The wider market is cautious. The Low Pay Commission describes today's labour market as 'low hire, low fire', with weaker recruitment and vacancies below pre-pandemic levels the Low Pay Commission's 2025 report. That backdrop shapes how automation teams recruit: fewer open roles, and a sharper focus on proof that someone can do the work from day one.
Engineering feels this most at the start of the pipeline. Entry-level hiring in engineering has fallen to -19%, while senior hiring sits at -10%, a nine-percentage-point gap GOV.UK's snapshot of entry-level hiring. In practice, employers are leaning towards people who already carry validated, hands-on skills. Virtual commissioning is one of the clearest of those signals, because it shows an engineer can test and de-risk a system on a digital twin before any hardware is switched on.
There's demand out there too. The largest volume rise in vacancies recently came in the professional, scientific and technical activities sector, up by 5,000 ONS vacancy data for late 2025. That's the broad category automation and controls engineering sits within, so the appetite for specialists hasn't gone away. It's just more selective.
Specialist skills are pulling ahead of general ones. Businesses took a cautious approach to hiring across 2025, but there were clear demand hotspots for specialist skills including AI, data and enterprise applications Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook. In automation, virtual commissioning sits at that intersection: it blends controls engineering, simulation and software into one testable capability.
The pull towards AI-adjacent skills is strong. Demand for AI skills rose nearly 200% in a year figures reported by The Register from Accenture. Digital twins and virtual commissioning share the same DNA: modelling a physical process in software, then running scenarios against it. Engineers who can do that are increasingly the ones who get shortlisted first.
Where does the talent come from? For engineering, the vast majority of new hires come from the resident labour force, showing low reliance on international recruitment GOV.UK's review of professionals in IT and engineering. So growing virtual commissioning capability at home matters. Apprenticeships are part of that answer: they have risen from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 the AI Labour Market Survey 2025, a route that can build simulation and controls skills from the ground up.
Start by writing the signal into the role. If virtual commissioning matters to your line, name it in the brief and ask for evidence: which platforms someone has used, what they modelled and what problems they caught before build. That turns a vague 'controls engineer' search into a targeted one, which counts when graduate and entry-level engineering hiring is under pressure GOV.UK's entry-level snapshot.
Second, don't only chase finished experts. With a broad graduate squeeze across tech, the UK cut graduate jobs by 46% in a year with a further drop projected figures from the Institute of Student Employers reported by The Register, there's a strong case for building skills internally. Apprenticeships and structured development can grow simulation talent you'd otherwise struggle to buy as the AI Labour Market Survey 2025 shows.
Third, move quickly and clearly. In a low-hire market, strong specialists have options, so a slow or vague process loses them. Define the must-have skills, keep interview stages tight, and give people a real sense of the projects they'd work on. The employers who win automation talent right now are the ones who make the signal explicit and act on it fast.
When virtual commissioning is your hiring signal, you need to reach the people who actually hold it. 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. That fee is about one thing: finding the right automation engineer and handling the process from search to booked interview. Tell us the skills you need today and we'll surface a matched shortlist.
For engineers, it's free to be found. Keep your virtual commissioning and simulation experience visible, and let the right roles come to you.
