Why Manufacturers Across the UK and Ireland Cannot Find Good Staff, And What Is Actually Causing It

Ask any engineering or manufacturing business owner in Northern Ireland what keeps them up at night and the answer is rarely customers. It is staff. Skilled welders, fabricators, fitters and engineers are becoming harder to find and harder to keep. But the reason most manufacturers give for this, that young people do not want to do the work, is not the whole story.

The Numbers Are Stark

This is not an isolated feeling. According to a 2024 report by Make UK and Barclays, 97% of UK manufacturers say that hiring and retaining skilled labour presents a challenge to the growth of their business. 75% identify skills shortages as their single biggest barrier to growth, ahead of energy costs, supply chain issues and everything else.

In Northern Ireland specifically, the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre forecasts a shortage of approximately 5,400 skilled workers per year through to 2033, with the number of young people entering the workforce not expected to keep pace with demand.

And the pipeline is getting worse, not better. Apprenticeship starts across the UK have dropped 42% since the Apprenticeship Levy was introduced seven years ago, meaning fewer young people are entering the trades at exactly the moment they are needed most.

The Assumption Most Manufacturers Make

The easy conclusion is that young people do not want to do physical work anymore. That they all want to sit behind screens in warm offices. That the trade is dying because the next generation has gone soft. It is a common view in workshops and on factory floors across the country.

But the data does not support it. Research from ManpowerGroup Ireland found that only 14% of young job seekers actually want a fully remote role. The majority want flexible, purposeful work with progression. They are not avoiding manufacturing. They are avoiding manufacturers who look like they stopped caring about their image in 2003.

Where the Real Problem Is

A skilled 22-year-old welder finishing an apprenticeship has options. They will look at two or three companies before deciding where to work. They will check LinkedIn. They will look at the website. They will see if anyone has posted anything about the team, the workshop, the kind of work being done.

A company with an active, professional online presence that shows real people doing real skilled work will attract that person. A company with a 2009 website and no LinkedIn page will not.

The Make UK report puts it plainly. Many young people still see manufacturing as outdated and low-skilled, largely because of limited exposure and a lack of visible role models. That is an employer branding problem. And employer branding is a marketing problem.

What This Means For Your Business

The manufacturers struggling most to hire are not offering bad jobs. Many of them are building world-class products, paying competitive wages and offering genuine long-term careers. The problem is that nobody outside their existing network knows it.

When a young tradesperson cannot find evidence that your company is a good place to work, they assume it is not. The companies winning the hiring battle right now are not necessarily the biggest or the best paying. They are the most visible. They are posting content that shows the workshop floor, the team, the products being built, the people who have progressed through the business. They are making skilled work look like something worth choosing.

The Practical Fix

Fixing your hiring pipeline does not require a massive recruitment budget or an HR department. It requires a consistent, professional online presence that reflects the quality of what you actually do. A LinkedIn company page that is regularly updated. A Google Business Profile that shows your facility and your team. Content that a 22-year-old fabricator stumbles across and thinks, that place looks class.

That is employer branding for manufacturers. It is not complicated. But it does require showing up consistently online, which most manufacturers in this sector have not done yet. The ones who start doing it now will have a significant advantage over every competitor who is still relying on a sign on the gate and a post on NIJobs.

The skills shortage in UK and Ireland manufacturing is real and it is getting worse. But the manufacturers who treat it purely as a supply problem, there are not enough young tradespeople, will keep struggling. The ones who treat it as a visibility problem, the right young tradespeople cannot find us, will start to pull ahead. That is a problem worth solving.