Upskilling platforms and coding bootcamps

Bootcamps and courses for the working professional

Many engineering graduates in India finish college without a job offer. Many who do get a job later want a better one. A large industry sells them courses for both: to get a first job, or to move up from the one they have.

What is sold

Coding bootcamps

Short, intensive courses, usually a few months long, that teach the skills for one kind of job, such as full-stack web development or data analysis. Most include help with interviews and job applications.

Pay after placement

Some bootcamps charge little or nothing up front. The student pays the fee only after getting a job, often as a share of salary for a fixed number of months. This way, the bootcamp earns only if its students get hired.

Online degrees and certificates

Universities offer degrees and certificates online, for people who are already working. Companies build and market these programmes for the universities, and share the fees.

Course marketplaces

Websites where teachers and universities publish courses, and anyone can buy them. The website keeps a share of each sale.

Certification courses

Courses that prepare professionals for an industry certificate, such as one in cloud computing or project management.

Cohort-based courses

A group of learners, called a cohort, goes through a course together over some weeks. There are live sessions and a community of fellow learners.

Two ways to pay for a bootcamp: the usual way, where the student pays the fee up front or in monthly instalments before the course, and pay after placement, where the student pays little or nothing up front and then a share of salary for a fixed number of months after getting a job. Newton School, AccioJob and Masai run bootcamps on the second model.

Who pays. Most buyers are individuals: students, and professionals paying for themselves. Many pay the fee in monthly instalments. Companies are the other buyer. They pay to train their own staff. (More on companies' own training in Market Segment 12.8, Corporate learning (LMS) and skills platforms, in Industry Vertical 12, HR tech.)

India has produced a crowded industry of these companies. Many aim especially at graduates whose college did not get them a job.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

This Market Segment has two sub-segments:

Tech bootcamps and job-linked courses: training that leads to a first job in tech

Courses and communities for the working professional: degrees, certificates and courses for people already working

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Tech bootcamps and job-linked courses
Courses and communities for the working professional

Tech bootcamps and job-linked courses

Coding bootcamps, pay-after-placement programmes, skills training for graduates and companies

Training students and companies

NIIT

whose company name is NIIT Limited, has engineers in Delhi. It is one of India's oldest computer-training companies. It trains students and runs training for companies. NIIT has the most job postings in this Market Segment.

NxtWave

founded in Hyderabad, with engineers there, teaches software skills to students from colleges across India, many of them in smaller towns.

Bootcamps paid after placement

Newton School

with engineers in Bengaluru, Delhi and Pune, runs coding bootcamps whose fees are paid after the student is placed. It has also built a college. (More on it in Market Segment 42.7, Tech-led colleges and universities.)

AccioJob

with engineers in Bengaluru, and Masai run coding bootcamps on the same model.

Bootcamps in America

Fullstack Academy

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs American coding and cybersecurity bootcamps.

Four more companies work in this area: Getege EdTech, RiVirtual Academy, SkilloVilla and Refactor Academy.

Courses and communities for the working professional

Online degrees and certificates, course marketplaces, executive programmes, cohort-based courses, professional communities

Online degrees and certificates

upGrad

with engineers in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai, sells online degrees and certificates from Indian and foreign universities.

Simplilearn

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells certification courses to professionals and to companies.

Course platforms

Coursera

with engineers in Bengaluru, and Udemy, with engineers in Chennai, run the world's largest course platforms.

Cohort courses and communities

Digiaccel Learning

with engineers in Delhi, runs online programmes in marketing and business, with simulations and live projects.

GrowthX

with engineers in Bengaluru, and GrowthSchool run cohort courses and communities for product and growth professionals. Growth professionals work on winning and keeping a product's users.

Three ways to sell courses to people already working: online degrees, which a university awards while a company builds and markets the programme and shares the fees (upGrad); course marketplaces, where the website keeps a share of each sale (Coursera and Udemy); and cohort courses, which a group of learners goes through together (GrowthX and GrowthSchool).

Other courses

Airblack

with engineers in Delhi, runs live online workshops in beauty and cooking.

House Of Edtech

with engineers in Kolkata, sells AI courses.

Gururo

sells certification courses.

LEAPS by Analyttica

runs virtual labs, in which learners practise data analytics on real-looking data.

Two companies covered mainly in other Market Segments teach particular professions:

Acron Aviation

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes simulators on which pilots train. (More on it in Market Segment 39.4, Aviation maintenance (MRO) and flight operations software, in Industry Vertical 39, Aerospace, defence and space.)

StockGro

lets people practise trading shares with pretend money. (More on it in Market Segment 20.6, Stock trading apps and personal finance, in Industry Vertical 20, Wealthtech and capital markets.)

The course that AI teaches.

Online courses used to be recorded lectures with quizzes. AI models now tutor each learner, mark their code and projects, and answer questions at any hour. That is what bootcamps charged for. The bootcamps that promised jobs face a harder test. The entry-level coding work they trained people for is work that AI models now do.

That is the market for learning after college: bootcamps that lead to a first job, and degrees, certificates and courses for people already working. It is crowded, much of it is Indian, and AI is changing both what it teaches and how.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What edtech companies hire for.

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