The picture is one of strong demand and thin supply. Skills shortages are the top barrier to growth for manufacturers, cited by 75% of firms, ahead of recruitment at 36% and talent retention at 32% Barclays Corporate's 2024 analysis of the UK manufacturing skills shortage. That gap has a real price. There were 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in UK manufacturing in 2025, costing the economy £6bn in lost output every year Make UK's Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025.
Engineering feels this acutely. 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, with technical and specialist sustainability skills topping the list the Institution of Engineering and Technology's 2025 skills statistics. And the pressure is set to build: digital, engineering and construction occupations appear most commonly among priority occupations, many already facing high recruitment demand and expected to keep growing strongly Skills England's annual skills report 2026.
Small modular reactors are built in factories rather than assembled entirely on site, so they draw on a wide span of engineering and manufacturing skills: design, fabrication, welding, quality assurance, systems integration and project delivery. That fits a sector where engineering is among the occupations with the greatest additional employment demand between 2025 and 2030 Skills England's assessment of priority skills to 2030.
The scale of future need is significant. Demand for key occupations will grow by nearly 25% in the next decade, with 1.8 million new priority jobs expected by 2035 a 2026 Skills England report. Automation and digitalisation are reshaping the work 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.
There is a warning sign in the numbers, though. In engineering, entry-level hiring has fallen to -19% while senior hiring sits at -10%, a 9-percentage-point gap a 2026 GOV.UK snapshot of entry-level hiring. New programmes like SMRs give employers a reason to reopen those early-career doors and build the pipeline the sector needs.
Start by looking inward as well as outward. 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 the Make UK Executive Survey 2026. Mapping the skills you already have often surfaces people who can move into new roles faster than a fresh hire.
Speed matters. When demand is this high, a slow process means losing the person you want to another employer before you have booked a first interview.
That is where Reed.ai fits. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. If you are building a team for a small modular reactor programme or any manufacturing role, tell us what you need and we will get to work today.
