We recruit automation and process control engineers for the teams running the plant: controls engineers, DCS and SCADA engineers, MES engineers, automation managers and the contractors who cover capital projects and shutdowns. Our manufacturing clients are in pharma and biotech, chemicals, food and beverage, consumer goods, data centers, energy and water across North America.
Manufacturers are hiring into a market that’s short of people and getting shorter. Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute put the need at up to 3.8 million manufacturing jobs between 2024 and 2033, with around 1.9 million likely to go unfilled, and about 2.8 million of the openings come from retirements rather than growth. Nearly half of automation professionals are 55 or over according to Automation World, and 58% of the organizations in the same survey were struggling to fill engineering roles. The new building is uneven: manufacturing construction spending in August 2026 was 19% below a year earlier, while data center construction was up 73% and pharma had pledged hundreds of billions in new US plants. Wherever the money is going, it’s going to the same engineers.
End users usually win on pay and benefits. What we see engineers leave manufacturers over is everything else: the manager they joined for has gone, they’ve been moved off project work onto operations and paperwork, they’re on call every week of the month, or they’ve gone years without a pay correction while training newer hires who earn more. Most engineers are open to moving even when they’re content: in Automation World’s survey 82% were satisfied in their jobs and about 75% were still open to a new opportunity. If you know which of those reasons applies to your plant, you can keep the engineers you have and hire against the firms that haven’t fixed theirs.
Location is the other one. The niche skill on a remote site is where we see the most money go out the door, because the specialist who moves for the job often leaves when something comes up somewhere they’d rather live. The plants that make it work ask whether the role needs the exact platform on day one, then hire someone who wants to live there and train them. We’ll look for both and tell you which one the market supports.
Contract fits a lot of plant work. Capital projects, migrations, shutdowns and weekend support cover all have an end date, and we keep contractors ready across DeltaV, Rockwell, Ignition, AVEVA PI and MES for when the work lands. Every engineer we send has been through a qualification call of thirty to forty five minutes before you see a resume.
If you’re hiring for a plant, book a call and we’ll tell you what the market is paying and which model fits.
Questions
Do you recruit for end users as well as integrators?
Yes. We recruit for manufacturers and plant operators on retained, contingency and contract terms.
Can you cover a shutdown or capital project?
Yes, with contract engineers on W2 or 1099 for the length of the project.
Why do automation engineers leave manufacturers?
In our conversations it’s usually a manager who’s left, being moved off project work, on call load or pay that hasn’t been corrected, more often than the base salary.
Related
Sources: NAM, Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute study. Automation.com, MISUMI report on the manufacturing workforce gap. Automation World, 2025 Salary and Career Survey. US Census Bureau, Construction Spending. Associated Builders and Contractors, data center construction spending. Fierce Pharma citing DPR.
