It's tight, and the pressure is structural rather than seasonal. In 2025 there were 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in UK manufacturing, costing the economy £6bn in lost output every year, according to Make UK – Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025. Skills shortages sit at the top of the list of barriers to growth for 75% of manufacturers, with recruitment cited by 36% and talent retention by 32%, as Barclays Corporate – Skills shortage in UK Manufacturing sets out.
The shortage bites hardest exactly where OT and IT overlap. Some 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) reports. So when you write a brief that asks for both plant engineering and data or network skills in one person, you're fishing in an already shallow pool.
Because the work itself is converging. Six in ten (59%) manufacturers cite automation and half (50%) cite wider digitalisation as the trends changing jobs and skills needs, and 74% expect demand for cognitive and meta-cognitive skills to increase by 2030, according to Make UK – 2030 Skills: Closing the Gap. In plain terms: more roles now ask people to reason across hardware, software and data rather than stay in one lane.
That matters because the technology itself is still being installed. Only 2% of manufacturers say AI is widely embedded across their operations, and over 50% cite skills shortages as the main barrier to AI adoption, The Manufacturer / Make UK – AI, Skills and the Future of UK Manufacturing finds. The UK also ranks just 24th in global robotics density, yet 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 notes. The people who can connect a programmable controller to a dashboard are the ones who turn that potential into output.
There's a retention angle too. 79% of UK technical professionals plan to change employers in 2026, according to Engineering and Technology Jobs (IET) / Rise Technical, which covers over 500 employers and 1,000 people looking for work. Hybrid OT and IT skills are portable, so the people you most want are also the people most likely to move.
Start by writing the brief for the work, not the old org chart. Name the hardware, the network and the data tasks a person will actually touch, and be honest about which skills are must-haves and which you can build. That last point matters: 40% of manufacturers are looking to upskill their existing workforce, specifically for redeployment as a result of automation and digitalisation, and that figure increases for firms with more than 1,000 employees, Make UK Executive Survey 2026 shows. Sometimes the fastest hire is a current team member plus a focused training plan.
Speed is the quiet differentiator. In a market where most technical professionals are open to moving, the team that shortlists, contacts and books an interview first tends to win the conversation.
An AI recruitment agent can handle converged, hard-to-fill briefs end to end. Reed.ai searches 15 million candidates, ranks a shortlist in under 30 seconds, contacts matched people in under a minute and books an interview in under three minutes, so you reach hybrid OT and IT engineers before they commit elsewhere. Those are system speeds; a completed hire still lands in days. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Tell us about your next role and see your shortlist today.
