DACH Engineering Market Trends

How Green & Transitional Projects are Reshaping the landscape in 2025 and Beyond

26th November 2025.

Author: Luke Burgess, Executive Consultant – DACH Engineering, Vivid Resourcing

Over the past twelve months, the DACH engineering landscape has undergone some of its most dynamic shifts in recent years. As a specialist consultant working closely with clients and contractors across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Luke Burgess has had a front-row view of how rapidly project priorities, skills needs and investment strategies are evolving.

This article shares Luke’s in-depth overview of the major trends shaping the sector, the skills currently in highest demand, the challenges clients are facing, and how Vivid Resourcing is supporting both companies and engineers as the market continues to shift.

Market Performance: Resilient Growth Despite External Pressure

The DACH engineering market has remained surprisingly robust this year. Political tension and restrictive net-zero objectives have created some uncertainty, yet project pipelines – particularly in emerging energy technologies – have accelerated.

While traditional sectors such as chemical and petrochemical have faced slower investment due to high operational costs in Europe, they are still moving forward with critical-path projects. However, the most substantial growth has come from green and transitional-energy facilities, which have expanded dramatically over the last 24 months.

On the production side, rising energy costs and competitive pressures have pushed many manufacturers to install new machinery or build entirely new facilities. This surge in brownfield upgrades and facility modernisation has generated consistent demand for engineering specialists across automation, installation and commissioning.

DACH Engineering: Trends to Watch

1. The Shift Toward Green & Transitional Energy

Energy independence remains a key priority for European markets. This has triggered a substantial rise in investment into alternative fuels; in particular LNG as a short-term solution and hydrogen as a long-term pathway.

The construction of new terminals, storage facilities and hydrogen-ready infrastructure has created opportunities across every core discipline, from EPC management to commissioning and HSE.

2. Modernisation of Existing Facilities

The production company shift of focus to upgrading and building new facilities to remain competitive has notably increased the need for:

Automation engineers
PLC specialists
Commissioning professionals
Mechanical and electrical installation teams

3. Talent Redeployment Across Sectors

With some traditional sectors slowing, we are seeing highly skilled engineers from chemical and petrochemical industries transition into transitional energy and LNG projects. The good news for candidates is that many of their skills are directly transferable and they are able to shift to emerging industries; something we’re actively supporting them with.

Skills Shortages: A Candidate-Scarce Market

There is a clear shortage of engineers across several disciplines. Production and automation roles in particular remain highly competitive, and strong candidates are often placed immediately.

The market is definitively client-heavy and candidate-sparse.
Many organisations now rely on EU-wide talent pools to fill skills gaps. This is where Vivid’s international candidate network has been particularly valuable—allowing us to source top-tier contractors quickly, whether clients prefer local engineers or are open to relocators.

Clients repeatedly come to Vivid for this reason: our established relationships and deep market reach allow us to fill urgent gaps that local markets alone cannot meet.

How Clients Are Attracting & Retaining Talent

In the current market, strong freelance engineers are increasingly difficult to secure, making it a highly favourable time for contractors. When clients identify a high-calibre specialist, they are keen to retain them for as long as possible. As a result, many organisations are analysing and adapting their EVP, asking how they can differentiate themselves and what they can offer to attract and retain the best talent.

We’ve seen companies:

Offer more competitive packages
Improve working conditions, flexibility and site rotation
Streamline onboarding
Speed up interview processes to avoid losing talent

Where clients move quickly and make attractive, decisive offers, they consistently secure stronger candidates. In a competitive market, momentum is everything.

This competitive environment has created greater movement within the market. Because we work with many organisations operating in similar sectors, we are often able to provide candidates with multiple relevant opportunities, making transitions smoother for candidates and enabling clients to onboard talent more efficiently.

Clients are also focusing more heavily on retention. Knowing that candidates have alternative options – and that Vivid can support them in finding new opportunities – has encouraged organisations to make their roles more compelling. This in turn has helped ensure they can keep high-performing contractors engaged and committed.

The Rising Importance of Contractors

Freelancers have become particularly vital in the current market. The accelerated shift toward more competitive energy sources means new projects are often initiated before clients have the internal resources in place to deliver them. In these situations, having access to flexible, highly skilled engineers who can mobilise at short notice is invaluable for keeping projects on the critical path.

As a result, the demand for rapid, specialist contractor support has grown significantly. Our “inch-wide, mile-deep” approach means we know exactly where to find the skills clients need, even when requirements are niche or urgent.

Hiring Challenges Facing Clients – and How Vivid Supports Them

From a consultant perspective, the biggest challenge for clients is not candidate availability – it’s speed.

Long internal processes, slow onboarding, and delayed decision-making frequently cause companies to lose top engineers to more agile competitors. Once a candidate accepts another offer from a company able to make them an offer in a shorter time, the process must begin again for the others, costing valuable time.

Our experience and current market trends show that the organisations most successful in securing high-quality engineers are those that make timely, decisive hiring decisions. Holding candidates “on standby” for extended periods is rarely effective in the current climate.

Vivid helps clients mitigate this by:

Delivering qualified candidate shortlists within 24 hours
Managing the full process from interviews to compliance-ensurance and onboarding
Providing real-time market insight to help clients make informed, competitive decisions

Engineers in Demand Across the DACH Region

Demand remains strong across several key disciplines, largely driven by the volume of construction and upgrade projects currently underway. Many of last year’s construction projects are now moving into the commissioning phase, creating continued need for specialists across both areas.

Vivid’s strength lies in our ability to operate as a true one-stop solution for clients; supporting the full project lifecycle from basic engineering through to mechanical completion and final handover.

We have observed a significant increase in demand for:

Project Planners

A large influx of planning roles has emerged as organisations prepare projects scheduled to commence next year.

Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) Professionals

As workforce numbers rise on major capital and CAPEX sites, the requirement for urgent HSE specialists has expanded rapidly. Ensuring a safe working environment is non-negotiable, and many clients now need multiple HSE professionals at short notice to meet regulatory standards.

Construction Management

Once considered a diminishing discipline, construction management expertise is now in high demand. Clients are seeking experienced managers capable of overseeing complex builds under strict regulations, schedules and cost controls.

Commissioning Teams

A staple of our specialisms, we are currently supporting a high number of commissioning projects – from brownfield upgrades to large-scale production facility modernisations. Demand has risen to the point where we are frequently supplying full commissioning teams to install machinery, execute start-up activities and deliver mechanical completion.

Market Outlook: Continued Growth Ahead

Looking forward, I expect the market to continue accelerating. Despite political pressure and restrictive policies, the ambition to develop alternative energy sources is creating substantial long-term project pipelines. Hydrogen facilities, LNG terminals and transitional energy facilities currently under development across Germany will continue driving engineering demand across multiple sectors.

Q3 and Q4 have already been some of the busiest we’ve experienced in years. Vivid has strategically positioned itself to support clients well in advance of major hiring demands. We engage with organisations before workloads peak to understand their objectives, project pipelines and anticipated resource requirements. This proactive approach ensures that when staffing needs arise, we are already prepared, aligned and able to deliver the necessary talent without delay.

Supporting candidates remains one of the most rewarding aspects of my role. While news headlines can often paint a picture of uncertainty, the reality on the ground is far more encouraging. Speaking daily with professionals across the DACH engineering sector, particularly from a hiring perspective, I see clear opportunities emerging, especially for those open to exploring adjacent or growing industries.

I’ve been fortunate to witness many professionals secure new roles through Vivid and thrive; often finding themselves in a far stronger position than they were only a few months earlier. Seeing these positive outcomes is truly rewarding and a strong indicator of where the market is heading.