the past two years, a report said on Thursday.
The report from HR solutions provider CIEL HR said the overall sectoral hiring rose 52 per cent from 2023 to 2025, while AI‑linked demand climbed from 6.2 per cent to 17.2 per cent in 2025.
The technology and digital roles showed the highest AI demand at nearly 38 per cent. Demand for AI-led skills is expanding beyond traditional technology roles into core functions such as research and development, quality and analytics.
Overall hiring saw the momentum shifting from manufacturing to capability-intensive roles amid sustained capacity expansion and rising complexity in outsourced pharmaceutical programs.
The report said that manufacturing and operations remained the largest single segment with 1,820 roles in 2025. However, these functions showed the slowest growth among role families at about 8 per cent year‑on‑year.
Hiring momentum is increasingly shifting away from labour intensity toward automation, planning accuracy and quality predictability.
The report flagged a widening execution gap between demand and available talent, particularly in high-value scientific roles.
While demand for AI skills in research and development roles has gone up to 24 per cent, the current supply of AI-skilled talent in these functions remains below 1 per cent, creating a significant execution constraint.
"The CDMO sector is entering a phase where competitive advantage will be the ability to integrate intelligence into every layer of operations. AI is becoming central to how research is accelerated, manufacturing is optimised and client commitments are delivered," said Aditya Narayana Mishra, MD and CEO, CIEL HR.
The report noted that out of nearly 1,44,000 manufacturing professionals, only about 0.8 per cent are AI‑skilled. In commercial roles with nearly 1,19,000 professionals, nearly 0.1 per cent have AI capability. Data and analytics roles showed roughly 15 per cent AI skill penetration.
— IANS
Reader Comments
Interesting report. The shift towards AI in manufacturing is inevitable globally, and India's CDMO sector is smart to embrace it. But the skill gap is worrying—only 0.1% AI capability in commercial roles? 😕 Companies need to start training their workforce now, not just hire from outside.
Good to see CDMOs focusing on quality and automation instead of just cheap labour. But I'm worried about job losses for traditional manufacturing workers. The report says manufacturing roles grew only 8%—that's not much for a growing sector. Need proper reskilling programmes for existing employees, not just fresh hires!
Our pharma sector is finally getting the recognition it deserves. But only 0.8% AI-skilled manufacturing professionals? That's abysmal! Our IT guys are world-class but the rest of the manufacturing ecosystem needs an overhaul. Hope the government's new education policy includes AI training for pharma and biotech students.
Good analysis from CIEL. The "execution gap" between AI demand and talent supply (24% vs sub-1%) is a major red flag 🚨. Indian CDMOs are competing with global giants. Without investing in AI training for R&D scientists, we'll lose the race. Time for industry-academia partnerships to churn out AI-savvy pharma professionals!
Finally some good news for the pharma sector! But I'm a bit skeptical about these numbers—report says 178% increase but that's from a very small base. Still, the direction is right. India needs to move up
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