TCS adds 4,258 staff in Q2 and onboards 10,000 freshers as AI shapes hiring

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest IT services company, added 4,258 employees in the July to September 2026 quarter, taking its total workforce to 598,056 at the end of September. The figures came with the company's second-quarter results for the 2026-27 financial year (Q2 FY27), released on Thursday, 8 October 2026. It was the third quarter in a row in which TCS's headcount grew, after a period of workforce restructuring in the previous financial year. The company said it onboarded about 10,000 freshers during the quarter, and that attrition in its IT services business eased to 13.3% from 13.6% in the previous quarter. Its chief human resources officer, Sudeep Kunnumal, said the company is hiring for demand, especially in areas such as artificial intelligence.

TCS hires tens of thousands of graduates a year, so its numbers are watched closely by students, colleges and the wider job market. Indian IT has been through a cautious stretch, with worries about client spending and about AI tools reducing the need for junior coders, and TCS itself restructured its workforce in the last financial year. Three straight quarters of net additions at TCS suggest the worst of that period may be over, at least at the country's largest IT employer.

The message for job seekers is mixed but useful. On one hand, TCS is still bringing in freshers in large numbers, about 24,000 in the first half of the year, close to the roughly 25,000 offers it made at the start of the year. On the other hand, the company has made clear that future hiring will follow client demand rather than a fixed target, and that the demand it sees is concentrated in AI and other emerging technologies. In plain terms, the jobs are there, but the skills being asked for are changing.

The rise in learning hours points the same way. TCS logged 17.1 million hours of employee training in the quarter, up 17% from the previous quarter, as it retrains staff for AI-related work. For graduates and early-career engineers, the signal is that skills in AI and related technologies are becoming a larger part of what large IT employers look for.

Short-term: Students in final-year engineering and computer science courses can expect TCS's campus hiring for 2027-28 to continue, with offers weighted toward candidates who show skills in AI and related areas. Lower attrition means fewer openings from people leaving, so most new roles will come from fresh demand.

Long-term: If the trend holds, TCS's steady additions could encourage other IT firms to resume hiring after a cautious stretch. The steady shift toward AI work means that upskilling, both before and after joining, will matter more for careers in Indian IT.

Who is affected: Engineering and computer science graduates, TCS employees, colleges that rely on IT campus placements, and other IT services companies that compete with TCS for talent.

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