Food manufacturers cannot find a multi skilled maintenance engineer because the routes that once produced them have thinned, the people who learned the trade on the job are retiring, and the role now asks for more than it did ten years ago. The shortage is structural, not a blip, so it will not be solved by posting the same advert again.
This article sets out the main causes, what UK food and drink employers are doing about them, and the retention levers that matter most once you have hired someone. It is written for hiring managers and HR leads at food, drink and household manufacturers supplying the big four grocers, the discounters and their own-label programmes.
How big is the engineering shortage in UK manufacturing?
Make UK's Industrial Strategy Skills Commission reported 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in UK manufacturing, costing the economy an estimated £6bn a year in lost output. Its report describes a 'perfect storm' of early retirement, an ageing workforce and ill-health, alongside a 42% fall in apprenticeship starts since the Apprenticeship Levy was introduced.
Reporting on the Department for Education's 2024 Employer Skills Survey puts manufacturing among the worst sectors in England, with 34% of vacancies classed as skills-shortage vacancies. The same Make UK research found that half of manufacturers cannot source the talent they need locally, and 62% do not expect that to change before 2030.
Food and drink sits inside this picture. In July 2026 the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) said the sector has almost 200,000 jobs to fill over the next decade and needs a pipeline of technical skills in engineering, digitalisation and decarbonisation. For the wider context on hiring times, see our piece on why FMCG engineering hires take longer.
Why the multi skilled maintenance engineer is so hard to find
Three causes do most of the damage. They compound each other.
The apprenticeship gap. FE Week, citing research from WMG at Warwick, reports a 25% fall in engineering apprenticeship starts in England between 2017 and 2024. Level 2 starts, the entry point where many future fitters and technicians begin, fell by more than half. Fewer starters at 16 means fewer qualified, rounded engineers at 25. A multi skilled engineer takes years to build, so a gap in intake shows up as a gap in the labour market half a decade later.
An ageing workforce. Food engineering has leaned on long-serving people for a long time. An FDF director told FoodNavigator in 2013 that 65% of food engineers were over 50 and that up to 30% would retire within 15 years. That figure is more than a decade old and should be read as a historical warning, not a current count. Make UK's 2025 report confirms the direction of travel: early retirement and an ageing workforce are still hitting manufacturing hard. When a 30-year engineer leaves, the site loses line knowledge that was never written down.
A broader job than it used to be. A multi skilled engineer in a modern food plant is expected to handle mechanical repairs, electrical faults, drives and sensors, and increasingly PLC fault-finding, all inside hygiene rules and BRCGS-audited environments. Automation is still catching up in the UK. Make UK figures cited by Learning News put the UK at 112 industrial robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers, against an EU average of 231. As that gap closes, the engineers who can keep automated lines running become scarcer, not more common.
- Shift patterns. Four-on-four-off days and nights, or permanent nights, rule out many candidates from other sectors.
- Sector perception. Many engineers coming out of training think of automotive or aerospace first, not food.
- Competition. The same people are wanted by pharma, packaging, logistics and energy employers, often at similar pay.
- Geography. Food sites are often outside major cities, so relocation is rarely an easy fix.
What are food manufacturers doing about it?
The most effective employers have stopped waiting for a finished multi skilled engineer to appear and have started building them. The FDF's own employer resources include a case from Devro, which says it trains its engineers itself through an apprenticeship scheme because it needs good engineers to run and improve its equipment.
In practice, the approaches we see working fall into four groups:
- Grow your own. Take mechanical or electrical specialists and fund the second discipline. A sponsored electrical qualification for a mechanical fitter is cheaper than a six-month vacancy.
- Hire for aptitude, not the full CV. Many food sites now accept a strong single-trade engineer with a plan to broaden them, rather than holding out for someone who ticks every box.
- Look sideways. Engineers from adjacent process sectors already understand shift work, uptime pressure and safety culture. Food-specific hygiene can be taught.
- Plan around reliability. Moving from reactive call-outs to planned maintenance makes the job more attractive and reduces night-time breakdowns. Our maintenance and reliability recruitment work shows this is now a selling point for candidates, not just a cost argument.
Sites with advanced automation should also consider a separate controls hire rather than expecting one person to cover everything. The automation and controls engineer market is tight in its own right, so decide early which skills must come from outside and which can be developed.
