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Building an RPA-Skilled Workforce for Next-Gen Automation Solutions:
Growth in RPA & HIA globally has resulted in a demand surge for Industrial Automation talent across all domains.
- With currently 210,000 job openings globally, the rate of increase in demand is unmatched by current supply.
- Bangkok, Tehran, Shanghai, Stockholm, and Toronto are the top 5 locations with highest talent availability. Other key locations include Calgary, Bengaluru, Sydney and Tokyo.
- 20-50% Cost savings per employee with Reskilling compared to external recruitment.
- As a long-term strategy, organizations must reskill/upskill their workforce for in-demand skillsets of Industrial Automation.
Download the report to access insights including talent size and costs, in-demand skills, growth trajectories, experience split of talent, gender diversity and reskilling strategies for Industrial Automation talent.
“The global Industrial automation market is projected to be worth USD 265 Bn in 2025, growing at a CAGR of 9 percent, leaping from just USD 207 Bn in 2022.”
With the incremental growth of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Hyper Intelligent Automation (HIA) globally, the demand for Industrial Automation talent across all domains is expected to rise drastically in upcoming years. Industrial Automation is set to dominate global industries across a variety of use cases, thus transforming the future of business.
Some of the critical features of Industrial Automation include:
- Higher productivity by enabling 24/7 production lines.
- Reduced errors in production and delivering better quality.
- Programmable systems that can be used for multiple tasks.
- Higher levels of safety in hazardous conditions.
- Sharp accuracy covering the entire production line.
With the growing interest in delivering these features on a large scale, enterprises are hiring aggressively to accelerate the development of IA technologies. However, this will soon lead to a global talent shortage of IA talent and the beginning of a talent war between organizations.
This whitepaper dives deep into the hiring and reskilling strategies required today to develop quality Industrial Automation talent.
Global IA Talent Demand and Hiring Intensity
Industrial Automation currently has a strong demand across both tech and non-tech job roles globally. As per a report by Draup, there are a total of 210,000 IA job openings worldwide. These openings extend across roles, including R&D Engineer, Computer Vision Developer, Automation Product Manager, Industrial Sales Engineer, and more.
There is a growing competition between IA companies across global locations to hire in-demand IA talent to power the development of emerging technologies.
Companies such Siemens, Honeywell, Emerson, and Johnson Controls are on the move of hiring aggressively. On the other hand, enterprises like Veolia, Koch, Leviton, and 3M are moderately hiring to meet the modern IA talent demand.
One of the emerging roles from Industrial Automation talent is Automation Controls Engineer. In the next segment, we will discuss this role extensively and measure its impact on IA developments globally.
Automation Controls Engineer: Job Role Overview
The role of an Automation Controls Engineer involves designing, developing, and implementing solutions that control dynamic systems. In the last few years, Automation Controls Engineers’ responsibilities and skill-sets have evolved due to the digitization of the workflow. This has led to a move to emerging skillsets from traditional skillsets to prepare this role for what future needs.
The graphic attached explains the role of an Automation Controls Engineer in detail and how the traditional skillset differs from the emerging skillset.
Location Intelligence and Hiring Insights for “Automation Controls Engineer”
Targeted hiring strategies are imperative for global enterprises to meet the surge in current demand for Industrial Automation talent. Hiring for Automation Controls Engineer will soon be met by a talent shortage due to the increased demand for this role.
A thorough analysis of global talent hotspots for IA talent indicated Bangkok, Tehran, Shanghai, Stockholm, and Toronto to be the top 5 locations for hiring an Automation Controls Engineer with maximum talent availability.
However, hiring from a relatively small talent pool limits an organization’s ability to grow a larger workforce. To avoid this from happening, organizations need to utilize reskilling as a viable way forward to develop a future-proof Industrial Automation workforce.
Reskilling Case Study: Reskilling a Quality Assurance Engineer to Automation Controls Engineer
Reskilling a limited workforce for Automation Controls Engineer can be an effective strategy for companies to meet the unmet hiring demand of IA talent and simultaneously provide viable career paths to obsolete talent.
Here are the reasons why Reskilling is the need of the hour for organizations.
- To provide a viable career path for disrupted roles.
- To save up to 20-50% of recruitment cost per employee
- To address the huge demand-supply gap in quality talent
- To increase employee satisfaction by letting your employees grow.
Organizations will need to follow a detailed reskilling framework to attain the best results. A sample reskilling framework consists of:
- Skills breakdown of the disrupted role and skills required for the new position
- Skills gap analysis between the starting and desired role
- Analysis of feasible transitions based on relevant reskilling parameters
- Selection of suitable learning modules to bridge the skills gap
Let us try preparing a reskilling path from a Quality Assurance Engineer to a new-age Automation Controls Engineer.
In a timeframe of 6-8 months, a QA Engineer would be transformed into an Automation Controls Engineer following the custom reskilling path discussed above.
With rapid deployment and new solutions coming up, the modern working ecosystem is expected to disrupt existing skills across all experience levels very shortly heavily.
Reskilling is the need of the hour, and enterprises that choose to move with custom reskilling would be less likely to face a talent shortage in the coming future.
Draup is an AI-powered talent intelligence platform that delivers HR leaders with data-backed insights into the global talent pool, cost modeling, and reskilling pathways suitable to manage talent faster and drive company-wide reskilling initiatives or hire quality talent.
