Kotak Mahindra Bank’s FY26 hiring focussed on AI, cloud talent; overall workforce shrinks by 1,269

Fourth largest private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank's FY26 workforce emphasis was on specialised technology hiring. The lender as per its Annual Report 2025-26 recruited talent in software engineering, DevOps, cloud and AI & data engineering.

The bank said it expanded teams across Software Engineering, DevOps & Cloud, and AI & Data Engineering during FY26 while also facilitating around 6,500 internal employee movements through its AI-powered "My Kareer" platform.

Compared with FY25, bank's talent strategy focussed on STEM hiring, leadership development and technology capabilities

Kotak's standalone workforce declined to 74,054 employees as of March 31, 2026 from 75,323 a year earlier.

Permanent employees fell to 60,357 from 61,170 in FY25, while other-than-permanent employees declined to 13,697 from 14,153. Overall employee strength has reduced for two consecutive years.

Managing Director & CEO Ashok Vaswani said more than 200 branch processes had been centralised into operations hubs, enabling frontline employees to focus more on customer engagement. He added that "headcount optimisation is being achieved through process simplifications and technology".

Attrition

Permanent employee turnover improved further during FY26 to 32.5 per cent, compared with 33.3 per cent in FY25 and 39.6 per cent in FY24.

During FY26, permanent employee exits stood at:

• Senior management: 56
  
• Middle management: 1,503
  
• Junior employees: 18,036
  
• Other employees: 135
  

Alongside external hiring, Kotak expanded internal mobility during FY26, facilitating approximately 6,500 internal role movements.