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Journalism of Courage
India was ranked second in terms of preparedness for jobs of the future including artificial intelligence (AI) and green skills, only behind the United States, as per the QS World Future Skills Index 2025. Overall though, India ranked 25th across all indicators, which also include the alignment between skills and employer needs, academic readiness, and economic transformation.
India’s overall ranking puts it as a “future skills contender,” as per the report. Countries like the USA, UK, Germany, Australia, and Canada, among others in the top ten have been categorised as “future skills pioneers”.
The report calls the indicator where India was ranked second as ‘future of work,’ which evaluates a country’s readiness to recruit for the skills needed in the jobs of tomorrow. Specifically, it measures how well the job market is prepared to meet the growing demand for digital, AI, and green skills, all of which are becoming critical as economies transition towards technology-driven and sustainable industries.
“This is heartening to see. Over the last decade, our Government has worked on strengthening our youth by equipping them with skills that enable them to become self-reliant and create wealth. We have also leveraged the power of technology to make India a hub for innovation and enterprise. The insights from the QS World Future Skills Index are valuable as we move further on this journey towards prosperity and youth empowerment,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on X, in response to findings of the report. The assessment of the ‘future of work’ indicator has been done largely from the demand side, that is, job postings. “The future of work score measures the extent to which future-focused skills — such as digital, AI, and green competencies — have permeated global job advertisements compared to traditional skill sets,” the report said. This score is derived from an analysis of over 280 million job postings world wide, it added.
There are, however, some parameters where India performed poorly. In terms of ‘skills fit’, India scored 59.1, which is the worst among the top 30 countries overall. “Employers across India are highlighting a critical gap in the workforce’s ability to meet the demands of a rapidly changing economic landscape,” the report said. “This shortfall underscores a broader challenge for India’s higher education system, which is struggling to keep pace with evolving employer needs.”
While the analysis gave India a full 100 marks on account of economic capacity, the country fared the worst when it came to the parameter of future-oriented innovation in sustainability, both of which are sub-parameters under the larger umbrella of ‘economic transformation’. Here, India scored just 15.6 out of 100. In comparison, the G7 countries scored 68.3, EU countries scored 59, APAC countries scored 44.7, and African countries scored 25.4. Overall, India scored 58.3 on this parameter, which is the lowest among the top 30 countries overall.
“India’s economic transformation has been driven by the interplay of growth, workforce efficiency, and the evolving role of higher education… However, gaps in investment and innovation capacity pose challenges that could slow long-term growth. To fully realise its potential, India must align economic momentum with robust higher education reforms and skills development, ensuring a dynamic and competitive position in the global economy,” the report said.
The report also flagged some areas of improvement for India, saying that the country’s graduates were “struggling to keep up with the pace of change in relevant skills required”.
“India’s overall ‘skills fit’ score is lower than counterparts in APAC, with a particularly large skills gap in ‘entrepreneurial and innovative mindset’”, the report added. As per the India spotlight portion of the report, “employers across India are highlighting a critical gap in the workforce’s ability to meet the demands of a rapidly changing economic landscape”.
This shortfall, the report said, “underscores a broader challenge for India’s higher education system, which is struggling to keep pace with evolving employer needs”. It recommended that to address this, “universities must prioritise embedding creativity, problem solving, and entrepreneurial thinking into their curricula and foster stronger collaborations with industry to better align education with workforce demands”.
