Tech Boom Has Increased Demand for Mobile Developers: Report

While IT services companies are the dominant employers in the mobile talent space, 53 percent of the talent they lose join the computer software and hardware segments, according to the India Mobile Talent 2016 Report released by Belong, a data-driven talent acquisition platform.

Of this 53 percent, 37 percent are picked up by companies in the Internet, SaaS and e-commerce segments. The report was prepared based on a representative, randomised sample set of over 25,000 mobile developers taken from Belong's database of publicly available and curated profiles.

"The rise of India's mobile economy has led to a dramatic increase in the demand for mobile talent. As businesses race to capitalise on the opportunities of this new economy, it has led to an intense competition for skilled Android and iOS developers.

"The truth, however, is that the mobile talent pool in India is still in its very early stages," Belong Co-founder and CEO Vijay Sharma said.

The report revealed that developers employed in e-commerce firms receive twice the salary and monetary benefits in comparison to their counterparts in the IT services and software companies across the country.

It said IT services and computer software sectors employ 67 percent of the mobile talent workforce in the country and the internet and e-commerce sectors, which offer more lucrative salaries, come a distant third and fifth, respectively, in their share of the pool.

It further said mobile developers leave their employers to take on new jobs every 1.5 years, indicating competitiveness in the mobile talent market.

IT services and computer software companies are competing for talent directly with well-funded e-commerce companies offering faster growth with record salaries, it added. It opined that another motivation for developers to move so frequently could be that building an app usually takes 12-18 months.

Once built, the work that follows mostly entails enhancements and maintenance, which is hardly exciting for passionate developers who are only beginning their careers, it added.