The growing automation talent shortage is creating new challenges for manufacturers. As experienced controls engineers, electricians, and maintenance personnel retire, many facilities are losing decades of system knowledge while struggling to find qualified replacements.
For many plants, this shortage is becoming most visible during upgrades, troubleshooting, and day-to-day support of older control systems.
During control system upgrades, we often find that the biggest challenge isn’t the technology itself. It’s understanding years of modifications, troubleshooting workarounds, and operational knowledge that were never fully documented. In many cases, that knowledge exists primarily with a handful of experienced maintenance or controls personnel who are nearing retirement.
When those individuals leave, the loss goes beyond headcount. They often take with them years of knowledge about how equipment has been modified, which problems tend to come back, and why certain workarounds were put in place. That kind of plant-specific experience is difficult to replace quickly, especially when the system was never fully documented.
We hear versions of this story regularly. Across manufacturing, the automation talent shortage is becoming more visible as experienced personnel retire and demand for automation continues to grow.
Whether it’s maintenance technicians, controls engineers, electricians, or automation specialists, many facilities are struggling to find qualified people. The shortage isn’t limited to one industry or one region. It’s something we’re hearing from food and beverage plants, packaging facilities, and manufacturers across a wide range of industries.
Like many workforce challenges, there isn’t a single cause. Instead, several long-term trends have combined to create the automation talent shortage manufacturers face today.
Retirement Is Taking Experience Out of Plants
One of the biggest factors behind the automation talent shortage is simple demographics.
Many of the people who built, maintained, and upgraded industrial control systems over the last 30 to 40 years are reaching retirement age. As they leave the workforce, they take decades of experience and facility-specific knowledge with them.
In many plants, these individuals know why certain systems were modified, where recurring problems tend to occur, and how to troubleshoot equipment that may not be fully documented.
Replacing that knowledge isn’t easy. A new technician or engineer may have strong technical skills, but understanding years of system history takes time.
The impact is rarely immediate. Production doesn’t stop the day someone retires. More often, the effects appear gradually. Troubleshooting takes longer, maintenance teams become less confident working on legacy systems, and outside support is needed more frequently. What was once routine becomes increasingly difficult.
Manufacturing Growth Is Increasing Demand
At the same time experienced workers are leaving the workforce, demand for automation expertise continues to grow.
Many manufacturers are expanding production capacity, modernizing equipment, and investing in automation to improve productivity and address labor challenges.
In addition, reshoring efforts have brought new manufacturing investment back to the United States. New facilities, production lines, and automation projects all require people who can design, implement, support, and maintain increasingly complex systems.
The result is a larger demand for automation talent at a time when the available workforce is shrinking.
Aging Systems Create Additional Challenges
Another factor that often receives less attention is the age of many industrial control systems.
A significant portion of the PLCs, HMIs, drives, and industrial computers installed during the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s are approaching or have already reached obsolescence.
When replacement hardware becomes difficult to obtain, manufacturers are forced to plan migrations and upgrades that require additional engineering resources. These projects are important for maintaining reliability, but they also increase the demand for experienced controls personnel at a time when those resources are already limited.
At the same time, many of these older systems were developed with the assumption that experienced personnel would always be available to support them. Documentation may be outdated, alarm messages may provide limited information, and years of modifications may never have been fully documented.
When experienced employees leave, these challenges become much more visible.
The Real Challenge Is Often Supportability
When manufacturers discuss workforce shortages, the conversation usually focuses on staffing levels. In many facilities, however, the larger issue is supportability.
A plant may successfully hire a replacement technician or controls engineer, but if the system relies heavily on tribal knowledge, undocumented modifications, or inconsistent programming practices, that person will still face a steep learning curve.
In many cases, the challenge isn’t simply a shortage of personnel. It’s that the systems themselves have become difficult to understand and support without historical knowledge.
