India’s Solar Market – A Booming New Job Factory

* The rise in the number of solar manufacturers and deeper backward integration has driven a surge in demand for unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled professionals.

* Employment opportunities have expanded across manufacturing, management, installation, on-ground support, and O&M services in India.

* However, skill gaps in emerging areas such as solar cell manufacturing, automation, AI, and cybersecurity remain a key challenge.

* With renewables crossing the 50% milestone in capacity share in 2025, they are set to deliver more jobs than legacy thermal and coal soon.

The Indian solar market is expanding at an unprecedented scale as it continues to diversify and grow. This surge has triggered a parallel wave of job creation, extending from India’s hinterlands to major urban and industrial hubs across the country.

The rise in the number of solar companies is also reflected in government data. When MNRE released the first ALMM list on April 10, 2021, it included just 23 solar module manufacturers. By the end of 2025, the ALMM was headed towards 100 enlisted module manufacturers and about 10 solar cell makers. The surge in solar manufacturing has accompanied rising demand that has fed surging  EPC, installation, and O&M jobs as well. A trend that will only grow when one considers how signature projects like PM Suryaghar (at under 30% of targets, PMKUSUM (Under 35% of targets) and multiple state level initiatives have a long way to go yet. India’s 500 GW target for 2030 does not even include incremental demand from Green Hydrogen, expected to start contributing from 2028 onwards possibly. For the record, the 5 MTPA target for green hydrogen will itself create demand for almost 100 GW of additional solar capacity.A lot of jobs, in short.

As per an estimate by the Skill Council for Green Jobs and JP Morgan, India is set to see 2 million jobs in the solar sector alone by the end of 2040 and around 1 million jobs by 2030. Industry experts also claim that the industry has become a new hotbed for jobs and is set to expand.

“Recent industry estimates indicate that India’s renewable energy sector already supports over 1.3 million jobs and could generate up to 3 million jobs by 2030, reflecting the scale of deployment underway. This momentum is being reinforced by strong policy support across the value chain, particularly the push for domestic manufacturing, localisation of supply chains, and visible multi-year demand through utility-scale tenders and distributed solar programmes,” Kushaagra Nandan, Co-Founder, LNK Energy told Saur Energy. LNK Energy is looking to create 4000 jobs eventually, with 500 this year as it expands. “Overall, renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure together will remain among the most important engines of job creation in the coming decade, and we intend to scale responsibly with the sector”, adds Nandan.

“The outlook for jobs in the renewable energy sector is very positive. As India accelerates its clean energy targets and expands solar, wind, hybrid, energy storage, and green hydrogen projects, the sector is creating significant opportunities across engineering, manufacturing, project execution, O&M, and digital energy management. Renewables are not only driving sustainability but also becoming a major employment generator,” Affan Patel, Whole Time Director of KP Group said.

What are the Job Hotspots?

Solar manufacturing is in the spotlight. Experts working in the sector state  that most solar module and cell manufacturing companies are expanding by adding new production lines, leading to the acquisition of new talent and increasing opportunities for professionals to assimilate into the booming market.

For example, Surat-based Shravan Gupta, MD of Cosmic PV Power, said the company began operations with 20 employees. By FY 2023–24, its employee base had grown to around 100–150, and in the current FY 2025–26 it employs over 1,500 people as it operates multiple module manufacturing units with a cumulative capacity of 3 GW. This expansion followed rapid capacity additions—from 100 MW till March 2024 to 1,400 MW in the current fiscal, with another 1,600 MW added in January 2026.

“This rapid expansion has required hiring a large number of employees in a short span of time. Many employees have joined through contractors from different states, creating a highly diverse workforce. As companies grow bigger, the demand for CFOs, CTOs and several CXO-level roles will increase, creating opportunities for multidisciplinary professionals to join this sector at fair and competitive remuneration compared to other sectors,” Gupta told Saur Energy.

Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital, a staffing solutions company in Bangalore, told Saur Energy that salaries in the solar sector have come at par with IT jobs and are even better in many cases for fresh graduates coming out of engineering colleges.

“Salary parity is beginning to emerge. Entry-level IT engineers typically earn around ₹4 lakh per annum, and the solar sector is now offering comparable starting salaries in the range of ₹4–4.45 lakh per annum. This signals that the sector is becoming more competitive in attracting talent,” Sharma told Saur Energy.

