India’s Wind O&M Workforce Could Top 247,000 Roles by 2026: GWEC

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) expects more than 40 GW of wind capacity to be added in India over the next five years. At the global level, depending on policy implementation, investment flow, and grid readiness, GWEC suggests the installed wind fleet could reach 2.1 TW.

The report projects increasing labour needs across both the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) segment and the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) segment. One of the clearest findings of this year’s Outlook is that O&M is becoming a growing share of total onsite workforce requirements as global installed capacity expands and the turbine fleet ages.

While the C&I segment will continue to drive significant—and often peak—labour demand during construction years, the report highlights that O&M needs rise steadily and predictably over time. This trend does not diminish the importance of C&I for delivering new capacity. Instead, O&M is emerging as an increasingly substantial component of total workforce demand as the sector matures.

O&M Contribution

Within the O&M segment, the report shows that Assembly and Pre-Assembly Support Technicians, along with Assembly Technicians, will make up the largest share of jobs—around 140,250 positions in 2025. Electrical work, led by Commissioning Technicians, forms the second-largest segment with about 106,940 jobs.

This demand is expected to increase further in 2026. Assembly-related roles (Pre-Assembly Support Technicians and Assembly Technicians) are estimated to support around 137,340 people, followed by Commissioning Technicians, whose workforce is projected to rise from around 106,940 in 2025 to about 104,750 in 2026.

This steady alignment between employers on job roles provides a strong foundation to forecast workforce needs at a more granular level, particularly when considering the skills required for specific technician responsibilities. While job titles may differ across companies, the purpose of this forecast is not to standardise terminology but to understand the capabilities and experience levels that will be needed as the wind sector continues to expand.

Expanding Hybrid Projects

The GWEC report finds that India is expanding partnerships between developers, OEMs, and utilities through large-scale wind projects, including multi-gigawatt standalone wind and wind–solar hybrid pipelines (e.g., 2 GW and 2.5 GW partnerships). This is emerging as a key approach to accelerate execution and support the energy transition.

The study also shows that if India scales annual installations to 8 GW per year by 2030, it could support around 116,000 direct and indirect jobs, reduce technology costs through higher local manufacturing efficiency, and increase domestic content to above 80%.

A more ambitious 15 GW per year installation scenario could generate about 154,000 jobs, reflecting confidence in India’s strong industrial capabilities and expanding skill-training ecosystem.

The report highlights the role of the National Institute of Wind Energy, a national government agency, and India’s Vayumitra Skill Development Programme, which operates across nine onshore wind states. It also recommends that scaling annual installations to 8 GW by 2030 could support around 116,000 jobs and increase domestic content above 80%, while the 15 GW scenario could position India as a global wind supply-chain hub.

With strong industrial capabilities and a growing skill-training ecosystem, India is well-positioned to build a future-ready, skilled, and inclusive wind workforce that supports accelerated deployment, economic resilience, and long-term national development goals.