Education and Employability

Unlocking Growth: Skilling Opportunities in India’s BFSI Sector

04 Jul 2025

As India’s economy transforms through sectoral growth and digitalization, the need for targeted skilling has become increasingly urgent. After setting the stage with a broad overview of vocational skilling in India, we dive deeper into the skilling landscape across key high-growth sectors with our three-part newsletter series focusing on BFSI, manufacturing, and healthcare sectors.

We begin this series with a focus on the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) sector, exploring employment trends, critical roles, and emerging skilling priorities shaping the future of this dynamic industry. With a total workforce of 6.1M professionals across banking, NBFCs, insurance, and other financial services, the sector presents significant skilling opportunities.

In this blog, we explore the following aspects:

A breakdown of India’s current BFSI employment structure
Key roles driving employment and headcount growth
A spotlight on the wealth management segment, analyzing both headcount expansion and priority skilling areas

Scale of the BFSI sector

India’s BFSI sector employs 6.1M professionals across blue- and white-collar roles. Banking alone accounts for 2.4M workers, making it the largest sub-sector, followed by NBFCs (2.2M), Insurance (0.5M), and other financial services (1M). Across these segments, the workforce is concentrated in frontline and operational roles - including sales (FOS), collections, and operations - which continue to be the primary engines of hiring.

Exhibit 1: India’s total BFSI workforce stands at 6.1M professionals

Key roles in the sector

The Indian BFSI workforce can be classified into 26 broad roles across frontline, operational, technical, and specialist functions. A significant share of incremental hiring is expected in field and branch-facing roles, which remain critical for customer acquisition and servicing. FOS sales alone are projected to add 300-350K new positions by FY28, followed by steady growth in collections, operations, branch staff, and supervisory roles such as branch and regional managers across both banking and non-banking sectors.

In contrast, technology-led roles - including software development, data analytics, cybersecurity, cloud computing and AI/ML - are expected to contribute over 55K new jobs during the same period, typically offering starting CTCs in the range of INR 6-12 LPA.

Other specialist roles, such as product managers, risk & compliance professionals, and wealth managers, are expected to see modest headcount additions, but command relatively higher salaries at entry, reflecting the niche skill sets they require.

Exhibit 2: 26 key roles identified in the BFSI sector with varying growth opportunities

Role deep-dive: Wealth managers

Wealth managers represent about half of the wealth management workforce and are among the fastest-growing roles in the sector. The number of wealth managers in India is expected to rise from 13.4K in FY24 to 23.5K by FY28, growing at a 15-20% CAGR.

Exhibit 3: Total number of wealth managers to reach 23.5K by FY28 with sales and soft skills emerging as the most critical training priorities

While technical competence is important, the ability to connect with clients and drive sales outcomes remains the primary determinant of success in wealth management roles. Sales and soft skills - such as outreach, client acquisition, communication, grooming, and engagement - are the most critical for wealth managers. Technical skills like product knowledge and portfolio management are also important, reflecting the need for strong financial expertise. Support skills such as problem-solving and tech operations are moderately critical, while specialized skills like tax planning, financial modeling, and advanced Excel are valuable but less essential in day-to-day client interactions.

Conclusion

As India’s BFSI sector continues to grow, skilling remains a critical lever for building a resilient and future-ready workforce. Wealth management is just one example of a role with significant skilling potential - similar opportunities exist across all key functions in the sector, from NBFCs to corporate banking. By identifying role-specific needs and investing in targeted skill development, the sector can unlock meaningful career pathways and drive long-term progress.

In this blog, we have taken a closer look at skilling needs and opportunities within only one role. We’ve conducted similar deep dives across other key roles in the BFSI sector, spanning banking, insurance, etc. If you'd like to explore those insights or discuss specific talent themes in more detail, we’d be happy to connect!

How can Praxis help?
At Praxis, we help clients decode workforce trends and align skilling strategies with sectoral shifts. In the BFSI space, we identify role-specific upskilling needs and assess scalable models to build future-ready talent models. Our frameworks map critical skill gaps to targeted interventions, enabling skilling institutions and BFSI organizations to drive high-impact, sustainable workforce development.