NEW DELHI: Many in leading technology services companies seem to be unhappy with the increments handed out to them in the last annual appraisal cycle (June-July), leading to a nearly 3x jump in the number of IT professionals searching for jobs, show the findings of a survey.The dipstick study, 'The Rise in Active Job Seekers' and conducted by staffing firm Xpheno, compared the number of IT professionals searching for jobs in August and September with those in the previous two months.Those who are looking for a change mostly have work experience of 15 years and upwards, according to two other recruitment companies — TeamLease Services & ABC Consultants.As many as 17.2 lakh employees at the top 13 IT services companies were mapped and 4.72 lakh employees (27%) were found to be actively searching jobs in August-September in India, compared with 1.68 in June-July, according to Xpheno's study. They received almost negligible increment in the previous annual appraisal cycle, Xpheno founder Kamal Karanth said. The hikes on an average have been below 5% (in some cases 1-2%) in most of the IT services companies.The study covered employees from the likes of Tata Consultancy Services HCL Technologies and Cognizant Technologies. ET reached out to most of these companies, but didn't get any response until press time Monday to emails seeking comment."Usually post appraisal there is attrition in the IT services sector... now the companies are getting more stringent when it comes to performance as the environment is getting hypercompetitive," said Sangeeta Gupta, a senior vice president at IT industry body Nasscom At the same time, companies are nudging employees to perform and acquire new and niche skills, she said. It is this chunk of talent pool with niche skills — like in artificial intelligence, robotics, data analytics and cyber security — that is quite high in demand. "Companies are also putting a premium on talent with niche skills and high level of performance," Gupta added.Of the various categories in the study, shared with ET, the highest spike of 330% was observed among employees with work experience of 15 years and above. Things are gloomy for those who do not have relevant skills, as they are usually the first to let go of, ABC Consultants director Ratna Gupta said, adding: "Now companies just want performers."Mostly mid and senior managers, with experience between 10 and 25 years, are on the job hunt, said experts.TeamLease Services cofounder Rituparna Chakraborty agreed that people skilled in high-end technology were much in demand. "In the full-stack category, high-moving skills include SAP S4 Hana, Dev ops, AI, AWS, Cloud, UI, Robotics where in more of the talent pool is getting upskilled and is in demand," said Chakraborty.