Systems integrators are most of our client list. We recruit controls, SCADA, MES, DCS and project engineers for integrators of every size across North America, from founder led firms of fifteen people to national integrators with hundreds of engineers, on retained, contingency, embedded and contract terms.
Integration has grown fast and it’s grown on headcount. The 75 firms on Control Engineering’s 2026 System Integrator Giants list turned over $4.67 billion between them, up about 18% on the year before, and between 2021 and 2025 the average number of automation and control engineers on one integrator’s projects went from 105 to 168. CSIA estimates there are around 3,000 independent integrators in the US, and private equity has been buying them, so a lot of the firms you compete with for engineers now have more money behind them than they did three years ago.
Integrators hire under pressures the rest of the market doesn’t have. Every engineer needs to be billable, so a permanent hire usually waits on a purchase order. The engineer has to be good with the customer as well as the code. And the person you want is often being chased by an end user who can pay something like 20 to 25% more for the same engineer, with five weeks of vacation and a bigger 401(k) match. We see that gap on most integrator searches, and we’ll tell you on the first call whether your band is going to land.
The hardest hire is the middle. ACS, a CSIA certified integrator, said in September 2026 that its struggle is finding engineers with five to ten years of experience, and that it has more luck hiring graduates. A graduate takes 12 to 18 months to break even according to a CSIA member writing in Automation World, which is why most integrators come to us for the engineer who can run a project now.
We never approach engineers at the companies we work for, so we’re not filling your role and marketing your team to your competitors at the same time. Every search starts with the hiring manager, because the person the engineer will work for knows what the job needs beyond the job description. We send 1.2 resumes for every first interview, and you hear from us every week until the role is filled. On retained searches you get a market map and salary guide for the role and a weekly calibration call.
Contract is where a lot of integrators start with us. When a project is awarded you need engineers on site within weeks, and a six month migration doesn’t justify a permanent hire. We keep pools of controls and automation contractors ready for that moment, and our fastest contract placements have gone from briefing to an accepted contract in two hours.
The smaller firms we work with win engineers from much bigger ones more often than you’d think. They put the travel in writing with a number and a radius, they have a profit share with a track record, they let candidates meet the owners and they tell engineers what project comes next. If you’re a smaller integrator going up against the Giants, we’ll tell you what the engineers you want are leaving their current firms over and how to pitch against it.
A Virginia integrator hired five MES, SCADA and data engineers through a retained search with us in under ten weeks (Case 01 on our Results page). A small North Carolina integrator has hired four engineers through us for a team of under ten and keeps coming back (Case 03). We placed eight contractors onto pharma and life sciences sites for a top tier integrator between February and August 2026 (Case 02).
If you’re hiring for an integrator, book a call and we’ll tell you which hiring model fits and what the market is paying.
Questions
Do you recruit engineers from your integrator clients?
No. We don’t approach engineers at the companies we work for.
How do you support integrators when a project is awarded?
With contract engineers from pools we build before the work lands, on W2 or 1099, from a single specialist to a team.
Which platforms do your integrator clients hire for?
Mostly Rockwell, Ignition, DeltaV, Siemens, AVEVA and MES platforms. See our platform pages.
Related
Sources: Control Engineering, 2026 System Integrator Giants. Control Engineering, System integrators expand vital, scarce automation skillsets. CSIA, 2026 Prospectus. Control, ACS on mentoring, September 2026. Automation World, a system integrator’s approach to the automation talent crisis.
