The Talent Crisis in Industrial Automation and Controls

The talent crisis in industrial automation and controls is a shortage of specialists rather than a shortage of workers. The International Federation of Robotics put US robot installations up 11 percent to about 38,000 units in 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts roughly 15,000 electro-mechanical and mechatronics technologists and technicians in the entire country. That occupation is projected to grow 1 percent over the decade, with about 1,300 openings a year, most of them replacing people who retire or move on. Broader maintenance work is growing much faster. The squeeze sits in the narrow layer that programs, integrates, and troubleshoots the systems. This article covers the demand picture, where the gap actually is, why it will not close on its own, and how to hire against it.

How Fast Is Automation Actually Growing?

Faster than most plants staffed for.

Measure	Latest Figure	Source
Global industrial robot installations, 2025	A record 621,000 units, up 15 percent	IFR preliminary data
US installations, 2025	About 38,000 units, up 11 percent	IFR preliminary data
Where that ranks for the US	Third strongest year on record	IFR
US robot density	About 307 units per 10,000 manufacturing employees, eighth worldwide	IFR World Robotics 2025
Highest density worldwide	South Korea at 1,220 units	IFR World Robotics 2025
China’s operational robot stock versus the US	About five times larger	IFR

Two things follow. First, US installations rebounded in 2025 after two down years, so the installed base is climbing again. Second, at eighth in density, the US has room to add far more equipment, which means demand for people to run keeps building.

Automotive drove more than a third of US units last year. Food plants grew about 30 percent. Every one of those machines needs someone who can commission it, program it, and fix it at two in the morning.

Where Does the Shortage Actually Sit?

Not evenly. The federal job data shows a clear split.

Occupation	Projected Growth, 2024 to 2034	Annual Openings	Median Wage, May 2024
Electro-mechanical and mechatronics technologists and technicians	1 percent	About 1,300	70,760 dollars
Electrical and electronic engineering technologists and technicians	1 percent	About 8,400	77,180 dollars
Mechanical engineering technologists and technicians	Little or no change	About 3,200	68,730 dollars
Industrial machinery mechanics, maintenance workers, millwrights	13 percent	About 54,200	63,510 dollars
All occupations	3 percent	Not applicable	49,500 dollars

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook.

The bottom two rows tell the story. Hands-on maintenance work is growing 13 percent, much faster than the 3 percent average, and BLS credits automation adoption directly for part of that growth. More machines mean more machines to keep running.

The specialist rows barely move. The people who design control systems, write the logic, and integrate robots sit in roles projected to grow 1 percent or not at all.

So the industry is adding equipment quickly while the layer that makes equipment work is flat.

Why Does Slow Projected Growth Signal a Crisis?

Because of where the openings come from. In each of those specialist roles, BLS says most annual openings come from replacing people who move to other work or leave the labor force, including retirement.

Growth is not creating those jobs. Departures are. And a departure takes knowledge with it.

Consider the scale. About 1,300 mechatronics openings arrive each year against roughly 38,000 robots installed in a single year. Other occupations also support that equipment, so the comparison is not one to one. It still shows how thin the specialist bench is against the pace of installation.

The knowledge problem makes it worse. Control logic is often written once, modified under pressure, and documented poorly. When the engineer who wrote it retires, the plant keeps the machine and loses the understanding. That is a hiring problem with a deadline attached.

What Are Employers Actually Competing For?

A specific and awkward combination of skills.

• Programming and troubleshooting control systems, including PLCs and supervisory control software.
• Robotics integration and motion control across mixed equipment brands.
• Industrial networking, and the link between plant floor systems and business systems.
• Security for operating technology, which few plants staffed for a decade ago.
• A willingness to be on site, on shift, when a line goes down.

That last point matters more than employers admit. This work cannot be done remotely, and the hardest problems appear on nights and weekends.

How people enter these roles matters too. BLS notes that mechatronics techs typically hold a two-year degree or a technical certificate. The supply runs through community colleges, technical schools, and apprenticeships rather than four-year engineering programs. Employers who recruit only from universities are fishing in the wrong water.

What Makes These Roles So Hard to Fill?

Four things stack up.

The job is really small. Fifteen thousand people nationally is not a talent pool, it is a roster.

Experience often looks brand-specific. A candidate fluent in one control platform can look unqualified for a plant built on another. The underlying skill often transfers within weeks.

Competition comes from outside manufacturing. System integrators, equipment makers, data centers, and utilities all want the same people, and several can offer better hours.

New capacity adds pressure. Our article “How Reshoring and Onshoring Are Driving Executive Demand in Manufacturing” covers the plants now coming online. Each one needs a control team before it can produce anything.

How Should Employers Hire and Keep Automation Talent?

Six moves that work better than reposting the job.

1. Hire for fundamentals, not brand names. Test whether a candidate can read logic, trace a fault, and reason about a control loop. Knowing one brand is trainable. The thinking behind it is not.
2. Build upward from maintenance. Your strongest future controls staff may already be on the floor fixing machines. Identify them, fund the certificates, and give them project time.
3. Pay to the specialist market, not the plant average. These roles sit well above the local wage curve. Current compensation research shows what controls talent actually earns before you set a range that will not close anyone.
4. Document while people are still here. Standardize code, record changes, and require handover files. This is a retention hedge as much as an engineering practice.
5. Fix the hiring process itself. These candidates hold several offers and vanish during slow sign-offs. Reviewing how your team runs searches, through talent acquisition guidance, often saves more candidates than raising pay does.
6. Use search for the leadership layer. Automation and controls managers with real integration history are rarely on the market. Retained executive search reaches them privately.

Sector knowledge shortens the work, because a packaging line integrator and a regulated process controls engineer come from different pools. Sorting that out is the daily business of industrial executive search.

Final Thoughts

The automation talent crisis is easy to misread. Manufacturing jobs overall are not collapsing. Maintenance work is one of the faster growing trades in the economy, at 13 percent through 2034. The problem is getting narrower and harder. The specialist roles that program and integrate control systems are projected to grow 1 percent or not at all. Nearly every opening in them comes from someone leaving.

Meanwhile the equipment keeps arriving. US robot installations climbed 11 percent last year. The country sits eighth in robot density, with plenty of room to automate further. Every new line needs people who can make it run.

Buying a robot takes a purchase order. Staffing takes a plan that starts a year earlier. The Carlisle Group recruits controls engineers, automation managers, and technical leadership for industrial and manufacturing employers. Tell us what you are installing and we will work back from your startup date.