Industry Report - Manufacturing
Reshoring Is Exposing a Real Gap in Controls and Automation Talent
New domestic manufacturing capacity depends on controls engineers this country has not been training at scale for two decades.
· 8 min · Industry Reports
New plants need engineers this country stopped training as heavily
For roughly two decades, domestic manufacturing employment declined and fewer engineering graduates chose controls and automation as a specialty - it wasn't where the growth or prestige was. Reshoring investment has reversed the plant-building trend abruptly, but engineering talent pipelines don't reverse on the same timeline. The result is a wave of new fabs, battery plants, and general manufacturing facilities competing for a controls and automation workforce that never scaled back up.
This isn't a simple headcount gap. It's a skills-currency gap: many experienced automation engineers built their careers on control platforms and integration approaches from 10-15 years ago, while new plants are specifying modern PLC platforms, MES integration, and higher levels of digital twin and predictive-maintenance tooling than those engineers have hands-on time with.
Where the pressure shows up first
- PLC and SCADA engineers with startup/commissioning experience on greenfield lines, not just maintenance of running ones
- Controls engineers who can integrate robotics and vision systems into a functioning production sequence, not just program a standalone cell
- Automation engineers fluent in the specific platform a given plant standardized on (which varies significantly by owner and sector)
- Project engineers who can coordinate equipment vendors, integrators, and plant staff through a compressed startup schedule
| Sector | New capacity pace | Automation talent readiness |
|---|---|---|
| Semiconductor fabs | Very high | Low - highly specialized, few domestic precedents |
| Battery / EV supply chain | High | Low to moderate |
| General/discrete manufacturing | Moderate | Moderate |
| Food & consumer goods | Moderate | Moderate to high |
Startup schedules are the flashpoint
Building the plant on time and staffing the automation team on time are two different problems, and owners frequently discover the gap between them only when the equipment install is complete and there aren't enough qualified engineers to bring the lines up on the announced date. Startup delays measured in months are becoming common enough that experienced project engineers now build automation staffing risk into the schedule explicitly rather than treating it as a late-stage detail.
Training pipelines are responding, slowly
Community college and apprenticeship programs tied to specific manufacturing employers are growing, and they are a real part of the long-term answer. But apprenticeship-to-competent-controls-engineer is a multi-year path, and it does not solve staffing for plants starting up in the next 12-18 months.
What's working now
- Bringing in experienced automation and controls contractors for the startup phase, then transitioning knowledge to permanent staff post-ramp
- Standardizing on fewer control platforms across a portfolio so the available talent pool is deeper for each one
- Partnering with staffing firms that maintain a bench of engineers with recent greenfield startup experience rather than posting cold
- Paying for platform-specific certification and training as a retention lever for existing staff, not just a hiring requirement
Summary
Key takeaways
- Two decades of declining domestic manufacturing employment thinned the controls and automation talent pipeline before reshoring reversed the plant-building trend
- The gap is partly a skills-currency issue: many experienced engineers haven't worked hands-on with the platforms new plants are specifying
- Startup delays tied to automation staffing gaps are increasingly common and are now being built into project schedules explicitly
- Engaging controls engineers during equipment specification, not after installation, correlates with hitting startup dates
Answers
Frequently asked questions
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Keep going
Read next
- The Interview Guide for Controls and Automation EngineersMost controls and automation interviews reward candidates who can talk fluently about a platform, not candidates who can actually troubleshoot one under pressure. This guide gives hiring managers a structured scorecard and question set that tests for the second thing.
- Why Job Titles No Longer Describe Engineering ScopeThe same job title can mean drastically different things depending on the company, the industry, and the project phase, and that ambiguity is actively costing hiring managers qualified applicants who assume the role isn't a fit before they ever read the description.
- The Hyperscale Data Center Engineering Labor ReportHyperscale campuses are being built in parallel across regions that never had a mission-critical construction base, and the engineers who can validate 2N electrical systems are not multiplying at the same rate as the square footage.
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