TL;DR: India’s services sector drives over half the country’s economy, with high-value professional services like engineering and accounting emerging as major export engines. Backed by a growing network of Global Capability Centers, the sector is shifting toward strategic, high-tech roles. However, modernizing trade rules and easing strict regulations in fields like law and accounting remain key to unlocking its full potential.

Context

Over the last three decades, the services sector has become the primary driver of India’s economic growth, accounting for 55% of the country’s GDP and Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2023-24. India is now the seventh-largest services exporter in the world, holding a 4.3% global market share. At the heart of this success are high-value professional services, such as engineering, legal, accounting, architecture, and healthcare, which supply essential expertise across every industry, create skilled jobs, and bring in valuable foreign exchange.  However, to unlock the sector’s full potential, its complex regulatory landscape must be modernized, as highlighted by NITI Aayog in its report titled ‘India’s Services Sector: Insights on Regulatory Regime in Professional Services’. Today, while professions like law and medicine face strict entry rules, others like engineering operate with minimal formal oversight.

Who compiled this data?
The data has been compiled by NITI Aayog in its report, ‘India’s Services Sector: Insights on Regulatory Regime in Professional Services’. The data has been sourced in the report from multiple sources such as RBI, the Economic Survey, and OECD & UNCTAD databases.

Where can I download clean & structured data related to this?

Clean, structured, and ready-to-use datasets on trade, employment, and economy are available on Dataful.

Key Insights

• The services sector anchored India’s economic growth in 2023-24, contributing 55% to both total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Value Added (GVA). This pushed India to become the seventh-largest services exporter globally, with its market share expanding from 2% in 2005 to 4.3% in 2024. 

• Professional and management consulting services emerged as a key sub-sector, accounting for nearly 20% of India’s total services exports in 2024-25. Overall professional services exports grew at 18% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2014-15 and 2024-25, while imports grew at an 8% CAGR over the same decade. 

• Engineering services is the largest trade driver, with exports surging from $1,769 million in 2014-15 to $13,766 million in 2024-25 at a 22.8% CAGR, while imports rose modestly from $1,592 million to $1,734 million. The sector maintains high openness with an OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) score of 0.155, ranking 38th out of 51 countries. 

• Accounting, auditing, and bookkeeping exports grew over fivefold, expanding from $617 million in 2014-15 to $3,324 million in 2024-25, alongside $181 million in imports. However, the sector faces heavy entry restrictions, scoring 0.762 on the OECD index and ranking as the 4th most restrictive globally. 

• Legal services exports grew steadily from $852 million in 2014-15 to $1,279 million in 2024-25, while legal imports grew from $326 million to $750 million. Legal services remain the most restricted sub-sector in India’s portfolio with an OECD score of 0.865 (3rd most restrictive globally) due to firm incorporation bans and advertising restrictions.

• Architectural services exports increased from $603 million in 2014-15 to $793 million in 2024-25, while imports fell from $416 million to $305 million, registering an OECD restrictiveness score of 0.537. Health services exports grew from $270 million in 2014-15 to $723 million in 2024-25, supported by cross-border demand and medical value travel.

• The shift toward high-value, knowledge-intensive services is being heavily accelerated by the presence of approximately 1,700 Global Capability Centres (GCCs) across India, which currently employ over 1.9 million professionals in sophisticated roles like AI development, financial modelling, and legal analytics. 

• Beyond driving export revenues, the broader services sector remains a fundamental pillar of the domestic economy by accounting for nearly 30% of total employment in India and consistently serving as the top recipient of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows. 

Why does it matter?
This rapid expansion reveals that professional services are no longer mere back-office operational units but are central enablers of India’s economic resilience, global trade integration, and high-skilled employment. The data highlights a stark dual reality within the ecosystem. While open sub-sectors like engineering have leveraged minimal regulatory barriers to scale exports beyond $13.7 billion, highly protected domains like law, accounting, and architecture remain constrained by rigid entity rules, advertising bans, and strict foreign entry barriers. 

Addressing these regulatory gaps is critical as India approaches its demographic peak and advances toward its 2047 vision. Modernizing domestic frameworks by streamlining licensing, enabling flexible corporate structures like LLPs, enforcing continuous professional development, and actively pursuing Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) will directly boost the ease of doing business. Upgrading these regulatory foundations allows India’s 1.9 million-strong talent pool to transition beyond cost-led execution, move up the global value chain into high-margin strategic advisory roles, and secure a dominant share of the global knowledge economy.

Key Numbers

• 55% — Services Sector Share of GDP (2023-24)

• 2% → 4.3% — Global Services Export Share (2005 → 2024)

• $1.77B → $13.77B — Engineering Exports Growth (2014-15 → 2024-25)

• $617M → $3.32B — Accounting Exports Growth (2014-15 → 2024-25)

• 1,700 | 1.9M — India GCCs | Workforce Employed