MUMBAI, JUNE 28, 2024: While the global economic landscape has seen its ebbs and flows, and the very nature of work has undergone significant shifts, India's technology sector has consistently remained the mainstay of office demand. From 2017 through Q1 2025, the sector amassed an impressive 130.8 million sq. ft of gross leasing, accounting for ~31% of the cumulative gross leasing across the top seven markets of India. After a temporary dip during the pandemic, tech sector leasing has strongly rebounded to 26% in 2024 and further to 30% of total office leasing in Q1 2025 (January- March 2025).

Gross Leasing by tech occupiers

India's GCCs are rapidly transitioning from basic cost-arbitrage centers to become hubs for innovation, research and development, and global business transformation. This evolution is mirrored in India's service export trends, where the proportion of business services has grown significantly from 19% in 2017-18 to 26% in 2023-24. This increase signals that India is exporting more high-value, complex services, rather than just transactional IT support. The consistent growth of business services, contrasting with the stable share of software services, underscores India's move up the value chain in the global services market.

India's commercial real estate market is undergoing a fundamental transformation driven by technology sector dynamics, with several key trends emerging. The relationship between talent and real estate has become symbiotic and self-reinforcing. Established tech hubs like Bengaluru and Hyderabad continue to dominate not because of cost advantages, but due to deep talent pools that create virtuous cycles of growth and innovation. Ther is a strategic shift from traditional single-location models to more sophisticated hub-and-spoke approaches. Organizations are maintaining innovation centres in Tier-I cities while leveraging emerging Tier-II and Tier-III locations for business continuity and cost optimization. For property investors and developers, asset obsolescence has become a critical concern. The market increasingly rewards properties with advanced digital infrastructure and collaborative environments that cater specifically to tech occupiers' evolving needs. There is an emergence of integrated “live-work-play” environments and complementary asset classes like data centres and specialized R&D facilities - signalling that real estate success in India now depends less on traditional metrics like rent levels and more on understanding talent flows and technological imperatives. This evolution represents a paradigm shift where workspace strategy and talent strategy have become inseparable, fundamentally changing how location decisions are made across the Indian commercial real estate landscape.

JLL is India’s premier and largest professional services firm specialising in real estate. The Firm has grown from strength to strength in India for the past two decades. JLL India has an extensive presence across 10 major cities (Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Kochi, and Coimbatore) and over 130 tier-II and III markets with a cumulative strength of over 16,000 professionals. The Firm provides investors, developers, local corporates, and multinational companies with a comprehensive range of services. These include leasing, capital markets, research & advisory, transaction management, project development, facility management and property & asset management. These services cover various asset classes such as commercial, industrial, warehouse and logistics, data centres, residential, retail, hospitality, healthcare, senior living, and education. For further information, please visit jll.com.