The demand is real, and it is measurable. UK manufacturing carried 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in 2025, costing the economy £6bn in lost output every year Make UK's Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025. That gap is not a footnote. It is the single clearest signal that automation teams are trying to build faster than the talent market is filling.
The wider labour market is quieter, which changes how you read the numbers. The market is currently described as 'low hire, low fire', with weaker recruitment but only slight increases in redundancies, and vacancies sitting below pre-pandemic levels the Low Pay Commission Report 2025. In a subdued market, the pockets of demand matter more, not less. There were clear hotspots for specialist skills including AI, data and enterprise applications through 2025 and into 2026 Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook.
And demand is only heading one way. Demand for key occupations will grow by nearly 25% over the next decade, with 1.8 million new priority jobs expected by 2035 Skills England's landmark skills report. If you wait for the market to loosen, you are competing for the same people later, with the gap wider. Reading live data now is how you get ahead of that curve.
The roles are shifting because the work is shifting. Six in ten (59%) manufacturers cited automation and half (50%) cited wider digitalisation as trends changing their jobs and skills needs, and 74% expect demand for cognitive and meta-cognitive skills to increase by 2030 Make UK's 2030 Skills report. In plain terms: the next automation hire is less about a single toolset and more about people who can reason across controls, data and process.
The AI layer sitting on top of automation is heating up fast. Demand for AI skills increased nearly 200 percent in a year The Register, citing Accenture data. That surge reaches straight into automation teams building smarter control systems, predictive maintenance and machine vision. Real time role data helps you tell the difference between a role you genuinely need and a job title you have copied from last year.
Entry routes are changing too, and that reshapes how you size a team. Apprenticeships rose from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 the DSIT AI Labour Market Survey 2025, while UK entry-level job postings have dropped 30% since ChatGPT's launch techUK's analysis of Adzuna data. So the question is rarely just senior or junior. It is: which mix of experienced hire, apprentice and reskilled internal mover actually closes your gap?
Start by sizing the role against live data, not last year's org chart. Look at what is actually moving in the market. The largest volume increase in vacancies recently sat in professional, scientific and technical activities, which rose by 5,000 in a single quarter the ONS vacancies bulletin for November 2025. That tells you where you are competing, and how sharp your role definition needs to be to stand out.
Speed is a strategy, not a nicety. The KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs tracks how quickly the market moves month to month the KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs, and in a low-hire market the teams that decide fast on the right person win. Real time role data is what lets you make that decision with confidence instead of guesswork.
This is where we come in. We turn live role data into action: searching a database of 15 million candidates to match, rank and shortlist people against the exact role you need, so sizing the hire and finding the person happen in one motion. You get an end-to-end service, from a ranked shortlist to a booked interview, built around finding the right person for your automation team.
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. If you are sizing your next automation hire against a moving market, tell us the role and let us surface the shortlist today.
