The picture is mixed, and that tension is the story. On one side, the wider labour market is what the Low Pay Commission calls 'low hire, low fire': recruitment is weaker and vacancies have slipped below pre-pandemic levels Low Pay Commission Report 2025, GOV.UK. On the other, manufacturing is short of people. Make UK counts 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in UK manufacturing, a gap it estimates costs the economy £6bn in lost output every year Make UK – Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025.
So the demand is real, but it is concentrated. There are pockets of strong hiring for specialist skills rather than a broad rush. The largest volume increase in vacancies recently landed in the professional, scientific and technical sector, up by 5,000 ONS – Vacancies and jobs in the UK: November 2025. Automation sits squarely in that specialist band: the machines are arriving, and someone has to run them.
Automation is actively reshaping what manufacturers need. Six in ten (59%) manufacturers cite automation, and half (50%) cite wider digitalisation, as the trends changing their jobs and skills, while 74% expect demand for cognitive and problem-solving skills to rise by 2030 Make UK – 2030 Skills: Closing the Gap. That points to roles like robotics and controls engineers, maintenance technicians, and integration specialists who can bridge the machine and the line.
There is a catch at the start of the ladder. In engineering, entry-level hiring has fallen to -19% while senior hiring sits at -10%, a nine-percentage-point gap GOV.UK - A snapshot of entry-level hiring in the UK. Fewer junior openings today can mean fewer experienced automation engineers in five years, so how employers build talent now matters.
One encouraging signal: employers are training their own. Across AI-related roles, apprenticeships have risen from 3% of hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 GOV.UK / DSIT – AI Labour Market Survey 2025 report. And most engineering hires still come from the resident workforce, so building skills at home is both possible and the norm GOV.UK - Professionals in IT and engineering.
Start with the work, not the title. Automation roles blend disciplines, so define the actual tasks: which controls systems, which robots, what maintenance cadence, and which problems the person must solve day to day. That clarity matters because 74% of manufacturers expect cognitive and problem-solving skills to grow in demand Make UK – 2030 Skills: Closing the Gap. Screen for how someone thinks, not just the kit they have touched.
Then widen the pipeline. With entry-level engineering hiring down sharply GOV.UK - A snapshot of entry-level hiring in the UK, the senior people you want are scarce and rarely browsing job boards. Reach passive talent directly, and build your own supply through apprenticeships, which now account for nearly a fifth of AI hires GOV.UK / DSIT – AI Labour Market Survey 2025 report. Move quickly too: in a competitive specialist market, a slow process loses the best people.
This is where we help. We search a database of 15 million candidates, rank a shortlist in seconds and manage recruitment end to end, so you can focus on the hire rather than the admin. 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 an automation team this year, tell Reed.ai the role and we'll surface matched people to talk to.
