While India is estimated to produce around 3-4 lakh software engineers every year, it produces 25,000-30,000 aeronautical engineers, which is minuscule. The scope and space for expanding aeronautical education and industry is massive, going simply by the low number of engineers produced each year.
Published Jun 15, 2025 | 12:00 PM ⚊ Updated Jun 15, 2025 | 12:00 PM
the aviation sector in India is poised to become the world's third-largest.
Synopsis: Bengaluru sees 33,000 software graduates every year, and only around 2500 aeronautical graduates. India sees 4 lakh software graduates every year, and only around 25000-30,000 aeronautical graduates. After every crash, we look up to the US Federal Aviation Administration. India’s civil aviation market is huge. Why can’t the country have expertise and produce more aeronautical engineers? The government and industry need to radically galvanise aeronautical engineering now.
The plane crash at Ahmedabad on Thursday, 12 June, is a clear reflection and confirmation of a structural flaw, error, and lack of clarity in India’s engineering vision, policy, education, and capability. Engineering is one-sided and getting homogenised, which threatens Indian engineering capability, careers of students, and cultivation of self-reliance and indigenous prowess.
There is an immediate need to overhaul and diversify India’s engineering ecosystem to enable multiple and versatile capabilities and avenues, whether for careers or the development of industry and infrastructure, or to boost India’s confidence. In simple terms, we need to pivotally and extensively emphasise education and skill training beyond software alone – aeronautics, electronics, mechanical, electrical, and civil – as a national mission and policy, now.
Software is integral to all these disciplines, but these disciplines have skills, elements, and domains that are distinct and lie outside. And in the context of the air crash, aeronautical engineering skills and capabilities are vital.
Consider some engineering trends in the last 6-10 years in Bangalore and India, which explain the need for diversification:
Bangalore has approximately 1.32 lakh (132,000) engineering seats across 245 professional engineering colleges. An estimated 33,000 students pursue software engineering courses, given that nationally, computer engineering is assessed to be the most popular engineering discipline, with about 25% of all students enrolled in this field.
While specific data for Bengaluru is unavailable, nationally, aeronautical engineering constitutes about 1–2% of all engineering disciplines. Applying this proportion, Bengaluru approximately has an estimated 1,300 to 2,500 aeronautical students.
As of early 2025, the city boasts a technology workforce exceeding 1 million professionals, making it Asia-Pacific’s largest tech talent market and placing it among the top 12 global tech hubs, alongside cities like San Francisco, New York, London, and Shanghai. The city’s thriving tech ecosystem is supported by more than 9,000–12,000 software and IT companies, including global giants like Microsoft, Google, SAP, Infosys, Wipro, and numerous startups. Additionally, Bengaluru hosts over 40% of India’s Global Capability Centers (GCCs), which are instrumental in driving research, development, and innovation.
This robust concentration of software engineers and tech professionals underscores Bengaluru’s pivotal role in the global technology landscape. Without doubt, the maximum number of jobs is here, and given that everyone in life needs a job and income, there can be no confusion in further cultivating this sector. But given that other sectors too, especially aviation and aeronautics, are expanding and India’s market size and population enable this expansion and demand, the need for skills beyond software is urgent, useful, and practically required.
Indian software industry is heavily dependent on Western markets, so if something were to go wrong there, the software industry, professionals, and students here would take a hit. Hence, other capabilities and other industries in such a context would enable the survival and prosperity of India’s highly entrepreneurial class. It would also reduce the risk of depending on only one industry and one market (West).
India is estimated to have around 5.2 million (52 lakh) software engineers, making it a leader in the global tech workforce. This number is projected to grow further in the coming years. India produces approximately 1.5 million (15 lakh) engineering graduates annually, making it one of the world’s largest producers of engineers.
A significant number of these graduates specialise in computer science and related disciplines, such as information technology and electronics. Estimates suggest that around 300,000 to 400,000 (3-4 lakh) of these graduates pursue careers in software engineering each year.
However, despite the large number of graduates, there is a notable gap between the number of engineering graduates and the available job opportunities in the software sector. This gap highlights challenges related to employability and the quality of education provided by various institutions.
