A plant manager at a mid-sized fabricator told me recently that orders were the best they'd been for a while. And she still couldn't get sign-off to replace her maintenance manager.
It isn't unusual. Make UK's latest Manufacturing Outlook, produced with the accountancy firm S&W, put the sector's employment balance at +3% for the third quarter, down from +15% in the second. The Manufacturer's write-up described recruitment growth as close to a standstill. It also cited Office for National Statistics vacancy data showing manufacturing vacancies down 6.2% on the previous quarter.
But confidence is rising.
The same survey found business confidence up for the first time in more than a year. Orders stayed positive, with manufacturers expecting demand to strengthen towards the end of the year. Make UK also nudged up its output growth forecast for the year as a whole. And yet the hiring numbers went the opposite way.
Where has the hiring gone, then?
Why are manufacturers holding back on hiring when confidence is improving?
Manufacturers are holding back mostly because of cost and uncertainty. Make UK's senior economist, Fhaheen Khan, said high employment and energy costs and heavier regulation are making manufacturers think twice before taking on people. S&W partner Stephen Drew described firms that want to invest and grow but are waiting for more certainty first. And more Employment Rights Act measures take effect this month.
The Autumn Budget is still to come, which is a lot to price in before anyone signs off a new post.
Hesitation shows up across the wider market too
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation's JobsOutlook, reported at the end of September, points the same way across the whole economy. Whitestone Insight surveyed 704 UK employers for it between mid-June and mid-August.
Economic confidence improved by eight points to a net balance of -39%, and confidence in hiring and investment decisions rose six points to -8%. Both are still negative. And hiring intentions went the other way. Short-term permanent hiring slipped a point to a net balance of +8%, and the medium-term figure fell four points to +6%.
The REC's interim chief executive, Maxine Bligh, cautioned against mistaking improvement for recovery. I think that's fair.
The regional split matters if you run a plant.
In the North the short-term permanent hiring balance was +11% and in the Midlands +10%, with the Midlands leading on medium-term intentions at +12%. Neither is large, but both sit above the +8% national figure. Those are measures of employer intentions rather than hires made, so they show appetite more than outcomes.
Why does a senior engineering hire behave differently from general headcount?
A senior engineering manager's seat keeps everyone else's hours productive. Freezing volume hiring is a budget decision. An empty production manager or maintenance manager role is different, and it typically shows up in slower breakdown response and in decisions that wait for someone to be around. And a freeze doesn't price that in.
Someone usually covers, whether that's a deputy stepping up or the team absorbing it. It works for a few weeks, and after that it starts to cost something else, normally the improvement work nobody had time for.
What happens to the candidate market while employers hold back?
I'd expect cautious employers to produce cautious candidates. An experienced manager in a stable job at a business that's doing well has little reason to move. A vacancy advertised into a quiet market mostly reaches the people already looking, and they're not always the people you want.
Notice periods at this level are often long, so a hire agreed after the Budget may not start until the new year.
Both organisations have set out what they want from that Budget. Make UK says it will shortly publish its priority asks, with lower cost and regulatory pressure at the centre. The REC wants the employers' National Insurance threshold restored, among other asks such as better childcare access and more flexible skills funding. None of it is confirmed until the Budget is announced.
What should an engineering business do about a senior vacancy right now?
Anyone working out how to hire an engineering manager in this market should decide first whether the business can run without the role. If it can't, start now, because the cost pressures behind the freeze may not be settled by the time a search finishes.
Where the budget really is frozen, bridge with an interim or contract manager and hire permanently when the picture clears, and let the interim help write the permanent brief.
Interim cover has its own logic. A good one can steady a department and give you a few months to decide what the permanent role should look like. It can be costly and it doesn't suit every plant, but it beats a stretched deputy. And done well, it also leaves the permanent hire something solid to inherit.
When the pool is thin, the temptation is to hire the best engineer available.
But the seat needs someone who can run people and make calls when the numbers are bad. Technical depth gets a candidate onto the shortlist, and how they handle a difficult quarter decides whether they last. Ask for evidence of both. A CV rarely shows the second one.
Tighten the brief either way, and be clear about what the person must have done before and what the market will want in salary. A role that's priced and described loosely is the one that sits open longest.
Our production manager hiring guide is a decent place to start if you're still shaping it.
Why use a specialist recruiter when hiring is slow?
Slow markets reward whoever already knows the candidates. A specialist engineering recruiter spends the working week talking to plant and maintenance managers. It tells them who might be open to a move, and whether your budget matches the shortlist you're hoping for. An advert on its own mostly reaches whoever is applying that week.
Access to people is the main thing a specialist adds right now.
If you have an engineering management role you can't leave open, get in touch with our engineering recruitment team for a candid view of what the market looks like for it.
