Europe hiring by IT firms set to go up with deal wins on the rise

TCS to hire 1,500 employees in UK; with large deals coming from Europe headcount will go up, say analyst

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services firm, has announced that it will recruit 1,500 technology employees across the UK over the next year.

The announcement followed Monday’s meeting in Mumbai between visiting UK Trade Secretary Liz Truss and TCS CEO, Rajesh Gopinathan, during which they discussed the company’s commitment to continue investing in UK’s economy, innovation, technology sector, and in developing workforce skills.

UK contributed GBP 2.7 billion (Rs 270 crore) to TCS revenue at the end of FY20. The company has had its presence in the UK for 45 years. TCS is the second largest among UK software and IT services companies in UK. TCS is the largest provider of third-party policy administration services in the life insurance and pensions industry.

“This development builds on the great work TCS is delivering to our UK customers. Our sustained investments have made TCS the preferred growth and transformation partner of our valued customers in the UK, allowing them to digitally transform their business for competitive growth,” said Rajesh Gopinathan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, TCS in a statement.

It is not TCS alone that is hiring more. Indian players such as Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies who have been winning large deals in Europe are also adding on to their onshore presence. Analyst says that most of the large deals have also meant rebadging of employees or these deals also have a large number of people take over.

For instance, when Infosys signed one of its-largest ever deals with German automaker Daimler worth $3.2 billion it also agreed to transfer 600 employees from the automaker to Infosys. Similarly, Wipro agreed to take over close to 1,300 employees when Metro signed a $700 million deal. Employees of Metro from Germany, Romania and India were transferred to Wipro as a part of the deal.

In case of TCS when it acquired select assets of Pramerica Systems Ireland, an subsidiary of Prudential Financials, close to 1,500 staff of Pramerica were also transferred to TCS.

“Continental Europe has been a challenge for Indian players due to the presence of large labour unions and language barrier. But as companies focus on their core and work closely with their IT partners and give more work to them, they are also making them transfer employee rather than fire them. Rebadging of employees is becoming an integrated part of large deals,” said Pareekh Jain, founder and lead analyst, EIIRTrend.