LNK’s Nandan adds that “A key gap also exists in leadership talent with proven experience in scaling industrial and infrastructure platforms, as renewable energy businesses evolve into long-term asset owners. In parallel, demand is rising for digital and analytics capabilities across predictive maintenance, performance optimisation, forecasting and energy management systems.”

Companies admit that with all firms in expansion mode since the past two years, existing employees benefit from increasing salaries based on their talent, acquired training, and experience, especially in shopfloor jobs, which ensure timely and quality production of modules for instance. On average, a 1 GW solar module plant demands around 350–800 employees in total across production, IT, HR, finance, accounts, security, and other functions, depending on the degree of automation.

Cosmic's Gupta said that experienced professionals are now commanding significantly higher salaries. “Operators in quality departments who earlier earned ₹20,000–25,000 per month are now earning ₹50,000–75,000 per month. Managers today earn between ₹50,000 to ₹5 lakh per month. Plant managers who earlier earned around ₹75,000 per month are now earning ₹3–5 lakh per month. Many companies increase compensation as employees gain experience and as the business scales up.”

Perks in Solar Jobs

Experts said that solar professionals are not only limited to their monthly remuneration but are often entitled to incentives for record production or execution on the ground, giving employees and workers financial motivation to thrive in the segment.

“One of the unique aspects of the renewable sector is the opportunity for faster skill-led growth and performance-linked incentives. Many organisations increasingly align compensation with productivity, quality, and project outcomes, while also offering the satisfaction of contributing to a purpose-driven industry. This combination of professional growth, stability, and impact makes renewables an attractive career choice for the long term,” Hardip Singh, COO, GREW Solar told Saur Energy.

Not only manufacturers, EPC companies involved in on-ground execution of projects said that workers are often rewarded for early commissioning of projects on site.

“In terms of compensation, renewable companies increasingly link incentives to project performance, generation efficiency, commissioning timelines, and sustainability targets. Long-term value creation, innovation, and operational excellence are key drivers of rewards in this sector,” Affan Patel, Whole Time Director of KP Group told Saur Energy.

And then there is also the matter of ESOPs. The sector has seen a rush of firms heading to the public markets, with every quarter seeing 2-3 firms go public in 2025. And more in the queue for 2026-27.  This has meant the emergence of Employee Stock Options as a key tool to hire and retain employees for firms, with vesting periods typically running up to 5 years. Many firms that have raised multiple rounds of funding before their actual listing already count most key employees as shareholders as well. However, what might be crimping the benefits is the drop in valuations of the listed forms across manufacturing, EPC and developers, based mainly on fears of overcapacity and margin pressure. As the market finally balances out between greed and fear, expect the solar sector to throw up its own share of employee millionnaires as well in due course.

Hiring Trends

Most solar companies said they prefer to hire from local communities, especially for blue-collar jobs, while also leveraging skilled and semi-skilled professionals trained locally at ITIs or nearby institutions. They said local hires often lead to more stability and inclusion of local communities.

Inox Solar, which is setting up its integrated solar module and cell plant in Dhenkanal district in Odisha, said that the firm is likely to create 3,000 jobs in the region. Odisha in fact has showered solar firms with attractive incentives in the hope of the job creation the sector will lead to.

“At our Dhenkanal facility, we are hiring more than 3,000 people. We are hiring a number of employees locally from Odisha for the plant. For many entry-level workers, we first get them trained at the nearest ITI to boost their usability in our module plants. After their ITI training, we also internally train them for three months to make them ready to handle the machines, ensuring higher productivity and safety, as factories cannot take the risk of sending untrained professionals to manufacturing machines,” Shailendra Tandon, Senior HR Business Partner (Corporate), Inox Solar told Saur Energy.

Several solar companies said they have structured campus placement drives to recruit fresh graduates from engineering and other colleges, while trained professionals from government training institutes, ITIs, and other bodies are also included, though most are further trained internally.

However, solar companies admitted that the largest challenge now is the dearth of experienced, qualified professionals at the mid, senior, and leadership levels.

Several government initiatives and collaborations are now trying to bridge the gap. Arpit Sharma, CEO of the Skill Council for Green Jobs (SCGJ), told Saur Energy that the government body is training prospective professionals to make them suitable for solar jobs, including training trainers, collaborating with industries, and developing curricula for educational institutions.

“We are continuously undertaking training of solar professionals to boost their job prospects. Under the PM-Surya Ghar scheme also, we are training 20,000 people to make them aware about rooftop solar installations. We have also trained several women Seva Mitras who are undertaking the task of solar installations in the Rann of Kutch. We are also training personnel on solar module manufacturing to make them enter the manufacturing business, which seems to be expanding in India,” Sharma told Saur Energy.

