“We cannot find an engineer” is the beginning of the conversation. It is not yet a description of the problem.
Which engineer? Doing what? On which equipment, with what responsibility, in which location and on which hours?
Manufacturing covers a lot of ground. A job title that sounds familiar can conceal a very particular requirement. That is often where a search becomes difficult.
The roles below are useful places to examine the brief. They are not a statistically ranked list of Britain’s hardest vacancies, and I would not pretend that every employer has the same problem recruiting them.
Start with the work behind the title
A smaller candidate pool can be created by the combination you need: technical capability, product or process knowledge, location, hours and salary. It can also be created by a specification that asks one person to cover too much.
Before declaring a national shortage, work out which part of your requirement is restricting your own search. Then decide which requirements are essential, which are preferences and which the business can support someone to learn.
Machining, toolmaking and precision work
For CNC roles, be clear about operating, setting and programming. Which controls, machines, materials and tolerances matter? Does the person need to create programmes, prove them out or run an established process?
For toolmakers and precision engineers, explain what is being made, maintained or repaired. A broad title can attract people whose experience is sound but different from the work in front of them.
The useful question is not whether a trade is a “dying art”. It is what capability you need, how you will assess it and whether there is anyone internally who can help develop the next person.
Maintenance, electrical design, controls and automation
“Multi-skilled Maintenance Engineer” needs unpacking. Explain the electrical and mechanical work, plant, fault-finding responsibility, shift pattern and support on site. Do not put every technical task into the advert and hope the title does the explaining.
For electrical design, distinguish the design work from installation, commissioning and ongoing support. If the role combines those activities, say how much of each is involved.
Controls and automation requirements need similar care. PLC platforms, robotics, commissioning, travel and customer contact can each change the search. Someone familiar with one system may have useful transferable knowledge; somebody with the right keyword may still lack the application experience you need.
Establish the difference through technical discussion, not a keyword count.
Quality, inspection, welding, NDT and composites
Quality engineers and inspectors are not interchangeable simply because both roles involve checking work. Define the product, measurement requirements, customer expectations and responsibility for resolving problems.
For welding, specify the actual process, material and work, including the approvals or qualifications that genuinely apply. “Coded welder” on its own is not a complete brief.
For non-destructive testing, identify the method, level, sector and certification route required for the work. Check the current scheme and employer requirements rather than treating every NDT certificate as interchangeable. BINDT’s current PCN documentation is one relevant reference where that scheme applies.
For composites work, explain the materials, manufacturing processes, quality expectations and whether the job is hands-on production, process development or engineering.
Do not broaden the search by quietly dropping a requirement that is necessary for safe or authorised work. Be clear about what somebody must already hold and what development is realistically available.
Manufacturing, planning and project roles
A manufacturing or process engineer might be improving a production method, solving recurring problems or introducing a new product. Explain the outcome rather than filling the advert with Lean and continuous-improvement terminology.
Production planners and schedulers need a clear picture of the operation: demand, capacity, lead times, systems and the decisions they will be expected to make. Familiarity with an ERP system is useful information, but it does not explain the whole job.
For project engineers and programme managers, be clear about technical responsibility, budgets, suppliers, customers and delivery authority. If you expect one person to design the solution, manage the programme and solve everything on site, recognise the breadth of the request.
Senior engineers, engineering managers and technical sales
A senior engineer’s experience needs to be relevant to the decisions they will make. Years in a similar-sounding industry are not a substitute for understanding their work.
Engineering management adds another question: can they lead the team as well as understand the engineering? Establish the authority, support and management responsibilities. The strongest technical specialist is not automatically the right manager.
Technical sales needs equal care. What are they selling, to whom, over what buying cycle? Is the job account development, new business or both? How much technical support will they have?
I would challenge “sales is a dying art” as a useful recruitment diagnosis. It is more useful to establish what the salesperson needs to do and whether your proposition gives a capable person a reason to consider it.
Choose a response the business can deliver
You may need to improve the offer, change the search, develop somebody internally or divide the role differently. Those are choices to examine, not promises that every difficult vacancy has an easy answer.
Training only helps if somebody can provide it and the work can accommodate the learning period. A pipeline is useful for future needs; it does not immediately solve a gap in next week’s production schedule.
Likewise, more advertising may be useful, but repeating it without learning anything is not much of a plan. Decide when you will review the evidence and change course.
Use the pre-job creation checklist to clarify the role, and the applications and interviews guide to investigate capability consistently. For longer-term gaps, read the succession-planning article. The Employer Recruitment Pack brings the working tools together.
I am an engineer at heart and a recruiter by trade. If your brief is clear but the search still is not producing the people you need, talk to me about the technical requirement and where you have already looked. That gives us a much better starting point than “we need an engineer”.