While this gap exists, it is also true that this sector is a massive employer. There is a need to go beyond this sector, given that the gap exists and that the sector is unable to employ all of them, either because skills are not good enough or room within the software sector is limited – the sector is not expanding and has exhausted possibilities. The need to go beyond software, then, is practical and inevitable.
While India is estimated to produce around 3-4 lakh software engineers every year, it produces 25,000-30,000 aeronautical engineers, which is minuscule. The scope and space for expanding aeronautical education and industry is massive, going simply by the low number of engineers produced each year.
The reasoning to expand this education is buttressed further by the fact Indian aviation market’s potential for expansion is massive, considering that its huge population now wants to fly. While this has been happening already, the intensity and speed with which it should have happened have stuttered and stalled. But this doesn’t detract from the reasoning that Indian aviation is a sector rife with vast career, investment, and industrial opportunities. Consider this – in 2024, the Indian aviation market was valued at approximately USD 14.47 billion, and in 2033, projections indicate that the market could reach USD 40.81 billion, growing at around 12 percent.
Moreover, fleet expansion is looking bright in India. Indian carriers have a substantial order book, with over 1,350 commercial aircraft on order. Passenger Traffic Growth is also looking good. In 2024, domestic passenger traffic was 306.79 million, and international passenger traffic was 69.64 million, up from 152 million domestic passengers and 65 million international passengers traffic in 2023.
India’s aviation sector is experiencing growth. While there are serious bottlenecks that need to be eliminated to sustain this growth, primarily fuel cost, which makes tickets expensive and possibly pre-empt passenger travel. But if we take care of this, aviation has an optimistic future.
Then consider the Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AMEs) domain within Indian aviation – yet another vast career avenue. There are an estimated 7,000 Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AMEs) currently working in India’s Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) facilities. However, industry experts anticipate a significant shortage of AMEs in the coming years as the aviation sector expands, with projections indicating a need for at least 14,000 AMEs over the next eight years.
India and the world, and the media, have been saying for the last five years that the aviation sector in India is poised to become the world’s third-largest. This may not have happened yet, but the potential is realistic, given the scope outlined above.
Given the vast population, the desire to fly even among the less-endowed, the rising income among the middle-class, the need to get to places quickly and comfortably within India due to paucity of time and some discomfort with land travel (which is however improving), the civil aviation market, industry, its demand, passenger traffic and aviation careers are set for growth provided business conditions in the aviation sector ease a great deal. The government is a key player in this mobilisation.
India has around 200+ Aeronautical Engineering colleges. If the sector gets relief from bureaucratic slowdown, opportunities exist in both public and private sectors, including government organisations like ISRO and DRDO, as well as private aerospace companies, airlines, and MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) organisations. Then there are research and development possibilities to enhance aircraft performance, fuel efficiency, minimise environmental impact, and enhance safety, the study, design, construction, manufacturing, and testing of the aircraft and the entire flying vehicles within the Earth’s atmosphere.
Aeronautical engineers can also work as car designers, flight mechanics engineers, graduate engineer trainees, assistant aircraft engineers, aircraft production managers, thermal design engineers, and air safety officers – all of which need trained personnel and skilled education.
The “Make in India” and “Atmanirbhar Bharat” policies that encourage domestic design, development, and manufacturing of aircraft and components have been initiated, no doubt, but they need an emphatic boost considering the potential for aviation expansion in India.
Bottlenecks have to be cleared. Without doubt, the Air India crash is a reminder to steer engineering policy, education, and ecosystem beyond software or to integrate the software narrative more forcefully with sectors like aviation, which is happening.
But there can be no losing sight of the fact that while software will visualise everything in this world for you, the product you build as a result of that visualisation requires skill, education, and capability outside of it. Software will tell the structural integrity of an aircraft, but how you ensure that integrity necessitates an understanding of aircraft weight, load, atmosphere and air, rain, oxygen, and whatnot.
Software is a tool to ensure how an aircraft should fly and be built, but you ought to have an understanding of aircraft dynamics to understand how to deploy software in aircraft operations to ensure passenger safety, for instance. The government is the key player in this regard and should galvanize an army of experts and think-tanks to evolve an Indian ecosystem that produces massively more engineers beyond computer science, in the interest of its population, its needs, and capabilities.
(P Ramanujam is a Science, Space and Technology commentator. Views are personal. Edited by Majnu Babu).