According to a report by IRENA, globally India was ranked second after China in creating maximum employment in the solar sector. “By country, China accounted for 58% of global PV employment in 2024, or some 4.2 million jobs. Of Europe’s estimated 821 200 PV jobs in 2024, 764 400 were in EU Member States. India had an estimated 384 900 solar jobs – 304 300 jobs in grid connected solar and 80 600 in off-grid settings. The United States had close to 280 100 PV jobs in 2024,” the report said. 

New Technologies – Highest Demand, Peak Salaries

As several solar manufacturers expand into solar cell, wafer, and ingot manufacturing, they face a major challenge: the shortage of skilled Indian professionals with experience in solar cell manufacturing. With the introduction of ALMM, the complexity is likely to widen. Experts said legacy solar cell firms may be least affected, but new players could face a major bottleneck. A similar trend is emerging as the BESS sector rises and several firms plan to start solar glass businesses.

Gaps in Solar Jobs

Avinash Hiranandani, Vice Chairman, RenewSys told Saur Energy, “In solar cell manufacturing, skill shortages are expected to be more pronounced. Companies will need to rely on OEMs supplying machinery to quickly learn and build operational expertise, as there is limited time to adapt. Beyond solar cells, manufacturers must also prepare for upstream processes such as ingots and wafers. Organizations with a decade or more of experience in handling cell lines are better equipped to manage these challenges and train their workforce effectively. However, new entrants to the sector will face significant hurdles in building this expertise.”

Neeti Sharma from TeamLease Digital said that while jobs and pay parity are rising, there is a lack of awareness in educational institutions about the solar sector, which does not yet have a long legacy like IT, as well as limited awareness of government training programmes.

“The Karnataka government has introduced initiatives such as the Nipuna scheme, which incentivizes industries to train and absorb skilled workers. Under such schemes, the government supports the skilling process, after which candidates are deployed into industry roles. There are also formal programs like NAPS, NATS, and state-level apprenticeship missions focused on employability. Unfortunately, both industry players and young job seekers often lack awareness about these opportunities,” Neeti added.

“What remains relatively scarce are experienced professionals who combine technical understanding with a quality mindset and execution experience. As India scales in-house manufacturing and backward integration, bridging this skill gap through training and on-the-job learning will be essential to building a reliable and globally competitive solar manufacturing ecosystem,” Singh from GREW Solar said.

“The biggest shortage is of people with real, hands-on experience, especially at the mid and senior levels. Many candidates have academic knowledge but lack exposure to live projects, site execution, and regulatory processes. There is also a gap in trained technicians at project sites who can handle installation, commissioning, and maintenance safely and efficiently. Overall, the industry needs more job-ready talent that can quickly move from planning to execution without long training periods,” Patel from KP Group said.

Conclusion

India’s solar sector has clearly evolved into one of the country’s fastest-growing employment engines, driven by domestic manufacturing expansion, large-scale project deployment, and the integration of storage, digitalisation and advanced technologies. From shopfloor technicians and project engineers to data specialists and CXOs, the breadth of opportunities is widening rapidly. Rising salary benchmarks, performance-linked incentives and faster career progression are further strengthening the sector’s appeal, signalling that renewables are no longer a niche career choice but a mainstream, long-term professional pathway.

Yet, the story is equally defined by the scale of the talent challenge. The industry’s demand for job-ready technicians, experienced mid-level professionals and leadership talent continues to outpace supply. Skill gaps in solar cell manufacturing, automation, AI and advanced engineering highlight the urgent need for deeper industry–academia collaboration, stronger awareness among students and wider adoption of apprenticeship and training programmes. The success of India’s solar manufacturing and deployment ambitions will depend as much on human capital as on policy support and investment.

Govt Schemes & Programmes For Skilling & Solar Jobs

Conclusion: It’s time for all stakeholders in the green transition to make green jobs a part of the conversation everywhere. Not only does that help with faster buy-in of politicians, communities and others, but it is a fact that has been undersold till now frankly. As firm after firm talks about the struggle with finding enough skilled people, it is time to work on creating pathways between academia and industry, where there is still a disconnect. As always in India, efforts are on after the event to fill the gaps, but much more needs to be done, faster, to make it work for everyone. It is no longer a matter of tens of hundreds, but of hundreds of thousands of jobs, when we get down to it.