Geospatial Industry worldwide has been going through a phase of transformation from being a specialized and domain specific industry to a more consumer oriented and is also being brought into the mainstream. Technological developments in the field of geospatial imaging through satellite imaging and speedy processing in particular, has fuelled the much required need of updated geospatial dataset. This has resulted in opening up of bigger market for geospatial industry. Expansion of geospatial industry added with growing market has also created a huge demand of geospatial professionals at different levels all over the world and in particular in Asia, which not only offers a huge local market but also serve as outsourcing hub to provide solutions and services worldwide. Another major development and trend which has been driving and changing the shape of geospatial industry is transformation from cartography to image based mapping, which has changed the content source and methodology of creation of geographic datasets. Surveying and Remote Sensing techniques have been the important components in data generation for GIS, be it large scale mapping or small scale. For small scale maps, satellite images are the only source of information from where the base map data can be captured along with ground surveying. This involves the processing of the satellite images, either manually, through visual interpretation techniques or automatically through the digital image processing of the satellite images through available software.

Today, the availability and advancement in satellite and digital photogrammetry has become the "by default" choice of map producers as it is very fast and efficient as against traditional modes. This change has also, but natural, changed the required skill sets for the geospatial professionals, creating a big demand for professionals having competence to deal with image processing and digital photogrammetry. With increasing resolution of the satellite images, upto 0.6m in PAN, the importance of satellite images has only increased, not only for the small scale mapping, but also for large scale mapping. This has also given rise to the importance of digital image processing and the enhancements in the different tools being provided by the digital image processing software. With different countries planning to launch new satellites, the improvements in the resolution will only increase and the demand for more image processing capabilities in the software will only increase.

Photogrammetry has always been associated with the large scale mapping. With advancement in the field of hardware and software and the techniques, Photogrammetry has become one of the indispensible sources of information for GIS. With satellite photogrammetry and close range photogrammetry becoming commonplace today, the need for manpower in this field will only increase in the times to come.

No remote sensing (aerial photography or satellite imaging) is complete without the need for ground verifications of the objects and features. This generates the need for surveying using the traditional as well as the modern techniques and technologies. As the use of imaging technology is increasing with the need for large scale maps, the need for surveying also has increased and shall only increase with time. This together has given rise to the need for trained and qualified personnel in the field of Surveying and Imaging.

With the total commercial remote sensing imagery, data, GIS software and Value added services, as projected by Frost and Sullivan, to grow at a rate of 6.4% annually (for 2003-10), and the revenue for satellite imagery to grow at more than 7% annually to around USD 1500 Million in 2010, there is bound to be a quantum jump in the manpower requirement, not only globally, but also in India. Now that India has launched Cartosat-2, data of which is expected by this year end, there will be a spurt of requirement for trained manpower for this data as well. With Survey of India awarding contracts to private players, for large scale mapping of major Indian cities at 1:1000 scale, the requirement for trained photogrammetrists also is bound to increase. Large scale mapping of Ahmedabad and Chennai by Infotech Enterprise through aerial Photogrammetry has led to the setting up of dedicated facility for processing of the aerial photographs and this in turn will need more and more trained manpower. Once these two cities are complete, the mapping shall be extended to more cities across the country and more and more private players shall be roped in.

Similar is the case for other countries in the Asia Pacific region. With China and Israel, besides India, leading the race of satellite launch for earth observation, there will be several terabytes of satellite data available for processing, which shall also require the ground verifications. This shall lead to the demand for qualified and trained manpower. This region has established itself as an outsourcing hub and countries like Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, being developed as new outsourcing destinations, the jobs in the image processing and surveying are bound to be outsourced to these countries.