The appetite to hire is there, but the people are hard to find. In 2025 there were 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in UK manufacturing, costing the economy £6bn in lost output every year Make UK's Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025. That is a lot of work waiting for the right hands, and passive fire protection is one of the areas adding to the queue.
Manufacturers themselves name the problem clearly. Their top barriers to growth are skills shortages (75%), recruitment (36%) and talent retention (32%) Barclays Corporate's research on the skills shortage in UK manufacturing. When growth stalls because you cannot staff a line, every new product area feels the squeeze, including fire-rated components and systems.
Passive fire protection covers the built-in parts of a building that slow fire and smoke: fire-rated boards, intumescent coatings, dampers, cavity barriers and sealed penetrations. Making and fitting these to standard needs production operatives, fabricators, coatings technicians, installers and quality inspectors. Demand for careful, certificate-backed work is rising, and so is demand for the people who can do it.
The wider shape of manufacturing work is shifting too. 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's 2030 Skills: Closing the Gap report. For passive fire protection, that means production roles that pair hands-on craft with reading specifications, following test data and documenting compliance.
There is also a strong pull to grow talent in-house. 40% of manufacturers are looking to upskill their existing workforce, specifically for redeployment as a result of automation and digitalisation, and that figure rises for firms with more than 1,000 employees Make UK's Executive Survey 2026. New fire protection lines are a natural home for people being retrained from older roles.
Start with the specification, not the job title. Passive fire protection work is judged against test certificates and installation standards, so write down the exact competencies you need: reading fire-test data, applying coatings to the right thickness, sealing penetrations correctly and keeping clean records. A sharp brief lets you match on real skills rather than guesswork.
Then widen the net. With skills shortages named as the top barrier to growth by 75% of manufacturers Barclays Corporate, you cannot rely on the handful of people who already hold a niche fire protection title. Look for transferable skills from fabrication, decorating, dry-lining and general assembly, and plan to train. That matches the 40% of manufacturers already upskilling and redeploying their own people Make UK's Executive Survey 2026.
Finally, move quickly and keep people warm. With 55,000 long-term vacancies open across the sector Make UK, good applicants have options. A slow process loses them. Shortlist on evidence, interview fast and be ready to decide.
This is where we help. We search 15 million candidates to find people with the production, fabrication and quality skills that passive fire protection roles need, then we manage the whole process from shortlist to offer. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Tell us what your line needs and we'll start matching today.
