Manufacturing has a demand problem that money hasn't fixed. In 2025 there were 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies across UK manufacturing, Make UK puts the cost at £6bn in lost output every year. That gap sits directly under machine build. When integrators can't staff assembly, wiring and commissioning, projects slip and output stays on the shelf.
The wider labour market is quiet, which makes this shortage sharper. The Low Pay Commission describes a 'low hire, low fire' market, with weaker recruitment overall and vacancies below pre-pandemic levels. Yet demand hotspots persist. The ONS recorded the largest volume rise in vacancies in professional, scientific and technical activities, up 5,000 in August to October 2025. Automation work lives in and around that space.
The reason integrators are hiring is structural. Make UK found six in ten manufacturers (59%) cite automation as a trend reshaping jobs and skills, with half (50%) pointing to wider digitalisation. More automated lines means more machines to build, wire and commission, and more fitters to do it.
The roles in demand are the hands-on build trades: mechanical fitters who assemble frames and moving parts, electrical fitters and panel wirers who bring machines to life, and commissioning engineers who get a line running on the customer's floor. These are practical skills, learned by doing, and they can't be shipped in easily. For engineering, the government's review notes the vast majority of new hires come from the resident labour force, so integrators are competing for the same domestic pool.
The pipeline into these trades is thin at the entry level. A government snapshot shows engineering entry-level hiring has fallen to -19%, against -10% for senior roles, a nine-percentage-point gap. In plain terms, employers keep hiring experienced people but pull back on newcomers, which quietly shrinks tomorrow's fitters.
The skills mix is shifting too. Modern machine build blends mechanical craft with electrical, controls and software awareness. Make UK reports 74% of manufacturers expect demand for cognitive and meta-cognitive skills to rise by 2030. The fitters integrators back now can read a drawing, wire a panel and troubleshoot a fault, and they can pick up new controls systems as machines get smarter.
Start by hiring for aptitude, not just a finished CV. With entry-level engineering hiring down, as the government snapshot shows, the classic 'five years' experience' filter screens out people you could train into the role. Widen the top of your funnel and test practical ability instead of paper.
Build your own pipeline rather than waiting for one. Apprenticeships are proving their worth in adjacent technical fields: in AI hiring alone, apprenticeships have grown from 3% of hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025. The same logic applies to machine build. Grow fitters through structured on-the-job training and you're less exposed to a tight market.
Speed matters most. When a shortage costs output every week a project sits half-built, a drawn-out hire compounds the loss. Screen fast, decide fast and keep the person warm from offer to start date.
This is where we help. We search a database of 15 million people to find fitters and commissioning engineers who match your build, then rank them so you see the strongest first. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Tell Reed.ai the machine you're building and we'll start your shortlist today.
