Demand is sharp and rising. Demand for AI skills increased nearly 200 percent in a year, with London accounting for 80 percent of AI-related job postings and nearly two-thirds of all technology vacancies in the UK, according to The Register, citing Accenture data. That concentration tells you two things: the appetite for automation talent is real, and the competition for it is fierce.
The wider picture is more cautious but still hungry for specialists. Against a subdued 2025 economic backdrop, businesses took a careful approach to hiring, yet there were clear demand hotspots for specialist tech skills including AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security, as Computer Weekly's 2026 tech recruitment outlook reports. So the question for employers isn't whether to hire for automation. It's how to hire the right person when everyone is chasing the same few skills.
Manufacturing shows the shape of the shift most clearly. Six in ten (59%) manufacturers cited automation and half (50%) cited wider digitalisation as trends changing jobs and skills needs, and 74% expect demand for cognitive and meta-cognitive skills to increase by 2030, according to Make UK's 2030 Skills: Closing the Gap report. In plain terms, the roles are moving from manual operation towards problem-solving, judgement and working alongside automated systems.
But the skills aren't there yet. Over 50% of manufacturers cite skills shortages as the main barrier to AI adoption, and only 2% say AI is widely embedded across their operations, as reported by The Manufacturer, drawing on Make UK research. The gap between ambition and capability is the real bottleneck, which is why verifying skills before you hire matters so much.
Employers are responding on two fronts. 40% of manufacturers are looking to upskill their existing workforce, specifically for redeployment as a result of automation and digitalisation, with the figure higher for firms with more than 1,000 employees, according to the Make UK Executive Survey 2026. At a national level, the government announced a partnership to upskill 7.5 million UK workers in essential AI skills by 2030, equivalent to around 20% of the UK workforce, as techUK reports.
Start with the skill, not the job title. Automation roles are new enough that two people with the same title can have very different capabilities, so define the specific skills the role needs: the tools, the systems, the judgement to run them safely. Then test for those skills directly rather than reading them off a CV.
Widen the pool beyond the obvious profiles. Apprenticeships have risen from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025, according to the GOV.UK AI Labour Market Survey 2025. That tells you capable automation talent is coming through routes that don't always show up in a traditional search, so verifying what someone can actually do opens doors that keyword-matching closes.
We search 15 million candidates and rank your shortlist on the skills that matter, so you spend your time on people who can genuinely do the work rather than sifting CVs. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. If you're building an automation team this year, Reed.ai can help you get to a strong shortlist today.
