Textile machinery is getting smarter, and the people who keep it running need a broader skill set than before. The wider manufacturing picture tells the story. There were 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in UK manufacturing in 2025, costing the economy £6bn in lost output every year, according to Make UK's Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025. That gap sits right where firms most want to grow.
Automation is a known barrier, not just an opportunity. Over 50% of manufacturers cite skills shortages as the main barrier to AI adoption, and only 2% say AI is widely embedded across their operations, per a Make UK report covered by The Manufacturer. And the UK starts from behind on the hardware itself: the International Federation of Robotics found UK utilisation of industrial robots substantially lags internationally, using only 101 robots per 10,000 workers in 2020, as set out in the GOV.UK Smart Machines Strategy 2035. As machines get more capable, the demand for people who can control them grows faster than the supply.
When a textile line moves from manual to automated, the brief shifts. You still need mechanical know-how, but now you also need controls engineers, PLC programmers and people comfortable with machine data. 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, according to the Make UK 2030 Skills: Closing the Gap report.
Many firms plan to build these skills from within. 40% of manufacturers are looking to upskill their existing workforce, specifically for redeployment as a result of automation and digitalisation, and this figure increases for firms with more than 1,000 employees, according to the Make UK Executive Survey 2026. The practical takeaway: the controls brief now blends hardware, software and the ability to learn fast.
Start by writing the role around capability, not job titles. A good controls hire today reads machine data, works with automated systems and adapts as the line changes. Make that explicit in the brief so you attract people with the right mix, rather than filtering on a single legacy label.
Then act on the bottleneck. Manufacturers' top barriers to growth are skills shortages (75%), recruitment (36%) and talent retention (32%), per Barclays Corporate's analysis of the UK manufacturing skills shortage. With that much competition for the same people, speed and clarity matter. Move quickly on strong matches, be concrete about what the person will actually do, and pair every hire with a plan to upskill the team around them.
When the brief widens, you want the right person found quickly and the whole process handled for you. That's what we do. 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. It's a practical way to fill controls, automation and data roles without the process slowing down your upgrade. Tell us what your line needs, and we'll get started today.
