6 July 2023

In just about every sector, candidates have vacancies and organisations to choose from. But not all vacancies get filled easily. With the first two quarters of 2023 behind us, early July is the perfect time to take a closer look at the labour market within engineering. Jülide Tunali, Senior Manager in the engineering & supply chain division at international recruitment specialist Robert Walters, explains.  

Unchanged top three 

As in 2022, it is mainly experienced Project Managers, Engineering Managers and Maintenance Managers who have been in high demand over the past six months. Sectors such as pharma, chemicals and the food sector are doing extremely well, and we expect the same to continue in the second half of the year.  

Difficult recruitment process  

"However, organisations remain fixated on finding candidates with good language skills, which unnecessarily slows down the recruitment process," Jülide says. "On top of that, candidates are highly selective. They are open to a new professional challenge, but only want to take the plunge if it really benefits them, and often, salary plays a decisive role."  

The early 2023 salary indexation has made organisations cost-conscious in their recruitment process. Jülide: "In recent months, we have noticed that organisations sometimes push aside suitable candidates because their salary expectations are too high. It is then often decided to attract more junior candidates or international talent from sectors that are not doing as well."  

Focus on human skills 

Within engineering, a technical basis is obviously a necessity, but today human skills play an increasingly important role in the selection process. As an engineering professional, you are expected to be able to multi-task and prioritise tasks. However, in addition to strong communication and interpersonal skills, it is also important to be able to think out-of-the-box and have a certain commercial attitude.    

"The days when engineering professionals were selected purely on their technical knowledge are far behind us. Today, hiring managers focus on human skills when recruiting new employees, so that changes within the organisation can be implemented smoothly. The door to international talent is now ajar in most organisations, but often we see that language skills are a barrier. However, hard skills such as languages can be taught. As soon as organisations fully realise this and invest in training new international talent, we are one step further in the war for talent," Jülide concludes.  

Find out more?

Curious which engineering roles we recruit for? Have a look at our latest jobs in engineering. To benchmark your salary, download our digital Salary Survey tool.