FUSION Issue 3-2026 DIGITAL - Flipbook - Page 13
But automation does not remove the skills
requirement. It relocates it. A factory floor with
fewer people on it still needs people who can
programme the robots, interpret the sensor
data, troubleshoot the integration between old
equipment and new systems, and understand
what to do when something goes wrong in ways
the system was not designed to anticipate. In
many cases, the skills required to support an
automated production line are more specialised,
not less, than the skills the line replaced.
This is the part of the conversation that gets
lost. The narrative of automation often implies
a simplification of work. The reality, for the
people who remain on the factory floor, is
frequently the opposite. Maintenance staff
now need to understand robot calibration,
electrical and mechanical schematics, and the
behaviour of integrated software systems, on
top of the mechanical knowledge the role has
always demanded.
What the composites and
finishing sector is feeling
specifically
For composite manufacturing in particular, the
skills challenge has a long history that predates
the current acceleration. Composite layup,
infusion, and curing have always relied heavily
on hands-on craft knowledge that is difficult to
formalise and slow to teach. A skilled laminator
develops judgement over years, not weeks, and
that judgement does not transfer cleanly into a
training manual.
Aerospace adds a further layer of pressure.
The global commercial aircraft order backlog
has reached a record level, representing more
than a decade of committed work for the UK
aerospace supply chain alone. That demand is
not negotiable or deferrable in the way that
some other manufacturing demand might be;
the aircraft have been ordered, and they need
to be built, on a timeline that does not wait
for the workforce to catch up. Specialists in
structures and composites, already a narrow
pool, are in particularly short supply, and the
resulting wage pressure is being felt across the
sector as employers compete for the same
small group of experienced people.
75% of manufacturers cite
skills shortage as the
biggest barrier to growth
42% of vacancies
are skill-shortage
vacancies
Finishing and coatings work carries a similar
dynamic, even if it attracts less attention. The
judgement required to read environmental
conditions, recognise when a process is
drifting before it produces a defect, and adapt
technique to the specific demands of a job is
built through experience on the shop floor. It is
precisely the kind of knowledge that is hardest
to capture and easiest to lose.
What is actually working
The manufacturers making genuine progress
on this are not waiting for the hiring market to
improve, because there is little evidence it will.
Instead, the more effective approaches tend to
share a few common features.
Structured knowledge capture is one. Rather
than asking experienced staff to document
everything they know in a separate, timeconsuming exercise that rarely gets finished,
the more successful programmes embed
knowledge capture into the normal working
day, recording diagnostic steps and resolution
notes as part of routine work rather than as
an additional task. Over months rather than
years, this builds a genuinely useful, transferable
knowledge base without placing the burden of
documentation on people who are often too
busy to do it properly.
Cross-generational pairing is another.
Deliberately structuring teams so that
experienced and newer staff work alongside
each other, rather than separately, allows tacit
knowledge to transfer through observation and
practice in a way that classroom training cannot
replicate. This is not a new idea, but it
186,000 skilled workers
needed annually in
the UK
is one that has often been deprioritised under
production pressure, and the manufacturers
reinvesting in it are seeing the benefit.
Accessible technical training is the third.
Lowering the barrier to entry for skills like
robotics programming, rather than treating
them as the preserve of a small number of
specialists, allows a wider pool of operators
and engineers to build the capability the
business needs. Free and low-cost training
courses developed by universities and
equipment manufacturers in robotics motion
programming are a small but meaningful part
of this shift, making skills that once required
years of specialist study accessible to a much
broader workforce.
The honest conclusion
There is no version of this story where the skills
gap closes quickly or easily. The demographic
pressure is locked in. The technology will keep
advancing, and the skills required to support
it will keep evolving alongside it. Recruitment
alone will not solve a shortfall of this scale, and
automation, while genuinely valuable, changes
the nature of the skills problem rather than
eliminating it.
What seems to separate the manufacturers
under genuine strain from those managing
the transition well is not the technology they
have bought. It is whether they have treated
workforce capability as seriously, and invested
in it as deliberately, as they have treated capital
equipment. The businesses that work this out
first will be the ones with the people capable of
running everything else this issue has covered.
“ Automation does not remove the skills requirement. It
relocates it. The factory floor with fewer people on it often
needs people with more specialised skills, not fewer.”
dtc-uk.com
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