ATA Recruitment
2025 Employer Survey
To understand how engineering and manufacturing businesses have performed through 2025, ATA Recruitment surveyed a cross section of business leaders from across our client base. Respondents represented a wide range of sectors including food manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, special purpose machinery, warehouse automation, construction materials and general engineering.
The findings show a market that has remained resilient despite economic uncertainty. Many organisations continued to grow, but the data also highlights the pressures that shaped decision making around cost control, recruitment and workforce planning.
In this first article, we focus on the headline trends from 2025. As part of the survey, we also asked business leaders about their confidence heading into 2026 and how this is shaping future hiring and workforce planning decisions. In follow-up pieces, we will explore the challenges behind these results in more detail, including attraction, retention and the growing opportunity around forces leavers.
Growth continued at a higher rate than 2024
When asked about business performance in 2025, the majority of respondents reported positive outcomes:
| 2024 | 2025 |
Achieved very strong growth | 7% | 5% |
Achieved strong growth | 32% | 57% |
Saw no growth | 54% | 21% |
Experienced negative growth | 7% | 16% |
This is a positive shift year on year, especially in the context of wider economic uncertainty. Nearly two thirds of respondents reported positive growth in 2025 (62%), compared with 39% in 2024, with strong growth jumping from 32% to 57%. Crucially, the proportion seeing no growth more than halved, dropping from 54% to 21%, pointing to firmer demand across many engineering and manufacturing markets.
Cost control emerged as the biggest barrier to growth
When asked about the main challenges faced in 2025, respondents highlighted:
| 2024 | 2025 |
Cost control, including energy, materials and salaries | 23% | 28% |
Customer demand | 23% | 22% |
Recruitment | 23% | 21% |
Employee retention | 18% | 14% |
Competition | 3% | 12% |
Cost control is the biggest barrier to growth in 2025, rising to 28% from 23% in 2024. Customer demand and hiring challenges have eased slightly year on year, but businesses are still being careful. Many are holding back on expansion unless they can see clear productivity gains and keep costs under control. For recruitment, this suggests a more practical, value-focused approach from clients. They are likely to prioritise hires that keep work moving, improve efficiency, or deliver a clear return, while also paying closer attention to the full cost of employment.
The increase in competition (12% vs 3%) supports this picture. More firms are fighting for work and trying to deliver with smaller teams. That makes targeted hiring, retention support, and flexible resourcing even more important.
Employment cost changes created caution, but not paralysis
With increases to National Insurance contributions and the Real and National Living Wage, many employers entered 2025 cautiously. There was concern across the market about how these changes would affect hiring plans.
In 2025, the real impact was more limited than expected within engineering and manufacturing:
77% of businesses said their hiring plans were unaffected
23% reduced hiring plans
This suggests that while cost changes increased scrutiny around recruitment decisions, they did not lead to widespread freezes. Instead, businesses became more selective and focused on getting hires right first time.
Hiring activity remained strong across permanent and contract roles
Despite cost pressures, recruitment activity held up well:
Permanent hiring | 2024 | 2025 |
Increased | 41.5% | 42.9% |
Maintained | 39% | 44.6% |
Decreased | 19.5% | 12.5% |
Contract hiring | 2024 | 2025 |
Increased | 24.4% | 32.5% |
Maintained | 41.5% | 51.8% |
Decreased | 34.1% | 15.7% |
Executive and leadership hiring | 2024 | 2025 |
Increased | 17.1% | 14.3% |
Maintained | 63.4% | 66.1% |
Decreased | 19.5% | 19.6% |
These results show that businesses continued to invest in core operational roles, while remaining more cautious at leadership level. This reiterates a focus on protecting delivery and output while managing long term overheads.
Confidence for 2026 is strong, but measured
Looking ahead, employers reported a generally positive outlook for 2026, with an average confidence score of 3.05 out of 4:
| 2025 |
Expecting very strong growth | 11% |
Expecting strong growth | 68% |
Expecting no or negative growth | 22% |
This optimism is reflected in hiring expectations:
| 2025 |
Expecting increased headcount | 39.3% |
Expecting headcount levels to maintain | 51.8% |
Expecting reduced headcount | 8.9% |
The data suggests that demand is expected to continue, but growth will depend on how effectively businesses manage people, cost and capability. Workforce strategy is clearly becoming a key factor in whether confidence translates into results.
What this means for engineering and manufacturing businesses
The 2025 results paint a picture of resilience rather than acceleration. Growth is present, but it is constrained by cost pressure, recruitment difficulty and the need to protect margins. Businesses that succeed in 2026 are likely to be those that plan workforce needs earlier, invest in the right skills and take a more strategic approach to hiring and retention.
In the next articles in this series, we will explore the specific challenges employers identified around attraction and retention, and how alternative talent pools such as forces leavers can support long term workforce stability.
How ATA Recruitment can help
At ATA Recruitment, our mission is to bridge the skills gap in engineering and manufacturing. We work closely with businesses to understand their challenges and help them find the right people at the right time, whether that’s permanent, contract or interim support. If you’re thinking about your hiring plans for 2026 or want a clearer view of what’s happening in the market, our team is here to help.
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