Talent uncertainty and skills requirements

Competition for skilled labour is intense, particularly as manufacturers invest in advanced digital tools and smart manufacturing facilities. 

The top concern for more than a third of manufacturing executives in a 2025 Deloitte survey was “equipping workers with the skills and knowledge they need to maximise the potential of smart manufacturing and operations”.

If the trend toward reshoring accelerates, Deloitte says that the supply of skilled workers could become more strained. 

The report suggests that a “build, buy or borrow” framework for workforce planning could help manufacturers to stay agile. 

This involves investing in talent that is most important to the core of the business, recruiting external personnel with expertise that may take longer to develop internally and hiring temporary workers or third parties to help meet fluctuating demand. 

Smart manufacturing and agentic AI

A 2025 Deloitte survey of 600 manufacturing executives found that 80% plan to invest 20% or more of their improvement budgets in smart manufacturing initiatives. 

These investments will focus on foundational tools and technologies including automation hardware, data analytics, sensors and cloud computing.

The report highlights agentic artificial intelligence (AI) as “poised to elevate smart manufacturing and operations”. 

Deloitte expects industry adoption of agentic AI to grow considerably in the next few years as it can help manufacturers:

  • Identify and engage suppliers in response to disruptions
  • Capture knowledge from retiring employees
  • Make jobs more attractive to younger generations
  • Maximise production uptime with generated handover reports and instructions
  • Improve customer experience. 

The report says that agentic AI “lays the foundation for physical AI”, which nearly a quarter of manufacturers plan to use in the next two years according to a survey conducted by the Manufacturing Leadership Council. 

This includes humanoid robots that can traverse unstructured environments and accomplish tasks, like installing specific parts. 

Semiconductors and data centres

A surge in AI and data centre infrastructure is creating downstream growth for industrial equipment.

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