Top 5 Career Options in India: Best Career Options To Choose in 2021

 After completing their formal education, a large number of students ponder over the wide range of career options in India. Although everybody is made for something different, opting for a career in India that is secure and provides a decent job satisfaction still remains one of the mainstream choices for freshers.

Some major factors you must consider while choosing your career path are- 

Salary

Growth

Security

Brand

Job Satisfaction

Opportunities

Each individual has his/her own preferences. For example, some people love a job that involves a lot of traveling while others prefer to work in a comfy cubicle. However, salary, growth, and job satisfaction are those parameters that are preferred by most of the candidates. 

In this article, we will list out top career options in India to choose from.

Table of Contents

Top Career Options in India

1. Data Science

2. Digital Marketing

3. Product Management

4. Software Engineering

5. Blockchain

Final Words

Top Career Options in India

1. Data Science

Data science can be defined as a process that involves the collection of a structured or unstructured data, pre-processing it to make it readable by algorithms, fetching important details and metrics, and sometimes making predictions, etc. It is considered to be the topmost career option in India because of its vast future offerings. 

To understand this interesting field, let us divide it into further parts-

Data Mining: The job of a data miner is to collect or mine the data from a vast set of structured/unstructured data. The process involves extracting important data points from internal or sometimes publicly available data sources and presenting them in a readable form.

Data Analyst/Scientist: The Data Analyst/scientist team thoroughly investigates the data given to them by the data miners and comes up with interesting insights that help in driving business decisions and identifying potential threats.

Machine Learning Engineers: Machine Learning engineers use the mined data to predict outcomes and analyze the future of a business move. 

Since the dawn of data tools in the 1990s, the opportunities in the field of data science have drastically increased. After some major companies like Google started using useless data piles to their advantage, companies all over the world adopted similar techniques to excel in their particular domains. Hence, for at least a century, data science has become one of the top choices of students for a career in India. 

From the data mentioned above, we can clearly see the rise of data scientist postings on Indeed. It is, in fact, one of the highest booming sectors in the world. Due to its versatility, data science has become a need for all the major organizations across domains and hence is deemed to be one of the best career options in India. This also helps a fresher from any field to fit into the role of a data scientist very easily.

upGrad’s PG diploma program in Data Science acts as a brilliant end-to-end learning experience for any level of candidates to get into a data science career in India. This course will serve as a perfect mixture of different concepts like Predictive Analytics using Python, Machine Learning, Data Visualization, Big Data, Natural Language Processing, etc. It is certified and taught by experienced professors from IIIT Bangalore, along with industry experts who know what it takes to get into this exciting field of data science. 

Read: Data Scientist Salary in India

2. Digital Marketing

For every brand out there, however big or small, promotion of their product stands out to be one of their ultimate jobs. For years, brands have been using different tactics to promote their products in a quest to maximize sales. With the rise of digital tools, especially social media platforms, where a considerable number of people engage every day, the digital form of marketing has become one of the foremost ways of promotions.

Due to this fact, almost all the major brands hire a large number of digital marketing people who can drive strategies for the promotion of their products through different channels of communication. The primary role of a digital marketer is to create campaigns for specific products and even companies in general that help them create an ever-lasting impact on potential customers or clients. A digital marketer is also responsible for creating and maintaining the brand image of a particular company. 

Digital marketing is an essential ingredient that is required for companies to stand out against competitors. The better a brand looks, the better are the sales.

There are multiple channels or techniques used by digital marketers in this mission. 

The major digital marketing career options in India are- 

Content Marketing

Big Data

Marketing Automation

Mobile Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Conversion Rate Optimisation

Internet of Things

Search Engine Optimisation

Wearables

Paid Search Marketing

Online PR

Communities

Display 

Partnerships

As we can see from the above visualization of data, the number of job postings in Digital Marketing has drastically increased over the last decade. This is majorly due to the sharp rise in the number of digital platforms and advancements in technologies. Over the years, more and more people have started engaging with the online forms of content.

Hence, to keep up in this competitive sphere, companies need to strategically come up with techniques that help them to reach out to the customers easily. This requirement has helped in fueling this field to be one of the best career options in India. 

To get a kickstart in digital marketing, you should enroll in upGrad’s Post Graduate Certification in Digital Marketing and Communication. This program has covered all the essentialities that the students would require for developing a career in Digital Marketing. Interestingly, through this program, you will be able to get a grasp on different techniques used in digital marketing like Social Media, Public Relations, Content Promotion and Marketing, Marketing Analytics, and Branding. 

Taught and mentored by experienced professors from Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA), Ahmedabad, and professionals from companies like Facebook, this program will help you ace any post related to digital marketing like SEO Manager, Social Media Specialist, Content Manager, etc. with ease. 

Read: Digital Marketing Salary in India

3. Product Management

A product manager does the task of driving different teams involved in the creation of the best possible product. Think of a product manager as the director of a film. During production, we have actors, writers, musicians, cinematographers, and all the other people required in the process. But, it is the director of the film that drives all these different teams for the perfect product that is delivered to us. 

The role of a product manager rose during the decade of the 2000s when big companies like Google, Facebook, etc. started building big products that required attention to detail and a more customer-oriented approach. A product manager has to look into each and every aspect of a product from different faces and suggest and implement manipulations required to optimize it.

