Market report

Premier-Institute Talent in India by Role and City, 2026

Data as of 20 September 2026 · By Ravi Dubey, Founder, HyrEzy

At least 8.9% of profiles in HyrEzy's database name a premier institute (IIT, IIM, NIT, BITS, IIIT, IISc, ISB, XLRI and peers, or a global top university). The share is highest among Product Manager (30.6%), CXO & Leadership (24.7%) and Engineering Manager (18.1%), and lowest in DevOps & SRE (2.6%) and QA & SDET (2.2%).

Premier-institute share by role

Share of profiles naming a premier institute.

Source: HyrEzy candidate database, snapshot 20 September 2026. Method
View as table
ShareProfiles
Product Manager31%13,326
CXO & Leadership25%7,062
Engineering Manager18%1,689
Data Scientist17%6,014
Marketing15%10,793
ML Engineer13%2,953
Sales & BD12%23,990
Data Analyst11%23,002
Customer Success11%4,500
HR & Talent10%11,268
AI Engineer8.6%3,512
UI/UX Designer7.5%11,643
Data Engineer6.7%7,237
Full-stack Developer6.2%15,077
Mobile Developer5.8%7,632
Backend Engineer5.6%16,509
Frontend Engineer4.5%17,986
DevOps & SRE2.6%31,526
QA & SDET2.2%53,047

Premier-institute share by city

Share of profiles naming a premier institute.

Noida
8.2%
Pune
6.0%
Source: HyrEzy candidate database, snapshot 20 September 2026. Method
View as table
ShareProfiles
Gurugram14%30,460
Delhi NCR11%1,31,461
Mumbai11%50,290
Bangalore10%1,24,691
Noida8.2%35,595
Hyderabad6.6%59,138
Pune6.0%65,054
Chennai5.8%28,975

How we count it

An institute is matched from the education section of a CV against a closed list: IITs, IIMs, NITs, BITS, IIITs, IISc, XLRI, ISB, ISM, FMS, MDI, SPJIMR, NID, NLUs and AIIMS, plus global elite universities. A mention of an institute outside an education context (for example, entrance-exam coaching) does not count.

Where no institute can be matched with confidence, the profile is counted as not premier. The real shares are therefore a little higher than shown; treat these figures as lower bounds.

Should you filter on pedigree?

Only 8.9% of the pool names a premier institute, so a pedigree filter removes about 91 in every 100 candidates before anyone looks at their work. In DevOps & SRE and QA & SDET the share is just 2.6% and 2.2%. HyrEzy scores what a candidate has built and shipped; education is one of 19 dimensions, not a gate.

Frequently asked questions

What percentage of Indian tech professionals are from IITs or other premier institutes?

In HyrEzy's database, at least 8.9% of profiles name a premier institute. The share varies widely by role, from 30.6% for Product Manager to 2.2% for QA & SDET.

Which city has the highest share of premier-institute graduates?

Gurugram, at 13.7% of profiles, followed by Delhi NCR at 10.5%.

About this data

  • Source: HyrEzy's candidate database, snapshot taken 20 September 2026. 7,07,237 profiles were considered; 1,26,358 of them record a current CTC.
  • Pay is the current CTC a candidate recorded, in ₹ lakh per annum. It is not offer data. Values below ₹1.5 LPA or above ₹250 LPA are excluded as entry errors.
  • Roles are matched on current job title, so "Data Engineer" means people whose current title says so. The pool covers product companies, services companies and enterprises.
  • Expected hike compares expected with current CTC, counting only expectations between 0.8 and 3 times current pay.
  • Privacy: we publish only aggregates. Any group with fewer than 30 CTC records is not shown for pay, and fewer than 10 profiles is not shown at all. No individual can be identified.
  • Notice periods are not reported: imported profiles often store a default value when notice is missing, which makes the field unreliable in aggregate.

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