From Welder to Welding Specialist: How Automation Is Redefining Skilled Manufacturing Careers

For years, the discussion around automation in manufacturing has focused on productivity and the role of robots on the shop floor. Today, welding manufacturers are increasingly asking how automation can help retain valuable skills and expertise as experienced workers approach retirement.

The Welding Skills Gap

The manufacturing industry – like many others – is facing a growing skills gap driven by an ageing workforce and rapid technological advancements. This is affecting a number of roles and nowhere is this challenge more apparent than in welding. 

With the average age of a UK welder now around 58, a significant proportion of the workforce is approaching retirement. Over the next decade, the industry risks losing a wealth of expertise, while too few younger people are choosing welding as a career. 

Workers are also seeking safer, more flexible working environments, making manual and repetitive roles increasingly difficult to fill. As a result, it is perhaps unsurprising that an estimated 2.4 million jobs were projected to go unfilled between 2018 and 2028.

For manufacturers, the consequences are far-reaching. Skills shortages are creating bottlenecks, restricting capacity and driving up labour costs at a time when many businesses are looking to grow. 

Without enough skilled welders to meet demand, manufacturers can face longer lead times, missed opportunities and increased pressure on remaining employees. Over time, as more welders leave the labour market, these challenges will only grow, particularly for SMEs who often lack sufficient recruitment and training resources. 

Overcoming these shortages is not simply about replacing workers, it's also about preserving the knowledge and experience they take with them.

Preparing for Change

Today, retirement doesn't just create vacancies. Experienced welders play a critical role in defining best practice, maintaining quality standards and training the next generation. As many approach retirement, manufacturers face losing decades of hard-won expertise. 

Collaborative automation can help address this challenge by enabling businesses to capture and standardise proven welding techniques, ensuring important knowledge is retained and consistently applied, long after individual employees have left the workforce. 

This also allows experienced welders to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time mentoring colleagues before they retire. They can oversee quality and optimise production processes, helping businesses maximise the value of their most experienced employees while training the next generation. 

While technology can help manufacturers plug immediate gaps, it also creates opportunities to reshape how manufacturing work is performed and who can perform it.

Modern Manufacturing

As skills shortages continue to put pressure on manufacturers, collaborative industrial robots (cobots) are offering businesses, particularly SMEs, a practical way to strengthen their workforce.

Designed to integrate with existing production systems, they can take on complex or awkward tasks that have been traditionally difficult to automate. Unlike conventional industrial automation, cobots work safely alongside employees, handling repetitive or physically demanding duties while enabling skilled workers to focus on more strategic and value-adding work.

Their adaptability also allows manufacturers to introduce automation gradually, without the need for extensive robotics expertise. This provides a practical way to address immediate operational challenges.

This approach is already helping businesses tackle labour shortages. Fu Zhuan Steel, a sheet metal fabrication company, adopted a cobot after finding that conventional industrial robots required lengthy training and could only be operated by a small group of specialists.

With collaborative automation, operators became proficient in just one or two days, enabling the company to respond more effectively to changing production requirements, while freeing up specialist personnel to assist with tasks elsewhere in the factory. 

Fu Zhuan Steel noted that welding's reputation as physically demanding and potentially hazardous had also contributed to recruitment difficulties. By moving workers into robot-operating roles rather than manual welding, the company aimed to make the industry more attractive to newcomers and younger workers.

A New Role

This wider adoption of automation means welding careers are not disappearing, they're simply changing. The role of the welder is evolving from manual operator to automation specialist, with workers increasingly moving into programming and supervisory roles.

These positions allow human expertise to be focused on higher-value activities that require problem-solving or more precise judgement.

As automation becomes more widespread, manufacturers are increasingly seeking workers with hybrid skill sets that combine welding expertise with digital, programming and process optimisation capabilities.

By introducing more technology into welding operations, collaborative robots are helping to reshape perceptions of the industry among younger people as interest grows in technology-driven careers. For a tech-savvy generation, the chance to work with robotic systems often holds greater appeal than traditional industrial roles.

And while the industry should continue to prioritise investment in apprenticeships and training programmes to support talent attraction, the use of technologies like cobots may enable manufacturers to attract a new generation of talent long-term, while maintaining productivity in the face of labour shortages in the short-term.

As a result, automation is increasingly being viewed not simply as a productivity tool, but as a key component of workforce strategy.

What’s Next

The future of welding is not about choosing between people and robots. As manufacturers continue to navigate labour shortages and an ageing workforce, closing skills gaps and attracting new talent will be essential to long-term success.

Collaborative robots and other automation technologies can play an important role in that transition. By supporting skilled employees rather than replacing them, they help retain valuable expertise while creating more accessible, modern and appealing manufacturing careers.

Rather than viewing automation solely as a means of improving productivity, manufacturers should see it as part of a wider people strategy. Combining advanced technologies with training and recruitment initiatives can help organisations build greater resilience and adaptability in the years ahead.

Ultimately, the manufacturers that succeed over the next decade, whether SMEs or large enterprises, will not be those that simply replace people with machines. They will be the ones that use innovation to strengthen their teams and create sustainable growth.

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Author bio: Mark Gray

Mark started his career as an electrical engineer working on automation and packaging lines before moving into sales. His first role was working with Machine Vision from Cognex before joining Universal Robots (part of Teradyne Robotics) ten years ago, in that time he has built up the UK team and opened the first UK office in Sheffield which offers training and proof of concept trials.

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