Hyderabad: upGrad, a global skilling company, today announced the expansion of its Learning Support Centre (LSC) network across India, opening 2 new centres in Hyderabad. This expansion strengthens its phygital learning ecosystem aimed at delivering accessible, high-impact, and job-ready skilling for India’s youth and early professionals.
Building on its successful pilot phase, upGrad has already launched 11 operational centres in Pune, Kolkata, Indore, Bhopal, Bengaluru and others, and now plans to scale the network to 40 centres by March 2026 to bring hybrid learning closer to learners across metros and Tier-II cities.
The new centres form a strategic part of this national expansion, aligning a strong local skilling push with upGrad’s broader phygital roadmap. Each LSC leverages upGrad’s proven model that blends digital scalability with offline guidance, enabling graduates and early professionals to gain hands-on practice, structured mentorship, and real-world exposure. By preparing local youth and early professionals with application-first skills that match these emerging roles, the centre strengthens Hyderabad’s employability pipeline and enables fresh talent to access job opportunities within the region’s fast-modernising industries – tech, GCC, and digital-first roles.
Designed as high-impact learning pods, these centres offer 4-6-month courses in high-demand domains such as Data Science, AI / ML, and Full Stack Development. The initiative is a key step in upGrad’s mission to ‘Upskill India’ with industry-relevant skilling accessible, affordable, and outcome-driven for India’s growing workforce – especially who seek instant upskilling for career acceleration.
“With millions of graduates entering the workforce every year, India stands at the cusp of aspiration and opportunity, and yet there’s a widening gap between what employers expect and what traditional institutions deliver. This is where we want to build a strong industry differentiator with our offline LSCs – not coaching centres, but learning meant for making learners Job Ready,” said Manish Kalra, COO – Offline, upGrad, while commenting on the expansion.
“With over 10 years in professional skilling, we’ve seen how learning patterns have evolved; individuals today succeed fastest when they combine academia with industry and guided mentorship, which follows real-world applicability. Hyderabad’s emergence as a GCC-facing tech and digital hub has created a surge in demand for job-ready skills in AI and ML, cloud technologies, and Data Science. Our Learning Centre is timely for the city’s talent pipeline, serving as a natural extension of what we do at upGrad by bringing together our expertise and peer-to-peer learning to redefine how freshers or early professionals could look at acquiring an instant skilling edge. These short-format courses are designed by industry practitioners keeping in mind the technical depth and essential power skills required for this next-gen economy. By offering localized learning pods that combine practical exercises, peer collaboration, and mentoring with flexible online content, we are enabling learners to convert theoretical knowledge into applied skills and fast-track career growth in Hyderabad’s rapidly evolving corporate landscape,” he added.
According to industry reports, India produces nearly 1.5 million engineering graduates each year, yet employability remains a challenge, with only about 45% meeting industry standards. upGrad’s phygital model directly addresses this gap by combining the scalability of online learning with the depth of offline mentorship, enabling learners to build job-ready, application-oriented skills aligned with evolving industry needs.
As part of its expansion strategy, upGrad is opening doors for young entrepreneurs who wish to make a meaningful impact in India’s skilling landscape by becoming franchise partners and helping the brand take employability-led learning to every corner of the country. This nationwide rollout follows a successful pilot phase last year (2024), which validated the model’s effectiveness as a sustainable and high-impact approach to workforce skilling.