Manufacturing recruitment has changed and so has what attracts people to the sector. For years, the conversation around attracting talent was fairly straightforward. Pay a competitive wage, advertise the vacancy and find someone with the right experience. Today, that is only part of the picture.
Our Manufacturing Workforce Reality Report 2026, based on conversations with 40 manufacturing leaders shows that the challenge is no longer simply finding people. Half of the leaders we spoke to said workforce availability and reliability was their biggest workforce pressure, while 30% pointed to skills shortages. At the same time, what employees expect from their employers is changing, with greater flexibility, better work-life balance and clearer career progression becoming increasingly important.
This creates an interesting challenge for manufacturers. Businesses want people who are reliable, committed and have the right attitude, but candidates are also looking much more closely at what an employer can offer them. So, what actually attracts manufacturing talent today?
There can be a temptation to look at recruitment purely from the employer's point of view. What skills do we need? What shift do we need covering? How quickly can somebody start? They are all important questions, but candidates are asking questions too. What is it actually like to work here? Will I be supported? Is there somewhere for me to progress? What is the manager like? Are the shifts going to work around my life and importantly, is this somewhere I can see myself staying?
That change matters because manufacturers are not only competing with other manufacturing businesses for talent. They are competing with every other opportunity available to that candidate.
Our research found that employers are increasingly having to balance their need for reliability and commitment with candidates' expectations around flexibility, work-life balance and development. Those expectations can also vary depending on where somebody is in their working life, which is why understanding how to tailor your recruitment strategy for every generation can help employers build a more relevant approach. The manufacturers adapting to those expectations are putting themselves in a much stronger position to attract people.
Nobody is pretending salary has suddenly stopped being important. Our wider MultiGen Playbook found that pay remains important across generations but the interesting part is everything sitting alongside it. Gen Z respondents highlighted salary alongside career progression and company reputation. Millennials prioritised company ethics, salary and flexibility. Gen X looked for ethics, salary and job security while Baby Boomers highlighted workplace culture and salary.
Progression, stability, flexibility, culture, reputation and recognition are all part of the decision. That means the question for manufacturers shouldn't just be "Are we paying enough?" It should also be "Are we giving people enough reasons to choose us?" Two manufacturers can offer similar salaries for similar roles but create completely different levels of candidate interest depending on how they communicate the opportunity and what working for the business actually looks like.
Development is becoming a major part of the attraction conversation. Our Manufacturing Workforce Reality Report found that 70% of manufacturing leaders identified training and development as the most effective way of strengthening workforce capability and addressing skills gaps. That investment can help attract people too, particularly when our MultiGen research found that more than 53% of Gen Z respondents felt training and progression opportunities were missing from their current organisation. For employers looking specifically at younger talent, our guide on how to attract Gen Z employees explores how progression, pay, communication, culture and development influence their decisions.
For manufacturers struggling to find people with every skill already in place, there is an opportunity here. Instead of waiting for the perfect CV, businesses can become more open to potential.
In fact, our manufacturing research found that the biggest skills challenge isn't necessarily technical capability. 60% of manufacturing leaders said soft skills such as communication, initiative, reliability and problem-solving were the hardest qualities to find. Another 30% pointed to cultural and values fit while only 10% identified shortages in specific technical occupations.
Technical skills can often be developed but finding somebody with the right attitude, behaviours and willingness to learn can be much harder. Manufacturers that can identify that potential and then offer genuine training and progression have a much wider talent pool available to them.
Whenever flexibility comes up, it is easy to immediately think about remote or hybrid working. For most production-based roles, working from the kitchen table clearly isn't an option but flexibility doesn't have to mean remote working. It could mean reviewing shift patterns, offering different shift lengths, considering part-time options where operationally possible or simply looking at whether working patterns still suit the people manufacturers are trying to attract.
Our MultiGen research showed just how varied those preferences can be. For example, Millennials were almost evenly split between traditional eight-hour shifts and 12-hour shifts on a four-on, four-off rotation. Baby Boomer respondents were split between eight-hour shifts, 12-hour shifts and part-time hours.