Our engineers have seen this firsthand at a food manufacturing facility where the longtime plant engineer left unexpectedly. The person stepping into the role inherited a facility with very little documentation of the existing control systems. Over the past year, much of the work has involved reverse engineering control panels, creating drawings, and documenting programs so the systems are easier to understand and support going forward.
Control systems that lack standardized structure, consistent naming conventions, clear alarm strategies, and accurate documentation require significantly more effort to troubleshoot and maintain, especially for personnel who were not involved in the original design.
Why the Automation Talent Shortage Continues
One challenge our industry has faced for years is that many people simply do not know controls engineering exists as a career path.
Ask a student about engineering careers and you’ll often hear about mechanical, civil, aerospace, electrical, or software engineering. Controls engineering is much less visible, even though modern manufacturing depends on people who understand PLC programming, industrial networking, instrumentation, process control, and system integration.
At the same time, the job itself is becoming broader.
As plant-floor systems become more connected to business networks, data systems, remote access tools, and cybersecurity infrastructure, the line between information technology and operational technology continues to narrow. Controls engineers increasingly need to understand not only machines and processes, but also industrial networks, communications, cybersecurity, and how plant-floor systems interact with the rest of the business.
That puts additional pressure on an already limited talent pool. Manufacturers report significant difficulty hiring skilled workers across IT, OT, engineering, cybersecurity, and related technical roles, while many are relying more heavily on outside support to fill those gaps.
Controls and automation also compete with other technical fields for many of the same people. An engineer with strong programming, networking, or systems skills may have opportunities in software, IT, cybersecurity, semiconductor manufacturing, or other technology-driven industries. Industrial automation is only one of several career paths available to that person.
New investment in advanced manufacturing adds another layer of competition. Federal initiatives such as the CHIPS and Science Act have supported major investment in semiconductor manufacturing and related workforce development, creating additional demand for engineers and technical workers.
None of these factors alone explains the shortage. Together, however, they make it harder for manufacturers to replace experienced controls personnel as they retire while also finding the additional people needed to support more connected and automated plants.
The result is a workforce problem that is unlikely to be solved simply by hiring more people. Manufacturers also need to make their existing systems easier for the next person to understand, troubleshoot, and maintain.
How Manufacturers Can Respond to the Automation Talent Shortage
There isn’t a quick solution to the automation talent shortage. However, manufacturers can take practical steps to reduce risk and make their systems easier to support.
Some of the most effective actions include:
- Improving documentation while experienced personnel are still available
- Standardizing programming practices and system architecture where possible
- Addressing obsolete hardware before failures create emergencies
- Investing in training and mentorship for newer employees
- Improving alarm messages and diagnostic information
- Enhancing HMI screens to make troubleshooting easier
- Developing long-term modernization plans rather than waiting for critical failures
These efforts won’t eliminate the workforce challenge, but they can reduce dependence on a small number of individuals and make systems easier for future personnel to support.
Twenty years ago, many facilities could rely on experienced personnel to bridge gaps in documentation, troubleshooting tools, or system design. Today, as experienced controls personnel become harder to find, those gaps become much more significant.
Looking Ahead
Demand for automation remains strong across many manufacturers.
Manufacturers continue to invest in new equipment, process improvements, and modernization projects. At the same time, many experienced controls professionals are reaching retirement age, creating a gap that the industry is still working to fill.
For manufacturers, the question is no longer whether this shortage exists. The question is how prepared your facility will be when key personnel retire, critical hardware becomes obsolete, or support resources become harder to find.
As skilled automation personnel become harder to find, manufacturers need to think beyond system functionality. The systems that are easiest to understand, troubleshoot, and maintain will be the systems that remain the most sustainable over the long term.
The facilities that document their systems, plan for obsolescence, and improve system supportability today will be in a much stronger position than those that wait until key personnel or critical hardware are no longer available.
If your plant is dealing with aging controls, limited documentation, or upcoming retirements, contact Cornerstone Automation to talk through practical ways to make your systems easier to support long term.