The minimum entry requirement for a geospatial courses is to have a bachelor degree in science, engineering, IT, management. Except for management courses, there is an element of geospatial tools and concept training at the graduation/ post graduation levels. This helps them in joining the geospatial industry. However, most of them prefer to undergo some specialised training before one starts a career in the geospatial industry. Some prefer to go for academic courses in the philosophy of GISciences, besides tools, and then join the industry. Either way, one can look for a job in mainly four verticals, viz., Geospatial Data Creation, Geospatial Application, Geospatial Application developer/ Software developer/ Geospatial Database Management or Geospatial sales/ marketing. Geospatial data creation includes data conversion and data integration. Geospatial Application includes applying the geospatial techniques in different applications like, environment, agriculture, urban planning, etc. Geospatial application developer or customization, as is popularly known, needs additional knowledge of programming. Software developers, who develop the Geospatial software and/ or develop modules, also need good programming skills. Geospatial database management includes managing the back end spatial databases and designing and implementing the data models. This requires further knowledge of database management systems. Although jobs in this category are minimal for a geospatial professional, still few have made their career in this. Another vertical is of marketing/ sales. In this category, one needs to bid for the projects, make software and/ or hardware sales and develop market.

Anyone completing "Diploma" (in civil, mechanical or surveying), after senior school joins the GIS industry. He is either trained "on the job" or undergoes some vocational training in the geospatial tools. Growth in this is limited unless one updates themselves with the upcoming technologies. However, this is true for all fields of IT! Once the person with Diploma qualification, undergoes some formal qualification in geospatial tools, the growth path is much better than the person with just a Diploma. One sad truth about this industry, in India, is that when there is a requirement, companies employ even those who have completed their senior school, but these are the ones who have the least growth opportunities. Overall this option has a low to moderate growth.

A graduate/ postgraduate in geography or related disciplines directly join the industry, without having a formal qualification in the field of geospatial, since some of the departments provide the basic training and education on these available tools and software. However, a formal qualification in geospatial always comes handy, as it teaches the intricacies which one encounters while completing the job requirements. There is a moderate growth upto a level of project management, unless the person moves into programming/ customization or to business development/ sales.

Any person with an engineering (Civil or related disciplines) or IT background (computer applications/ software development) can enter into this industry with basic qualification in geospatial. Since their understanding in application of this technology is limited, they prefer to concentrate on jobs in the database management and/ or product/ application development. Good growth opportunity exists here but is limited by the fact that how often the person updates to keep abreast with the technologies and tools. They can further get into technical sales/ marketing and/ or project sales/ marketing. This has moderate to better growth opportunities in this industry.

Earlier this option was chosen by some from the production stream because they have the necessary understanding of the subject and the client requirements. However, now people with management qualifications are being hired for such requirements with or without formal qualification in geospatial. Although some understanding of the geospatial field always helps to be independent or else for every pre-sales activity, they will have to be accompanied by the people from project/ technical line. This has the maximum growth opportunities and is only restricted by the person's ability to do the sales. A formal qualification in geospatial is always helpful before someone joins the geospatial industry. The growth opportunities vary across the industry and are only limited by your own potential.