There isn't one shift pattern that will attract everybody. The manufacturers willing to understand their local talent market and challenge the way things have always been done may find themselves able to reach people their competitors are missing.
Candidates don't experience your culture for the first time on day one. They start forming an opinion from the moment they interact with your business. How quickly did you respond to their application? Did they know what was happening after the interview? Was the role explained properly and did the reality of the workplace match the advert?
This is an area where many manufacturers could be operating with a blind spot. 85% of respondents in our Manufacturing Workforce Reality Report said they received no feedback from applicants about their hiring and onboarding processes. Where businesses had received feedback, common issues included slow recruitment, poor communication and negative perceptions of demanding working environments.
That candidate experience is part of your employer brand whether you've deliberately designed it or not. In a competitive market, a slow process can mean losing a good candidate before you've even made an offer.
Attraction doesn't stop when somebody accepts the job. If you are constantly recruiting because people keep leaving, increasing the number of candidates entering the business only solves part of the problem. Our wider research into what 60 workers say about employee retention in the UK looks more closely at what influences employees to stay and what can ultimately push them towards another employer.
Our research highlighted a significant leadership capability gap across manufacturing. Technical ability is often what gets someone promoted into a supervisory role but that doesn't automatically give them the skills to motivate people, manage performance, resolve conflict or support development.
Those frontline relationships matter. As our report puts it, strong leadership creates strong retention. Employees are often influenced by their management experience rather than the machinery, systems or processes around them.
The MultiGen research reinforces that point. Gen Z respondents highlighted lack of respect, poor management and micromanagement among the factors that could push them towards the exit. We explore those issues further in our article on why Gen Z leave their job. Millennials pointed to lack of appreciation and overwhelming workloads while Gen X highlighted poor culture, work-life balance and poor leadership.
You can have a great salary and a brilliant benefits package but if somebody's everyday experience of work is poor, attracting them was only half the battle.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes manufacturers can make is reconsidering what a "good candidate" actually looks like. Our research tells us employers want reliability, initiative, communication and problem-solving. At the same time, manufacturers are telling us the skills gap is getting harder to manage.
Waiting indefinitely for somebody with the exact technical background, exact sector experience and exact employment history can make an already difficult market even smaller.
A better question might be: What does this person absolutely need on day one and what could we teach them? That doesn't mean lowering standards. It means hiring more intelligently.
Businesses that get better at recognising transferable skills, attitude and potential can access candidates who might otherwise be overlooked. Combine that with structured onboarding and development and recruitment becomes less about repeatedly filling gaps and more about building capability.
There is no point advertising brilliant progression if nobody has progressed internally for three years. There is no point talking about a supportive culture if candidates experience poor communication during recruitment and there is no point promising development if operational pressures mean training is always pushed to the bottom of the list.
Manufacturing talent is looking at the whole employment experience. The businesses attracting the strongest people are increasingly the ones able to give candidates a realistic and compelling reason to join, then deliver on it once they arrive. Competitive pay matters, but so does clear communication, development and progression, flexibility, shift patterns, good leadership and a culture people genuinely want to be part of.
For manufacturers, the challenge isn't simply generating more applications. It's attracting the right people. People who fit the environment, have the behaviours the business needs and can develop alongside the organisation. That is where having the right recruitment partner can make a difference.
At Westray Recruitment Group, we spend our time speaking with manufacturing candidates, managers and operational leaders to understand what is actually happening in the market. Our Manufacturing Workforce Reality Report shows that the strongest manufacturers are taking a more proactive approach to their people, from strengthening leadership and investing in development to building sustainable talent pipelines.
We can help manufacturers understand what candidates in their market are looking for, how their opportunities compare with competitors and where their recruitment process could be limiting their ability to attract the right people.
Because recruitment shouldn't just be about filling today's vacancy. It should help you build the workforce you'll need tomorrow.
If you're struggling to attract reliable, skilled manufacturing talent or you're finding yourself recruiting for the same roles again and again, contact us;
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