He/she looks into the user experience, how the user is behaving, what particular changes/features do users need, getting user feedback, testing, and rolling out new changes. Apart from this, a product manager also controls the technology aspect, looking over the different frameworks and system designs that are being used in the product.

While doing all these jobs, a Product Manager needs to make the business sense out of his/her decision. Since the ultimate aim of the companies is profit, the product manager needs to think and improvise in a direction where the sales and revenue are increased.

The critical factor that has led to a rise in the number of applicants in product management is that people from different domains like business, UX, tech, etc. can enter the product domain and reach a high-level position in a company easily. Thus, it has become a vibrant choice for a career in India. 

Source

From the above graph, we can see that Product Management provides a perfect combination of salary and job satisfaction. This is majorly due to the fact that the job of a product manager is very dynamic and independent of the timeframes.

One of the best sources to learn product management is upGrad’s Product Management Certification Program. This certification is powered by Duke University, which is long known for its excellence in product management. On top of that, you will also get to learn from top professionals from big companies like Google. 

Read: Average Product Manager Salaries in India

4. Software Engineering

With the rise of digital services and products that are being offered to billions of people, the demand for high-quality software to provide a strong platform for the product or service to function has also increased. Although the basic skill set required to be a software developer is quite easy, it is challenging to reach a point where you can design difficult software without any inefficiencies. 

Hence, most of the big companies generally opt for more experienced candidates while looking for a position. Due to this fact, it is a bit difficult for freshers to get into this career in India, and hence, it is strongly recommended that the candidates should inculcate a firm hold on different data structures and algorithms. These pave the way for the candidates to excel in a software engineering job application.

The job of a software engineer is to develop specialized software according to the needs of the user or client. Apart from this, he/she is also responsible for maintaining the architectures, analyzing potential risks, and targeting the software for the best experience overall. 

Irrespective of the domain in which a particular company operates, software development is required by a majority of them. Even if the company doesn’t operate in a non-digital domain, the software is used to catalyze their daily processes and events. 

Sources

From the above data from Indeed, we can clearly see that making a transition from software development to other fields like data science, data analyst, machine learning, etc. is comparatively easier than others. This is due to the fact that the skills required for software development act as a strong base for any other job in the tech industry. An experienced software engineer already has a decent understanding of different algorithms and frameworks. Hence, understanding the concepts of data handling, prediction and analysis becomes a cakewalk for him/her.

Although it is difficult to get into the field of software engineering easily, Upgrad’s Master’s program in Computer Science can act as a strong catalyst for job application. Taught by experts from the famous Liverpool John Moores University, this course will help you ace the art of software development in an easily understandable manner. 

Read: Software Engineer / Developer Salary in India

5. Blockchain

Although the concept of blockchain was revolving around the silicon valley since the late ’90s, its recognition got a significant breakthrough when Satoshi Nakamoto, an unidentified engineer published a research paper on the futuristic payment system based on Blockchain- cryptocurrency. Once properly discovered, the whole world was shocked, following which multiple other cryptocurrencies like Etherum, Ripple, Lightcoin came up.

But, apart from cryptocurrency, industry people and researchers also started pondering over the use of Blockchain in other domains. Eventually, the basic concept of a blockchain boils down to a simple ledger. Due to this fact, it is used across industries to enhance the security, transparency, and management of the system or a set of systems.

Tools like smart contracts, action management, DBMS, etc. have enabled Blockchain to easily get into the framework setups of companies from different domains. Today, Blockchain is used in 1000s of tech and non-tech industries like public administration, medical, education, etc. and has become the top choice of students to make a career in India in this field. 

Source

The above mentioned 2019 data compiled by Hired precisely shows the growth in demand for Blockchain engineers. The primary reason here is that most of the security attacks that cost billions of dollars to major companies can be decreased to an extent by using Blockchain. Hence, companies prefer to invest more in hiring a large number of Blockchain candidates rather than paying up for the losses that happened due to their irresponsibilities.

Learning Blockchain isn’t an easy task at all. upGrad’s Postgraduate Certificate in Blockchain Technology helps Blockchain aspirants to quickly get their feet into this interesting field without any difficulties. Taught by experienced professionals from IIIT Bangalore, this program is a complete package that will get you acquainted with Ethereum, Hyperledger, smart contracts, Fabric, Composer, Advance JavaScript, NodeJS, etc. These skills are sufficient enough to kickstart your blockchain career in India. 

Read: Blockchain Developer Salary in India

Final Words

Making a career in India or any nation requires students to possess basic knowledge and skills. Many a time students like to choose a different career option than the academic field they have been to, in such cases, this type, of course, is a boon as it provides all the necessary skills and understanding that a candidate may require to reach his/her career goals.  

With the advanced times, skills have become an inevitable requirement that makes people suitable for any work. These career skills, job skills, and employability skills have a significant impact on a person’s workability and help an organization grow.

It is best to upskill yourself with the latest technologies. Checkout upGrad’s top courses in Data Science, Machine Learning, Digital Marketing, MBA & Full Stack Development.

You can also check out our limited-time free courses to utilize this lockdown to upgrade yourself.