What does a multi skilled maintenance engineer cost?
Pay is rising, and the visible gap between a single-trade and a multi skilled advert is widening. The table below shows advertised pay, not confirmed salaries. Treat every figure as indicative. For wider benchmarks across roles, see our UK FMCG salary guide for 2026 and the salary guides hub.
| Role or source | Advertised pay (indicative) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| UK maintenance engineer, all sectors (Indeed average) | £43,468 | Base salary average across postings |
| Multi skilled engineer, Hereford, food manufacturing | £43,000–£48,000 | 3.5-day week, life assurance, training |
| Multi skilled engineer, Preston, food manufacturing | £50,000–£55,000 | Advert from a recruiter |
| Multi skilled maintenance engineer, East London | £62,000–£63,000 | Higher London-area pay |
| Electrical maintenance engineer, food manufacturing | £63,000 including shift allowance | 4 on 4 off, 15% pension, life assurance |
Two things stand out. The spread is wide, so a site paying at the national average will struggle against a local competitor offering the top of the range. And the best adverts lead with more than salary: shorter working weeks, funded training, pensions and life cover all appear in the listings.
How to keep the engineers you have
Retention is cheaper than replacement, and it is where most food manufacturers have the most control. These are the levers that matter, in the order we would pull them.
A practical retention plan for a multi skilled maintenance team:
- Benchmark pay twice a year. Check your bands against live local adverts, not last year's survey. Fix the gap for your best engineers first.
- Build a visible skills ladder. Define what an engineer must be able to do to move from mechanical or electrical biased to fully multi skilled, then to controls, then to lead. Attach a pay step to each stage.
- Fund the second discipline. Pay for the qualification and give protected time to study. Add a retention clause only if it is reasonable.
- Fix the shift pattern. Offer a predictable rota, fair night allowances and genuine rest. Where you can, trial shorter or compressed weeks.
- Reduce reactive firefighting. Invest in condition monitoring, spares and planned maintenance so engineers spend less time on emergency call-outs.
- Capture knowledge before it leaves. Pair a near-retirement engineer with a junior for line-specific know-how. Consider part-time or mentoring arrangements for those approaching retirement.
- Give a route upward. Show a path into reliability, process or engineering management. See how this links to FMCG engineering manager and process engineering roles.
What this means for your next hire
Assume the multi skilled maintenance engineer will stay scarce through at least 2030, which is the horizon most Make UK members expect. Decide which skills you must buy and which you can build, publish pay that stands up against local adverts, and treat shift pattern and training as part of the offer, not footnotes. Employers who do this fill roles faster and lose fewer people to the site down the road.
Frequently asked questions
A multi skilled maintenance engineer can fault-find and repair both mechanical and electrical equipment, and often handles basic controls or PLC issues. In food manufacturing the role also requires working within hygiene, allergen and food safety rules. The aim is to keep a line running without waiting for a second trade to attend.
Fewer people have entered engineering training, experienced engineers are retiring, and the job now needs mechanical, electrical and controls skills together. Make UK reports 55,000 unfilled long-term manufacturing vacancies and a 42% fall in apprenticeship starts since the levy began. Shift work and sector perception narrow the pool further.
Advertised pay varies widely. Indeed's UK average for maintenance engineers is about £43,000, while food manufacturing adverts for multi skilled roles seen in August 2026 ranged from about £43,000 to £63,000 depending on region, shift pattern and electrical bias. These are indicative advertised figures, not confirmed salaries.
For most sites, yes. Building engineers through apprenticeships and funded second-discipline qualifications is slower than hiring, but the market has too few ready-made candidates. A sensible approach combines internal development with selective external hires for specialist skills such as controls and PLC programming.
Pay is part of it, but not all. Clear skills progression, funded training, predictable shift patterns, planned maintenance that reduces night call-outs, and a route into reliability or management all help. Benchmark pay against live local adverts at least twice a year.
Yes. Make UK's 2025 skills report names early retirement and an ageing workforce as core pressures in manufacturing. An FDF director said in 2013 that 65% of food engineers were over 50, a dated figure but one that shows the issue is long-running. Knowledge transfer before retirement is now a priority.