It's tight, and the demand for transformers lands on an already stretched labour market. 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's Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025. Manufacturers point to the same barriers to growth: skills shortages (75%), recruitment (36%) and talent retention (32%) Barclays Corporate's research on the skills shortage in UK manufacturing found.
The pressure is sharpest in engineering, which is exactly where transformer work sits. Some 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 reported in 2025. So the people who build and test electrical equipment are in short supply before a single new order is placed.
Transformer manufacturing pulls in a mix of hands-on and technical roles: coil winders, core assemblers, fitters, test and commissioning engineers, quality inspectors and the electrical and design engineers behind them. These sit squarely in the occupations set to grow. Digital, adult social care, construction and engineering have the greatest additional employment demand between 2025 and 2030 Skills England's assessment of priority skills to 2030 found.
That growth looks set to continue. Digital, engineering and construction occupations appear most commonly among priority occupations, many already experiencing high recruitment demand and expected to keep growing strongly the Skills England annual skills report 2026 noted. The nature of the work is shifting too. Six in ten (59%) manufacturers cited automation and half (50%) cited wider digitalisation as trends changing jobs and skills needs, with 74% expecting demand for cognitive and meta-cognitive skills to increase by 2030 Make UK's 2030 Skills report found. In short, factory roles increasingly blend manual craft with digital and problem-solving skills.
Start by widening the pool. With skills shortages cited as the top barrier to growth by 75% of manufacturers Barclays Corporate found, waiting for the perfect finished worker rarely works. Hire for aptitude and attitude, then train the specifics. Many firms are already doing this: 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 the Make UK Executive Survey 2026 reported.
Speed and reach are the two levers most within your control. A fast, fair process gets a yes before a competitor does, and a wide search surfaces people you would otherwise miss.
The right partner gives manufacturers both reach and speed. 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 transformer demand is opening roles on your floor, tell us what you need and we'll start building your shortlist today.
