Walk a modern bottling or canning line today and you see fewer hands on the product and more eyes on the data. That shift is reshaping who manufacturers hire. 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 Make UK – 2030 Skills: Closing the Gap.
Rather than cutting people, many firms are moving them into higher-skill work. 40% of manufacturers are looking to upskill their existing workforce, specifically for redeployment as a result of automation and digitalisation, a figure that increases for firms with more than 1,000 employees Make UK Executive Survey 2026. For high-speed bottling and canning operations, that means line operators learning to supervise automated cells rather than run them by hand.
There is plenty of room for this to grow. The UK ranks just 24th in global robotics density, and targeted innovation and digital investment could add £150 billion to the UK's GDP by 2035 Making it Smarter: Global Lessons for Accelerating Automation and Digital Adoption in UK Manufacturing - Make UK. On robot use specifically, the UK was using only 101 robots per 10,000 workers in 2020 Smart Machines Strategy 2035 - GOV.UK. More lines automating means more people needed to install, run and maintain them.
The roles growing fastest sit where the physical line meets the digital system. Think controls and automation engineers, maintenance technicians who can read a PLC, and data-literate operators who spot a fault before it stops the line. Occupations in Digital, Adult Social Care, Construction and Engineering have the greatest additional employment demand between 2025 and 2030 GOV.UK - Assessment of priority skills to 2030 (Skills England).
That demand is already visible in recruitment. Digital, engineering and construction occupations appear most commonly among priority occupations, many already experiencing high recruitment demand and expected to keep growing strongly GOV.UK - Skills England annual skills report 2026. For a canning plant, the people who keep a line uptime high are now some of the hardest to find and the most valuable to keep.
Finding them is the hard part. 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, with technical and specialist sustainability skills topping the list Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). The gap is not abstract: in 2025 there were 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in UK manufacturing, costing the economy £6bn in lost output every year Make UK – Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025.
Start by naming the skill, not just the job title. Manufacturers' top barriers to growth are skills shortages (75%), recruitment (36%) and talent retention (32%) Barclays Corporate – Skills shortage in UK Manufacturing. A sharp brief that lists the control systems, maintenance tasks and data tools your line actually uses will surface better-matched people than a generic advert.
Build an upskilling path too, because you will rarely hire every skill ready-made. 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 The Manufacturer / Make UK – AI, Skills and the Future of UK Manufacturing. Hiring someone strong on fundamentals and training them on your line is often faster than waiting for the perfect match.
When a line needs a controls engineer or a data-literate technician, speed and match both matter. We search 15 million candidates, rank a shortlist in under 30 seconds, contact matched people in under a minute and can book an interview in under three minutes, so you spend your time meeting the right people rather than sifting adverts. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost, through Reed.ai. Tell us the role and we will get started today.
