The Hidden Cost of Unfilled Engineering Vacancies
There’s a question I think more manufacturing businesses should be asking themselves.
How much is that empty chair costing you?
I’m not talking about recruitment agency fees, the price of a job advert, or the salary you’re going to pay the person when they eventually join.
I’m talking about the actual cost of having a job sitting there with nobody doing it.
Because whilst businesses are often very good at calculating what it costs to recruit somebody, I wonder how many genuinely calculate what it’s costing them not to.
And the figures are rather interesting.
The £6 billion problem in UK manufacturing
In its 2025 Industrial Strategy Skills Commission report, Make UK estimated that there were approximately 55,000 long-term unfilled manufacturing vacancies, contributing to around £6 billion in lost economic output every year.
That’s an enormous amount of money.
If you divide that £6 billion by 55,000 vacancies, you’re looking at approximately £109,000 per vacancy, per year.
Or just over £9,000 a month.
Now, before anyone starts putting £9,000 against every vacant engineering position on their spreadsheet, that’s not what the figure means.
It’s a national economic estimate, not a calculation of the financial loss experienced by every individual employer.
A vacant Junior Design Engineer position isn’t necessarily costing the business the same as an experienced Engineering Manager, and neither can be compared directly with an unfilled Technical Sales position.
Some vacancies might have relatively little immediate financial impact. Others could be costing a business considerably more.
But the important point remains.
Not recruiting someone can have a cost. And sometimes, it’s considerably greater than the cost of recruiting them.
The cost isn’t always obvious
Let’s imagine you’re running a small manufacturing business employing 50 people.
You’ve got a team of Design Engineers, and one leaves.
You’re not particularly worried at first. There’s another engineer who can pick up some of the work, the Engineering Manager can lend a hand, and you’re confident you’ll find a replacement within a few weeks.
Three months later, you’re still looking.
What’s happened in those three months?
Perhaps your Engineering Manager has spent an additional ten hours a week on design work rather than managing projects, improving processes or developing the team.
Perhaps your existing Design Engineers have been working overtime.
Perhaps a product development project has slipped back six weeks.
Or perhaps you’ve had to turn down work because you simply haven’t got the engineering capacity to deliver it.
None of those things necessarily appears on a recruitment budget.
But they’re all potentially costing the business money.
And that’s before considering what happens when existing employees become fed up with continuously carrying the additional workload.
One vacancy can become two.
Suddenly, the problem has become considerably more expensive.
But aren’t there more candidates available now?
Yes, there are fewer vacancies in the wider UK labour market than there were at its post-pandemic peak.
You’d think that would make recruitment substantially easier.
In some cases, it does.
But there’s a difference between having plenty of people looking for work and having plenty of people capable of doing the particular job you’re advertising.
The British Chambers of Commerce reported in July 2026 that 73% of firms attempting to recruit were still experiencing hiring difficulties.
That’s despite the slowdown in recruitment activity.
It’s a peculiar situation.
Companies have more applicants to consider, but can still struggle to find somebody with the necessary experience, technical knowledge or capability.
And when it comes to specialist engineering positions, that distinction can become particularly important.
Are you waiting for the right person, or the perfect person?
This is where I think some businesses need to challenge their recruitment decisions.
Imagine you’ve been looking for a Design Engineer for three months.
You’ve interviewed somebody who can comfortably do 85% of what you need.
They’ve worked with similar products, understand the engineering principles, have the necessary design experience and appear capable of learning the remaining 15%.
But you’ve decided to keep looking.
Why?
Perhaps that remaining 15% represents a genuinely essential technical requirement.
Perhaps the consequences of getting it wrong would be considerable.
Fair enough.
But perhaps you’re holding out for someone who has used precisely the same CAD package, worked with exactly the same product range and already understands every process within your business.
In other words, somebody who doesn’t actually exist outside your company.
And whilst you’re looking for that person, your existing team is still carrying the workload.
The projects are still waiting.
The clock is still running.
At some point, waiting for the perfect candidate stops being purely a recruitment decision.
It becomes a commercial decision.
Put a cost against waiting
The cost of unfilled engineering vacancies isn’t always obvious, which is precisely why I think employers need to start measuring it.
I’m not suggesting companies should start hiring anybody who walks through the door simply because they’ve got an empty chair.
A bad hire can be extraordinarily expensive, particularly in a small engineering business.
And some positions are genuinely difficult to recruit for.
But I do think companies should understand the commercial consequences of leaving a position open.
If you’re struggling to recruit, start asking yourself what the vacancy is actually preventing the business from achieving.
Is it delaying orders? Is it slowing production? Is it taking valuable time away from senior employees? Are you paying overtime or external contractors to compensate?
And perhaps most importantly, is the additional experience you’re holding out for worth the cost of waiting?
Because sometimes it absolutely is.
Other times, the candidate you rejected six weeks ago because they didn’t meet every single requirement might have been the most commercially sensible person to recruit.
Recruitment isn’t just about what you spend
Over the years, I’ve had plenty of conversations with employers about recruitment costs.
Understandably, businesses want to control their expenditure, particularly in the current economic climate.
But there’s something I think gets overlooked in that conversation.
The cheapest recruitment decision isn’t necessarily the one where you spend the least money.
Sometimes it’s the one where you make the right appointment at the right time, rather than spending another three months chasing somebody who might not exist.
So if you’ve had an engineering vacancy open for 60, 90 or even 120 days, I’d suggest asking one question.
What has waiting cost your business so far?
You might be surprised by the answer.
If you’re struggling to recruit an Engineer, Technical Sales professional or Engineering Manager, Thomas Lee Recruitment specialises in helping UK manufacturing businesses find the people they need.
Sometimes the starting point isn’t finding more candidates. It’s understanding why the vacancy isn’t being filled in the first place.
Mark Hopkins is the owner of Thomas Lee Recruitment, an engineering and technical sales recruitment consultancy specialising in the UK’s SME manufacturing sector.
Thomas Lee Recruitment works with manufacturers recruiting Engineers, Technical Sales professionals and senior management.