Software testing industry is gearing up to be one with an increasing growth potential and is proving it well – for the job seekers. The shortage of Supply is making it an even better option for fresh graduates. For India, to be prepared to grab a 9.1 billion USD pie of the outsourced testing market, the major challenge is to overcome the shortage of skilled resources. As per estimates, there is a shortage of 22,000 testers and potentially there will be a shortfall of 40,000 more in the years to come.

1. Career of Software Tester
Software Testers in High Demand!
Software testing industry is gearing up to be one with an increasing growth potential and is proving it well
– for the job seekers. The shortage of Supply is making it an even better option for fresh graduates.
According to Gartner, independent testing as a business globally is growing at 40 – 50 per cent and there
is a 35-40 per cent growth in offshore testing services. As per the estimates of Ovum, US alone spends a
total of US$ 59 Billion on Software Testing. Of this total spend, only a meager US$ 13 Bn is outsourced
as a service to the Asian countries. Given the reputation of India as an IT Country, a total of 70%, totaling
to US$ 9.1 Bn is garnered by Indian IT Service Providers. The Application Development and maintenance
market has only demonstrated a CAGR of 19% year on year, in comparison to 47% by the Independent
Testing Services.
Given the growth opportunity, and saturation of the Application Development & Maintenance Business, all
IT majors have made their investments in Software Testing Services. This is evident from the fact that all
IT majors now have testing centers of excellence and offer independent testing service. “Till a few years
back, the average deal sizes in outsourced testing projects were about $50-60,000 requiring a few testers
to be on the job. Only certain parts/types of testing were being outsourced to India.
Currently, independent software vendors (ISV) are outsourcing end-to-end testing projects and the
average deal sizes are around 2-4 million USD,” notes Pradeep C, CEO, Edista Testing Institute.
For India, to be prepared to grab a 9.1 billion USD pie of the outsourced testing market, the major
challenge is to overcome the shortage of skilled resources. As per estimates, there is a shortage of
22,000 testers and potentially there will be a shortfall of 40,000 more in the years to come.
This shortage is now a major concern for the IT service organizations, and the time to source ready
deployable talent to fulfill the project needs is also a pressing business priority. Unfortunately, many
academic organizations, training institutes cannot perform this activity in a large scale manner, with
effective output putting a major roadblock for the growth of the industry. The problem does get
complicated, when individual students do not opt for Testing as a good career option. But this lack of
interest is due to multiple factor ranging from lack of awareness, correct insights into the profession, no
demonstrated career paths, and no proper education methods for the students.
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2. In addition, (and in my opinion), the current education programs provided by independent training
institutes in the market do not meet industry expectations. While the industry ideally looks forward to a
resource that is truly industry-ready and with minimal intervention of further training which can be
deployed, most programs provide superficial knowledge and do not concentrate on testing skill
development, thereby not capable of providing industry-ready software testers. The challenge we need to
work on is in devising a curriculum that teaches enough and that includes relevant topics that are covered
in depth. In addition to devising the curriculum, delivering it, there is a need for a industry wide common
agreement on the competency framework for testing professionals, and an acceptance by the industry
members for the same framework.
Considering the present growth and potential in the software testing industry, the opportunities for
software testers are enormous. While there is not enough training available to them, the pay package is
certainly very encouraging with entry level salaries range anywhere between 1.4-3.6 lakhs. A career in
testing can be as challenging and interesting as a development job. In fact, in a few companies these
days, software testers get paid even more than software developers.
Customers will want to ensure that software bugs don't eat up their dollar investments, and will demand
better testing. This would make the total investments in Testing only grow, and this would mean that
Testing is here to stay, and there is a great career for individuals with this skill sets.
Author Bio:
Pradeep Chennavajhula
The author is currently working as CEO,
Edista Testing Institute & is based at
Bangalore. As part of his current role, PC
spends his time evangelizing, & promoting of
the profession of Software Testing and
Quality with Students, Corporates, &
Academic Institutions across Asia. You can
reach him at pradeep.c@edistatesting.com
Our next article: Role of a Software Tester.
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