Maintenance, automation, and production management are the hardest engineering roles to fill this quarter, while pay has barely moved. Employers are finding that narrow briefs and flat salaries are a poor match for candidates who want progression and a workplace they believe in.
Automation and Production Leadership Are in Demand
The roles clients struggle most to fill are maintenance, automation, and production managers, with companies specifically seeking people who have experience in Lean methodologies. A lot of companies are bringing in some form of automation, and that shift sits behind the demand. This is not a speculative hiring trend. Automation in engineering and manufacturing is in a corporate scaling and integration phase, where systems already in use are being extended across more sites and processes, and the need for people to run and maintain them is growing as a result.
The hot skills list shows the same picture: engineering managers, automation engineers, and maintenance technicians. At the cold end, field service, process technicians, and document controllers have plenty of candidates available. Demand is concentrated in roles that implement or look after automated systems and in those that lead people and production, while more narrowly scoped technical and administrative roles are well supplied. Hiring managers should expect competition for the first group and a comfortable candidate pool for the second.
Pay Has Barely Moved, So Progression Does the Work
Salaries in engineering have not increased much this quarter. In place of a pay rise, progression has become the factor candidates ask about most. People want to see their path: what the role leads to and how they will move through the organisation. For employers, this changes what a competitive offer looks like. A flat salary can still win a hire if the career trajectory attached to it is clear, while a vague progression story can lose one even when the pay is reasonable.
Culture is part of the same equation. A lot of candidates are asking about it in interviews, and clients are putting a bigger focus on it as a way of improving retention. Together, these questions suggest candidates are assessing what working at a company will be like over time, not simply what the first year's salary is. Employers who can describe their culture and progression specifically are better placed than those who can only point to a salary band.
When Experience Requirements and Salary Don't Match
The clearest example this quarter came from production manager searches. Clients have been looking for production managers with experience in very specific industries, but the salary on offer does not necessarily match what those candidates are earning. The result is a mismatch between the brief and the budget: the narrower the industry requirement, the smaller the pool, and the more likely it is that those candidates are already paid above the figure being offered.
We have been encouraging companies to look at transferable skills rather than focusing too heavily on industry experience. A search limited to one industry can only succeed if the salary is high enough to move someone already established in it, and many clients are not offering that. Widening the brief to candidates whose skills carry across increases the pool and brings the salary expectation closer to what the role pays.
For hiring managers, the practical step is to test each requirement before a search begins. If a requirement is genuinely essential, the budget should reflect the cost of the people who meet it. If the requirement is a preference, relaxing it may be the quickest way to fill the role. Pairing that flexibility with a clear progression path and a credible culture gives candidates more reasons to say yes.
The Takeaway
In engineering, the offers that land are those that match the budget to the brief and give candidates a visible path forward. Get in touch with our team for custom benchmarking on the engineering roles proving hardest to fill in your business.
