manufacturing jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-09-30, manufacturing appears in 180 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — Program Manager has the most postings mentioning manufacturing, with demand share up 1.5% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-09-30
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Frequently asked questions about manufacturing
+Is manufacturing in demand in 2026?
Yes. manufacturing appears in 180 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-09-30. Program Manager accounts for the most postings mentioning manufacturing (13.3% of all postings mentioning manufacturing).
+What jobs require manufacturing?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-30, among roles with at least 20 postings, the highest shares mentioning manufacturing are Strategic Program Manager (8.3% of that role’s postings mention manufacturing), Mechanical Engineer (7.3% of that role’s postings mention manufacturing), Mechanical Engineering Manager (7.1% of that role’s postings mention manufacturing).
+What skills are commonly paired with manufacturing?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-09-30), manufacturing most often appears alongside program management, supply chain, Risk Management, project management, systems engineering.
+Where is manufacturing most in demand?
As of 2026-09-30, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring manufacturing are Bastrop, Somerville, Pittsburgh, Costa Mesa, New York City, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new manufacturing content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning manufacturing alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new manufacturing content from your Skillenai account.
+Which skills come before and after manufacturing?
The skill-flow chart shows skills documented in adjacent positions across observed employer changes. An outgoing skill is documented in the following position but not the preceding one. These are ideas to explore, not proven prerequisites, acquisition dates, or levels of mastery. Each ribbon counts employer moves with that skill pair; one move can contribute several pairs.
Weekly indexed postings requiring manufacturing — last 90 days
Career paths around manufacturing
Skills documented before and after this skill across employer changes.
Historical career profiles · all locations
Skills before manufacturing
Skills after manufacturing
How to read this chart · view counts
Each side is an independent set of observed employer moves, not the same people followed through three stages. Ribbon widths compare move counts within that side. Internal moves are not included.
The following position documents a skill that the preceding position does not. Skills must be linked to both positions, with clear dates and no overlap. One move can connect several skill pairs. These patterns suggest skills to explore; they do not establish prerequisites, when a skill was learned, or a higher skill level.
Source: Skillenai talent graph, historical career profiles. Historical descriptions and coverage can change. Only the leading published connections are shown.
| Connection | Moves |
|---|---|
| Before: inventory | 2 |
| Before: validation | 2 |
| Before: airworthiness standards | 1 |
| Before: defect detection systems | 1 |
| Before: tutoring | 1 |
| Before: Quality management system | 1 |
| Before: business agility | 1 |
| Before: reporting systems | 1 |
| After: testing | 2 |
| After: billing | 2 |
| After: process optimization | 2 |
| After: reports | 2 |
| After: Lead Auditor - Multi Site | 1 |
| After: RPG IV | 1 |
| After: automation testing | 1 |
| After: ETL pipelines | 1 |
Roles most likely to require manufacturing
Among roles with at least 20 postings in the same period.
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | % of role postings mentioning skill |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic Program Manager | 2 | 8.3% |
| Mechanical Engineer | 3 | 7.3% |
| Mechanical Engineering Manager | 3 | 7.1% |
| Integration & Test Engineer | 2 | 6.9% |
| Production Program Manager | 1 | 5.0% |
| Customer Program Manager | 2 | 4.9% |
| Material Program Manager | 3 | 4.1% |
| Product Program Manager | 1 | 3.7% |
| Mechanical Systems Engineer | 1 | 3.0% |
| Operations Program Manager | 2 | 2.5% |
Roles with the most manufacturing postings
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | Share of skill postings |
|---|---|---|
| Program Manager | 24 | 13.3% |
| Product Manager | 16 | 8.9% |
| Systems Engineer | 9 | 5.0% |
| Technical Program Manager | 8 | 4.4% |
| Engineering Manager | 6 | 3.3% |
| Materials Engineer | 5 | 2.8% |
| Solution Architect | 4 | 2.2% |
| Director of Engineering | 3 | 1.7% |
| Electrical Hardware Engineer | 3 | 1.7% |
| Engineering Program Manager | 3 | 1.7% |
Top companies posting jobs requiring manufacturing
Employers ranked by indexed job postings in the last 90 days.
| Company | Postings · 90 days |
|---|---|
| SpaceX | 19 |
| Northrop Grumman | 11 |
| Anduril | 7 |
| Formlabs | 7 |
| Voyager Technologies | 6 |
| General Motors | 5 |
| Anduril Industries | 5 |
| Globalpr | 4 |
| NVIDIA | 4 |
| Fictiv | 4 |
Job postings indexed over the past 90 days, grouped by resolved employer. Counts are postings, not hires. Companies without a published page appear without a link.
Top metros hiring for manufacturing
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Bastrop | 14 | 7.8% |
| Somerville | 8 | 4.4% |
| Pittsburgh | 7 | 3.9% |
| Costa Mesa | 5 | 2.8% |
| New York City | 5 | 2.8% |
| Santa Clara | 5 | 2.8% |
| Bengaluru | 3 | 1.7% |
| Boston | 3 | 1.7% |
| Long Beach | 3 | 1.7% |
Skills commonly paired with manufacturing
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Explore related pages
- Strategic Program Manager
- Mechanical Engineer
- Mechanical Engineering Manager
- Integration & Test Engineer
- Production Program Manager
- Customer Program Manager
- Material Program Manager
- Product Program Manager
- program management
- supply chain
- Risk Management
- project management
- systems engineering
- testing
- Procurement
- mechanical engineering
How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-30. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Role prevalence divides postings mentioning manufacturing by all postings for each role in the same window, ranking roles with at least 20 postings. Role distribution divides each role’s manufacturing postings by all manufacturing postings, including postings without a role. Shares need not sum to 100% for the displayed roles. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills). Adjusted posting share: 0.1% to 0.1%. Demand share change is the relative percentage change between these adjusted shares. Each employer-and-ATS group has at least 10 postings in each 90-day window; its earlier posting count supplies the same weight in both windows. The panel includes 2,595 identified employers and covers 68% of earlier and 72% of latest indexed postings. Windows: 2026-06-02 to 2026-08-31 and 2026-06-30 to 2026-09-28 (UTC; end dates excluded). The windows overlap by 62 days. Dates reflect indexing, not the employer’s posting date. This measures posting mix, not total hiring or market-wide demand. Matching excludes entrants and exits; changes in crawl completeness within an employer or ATS can still affect the result.
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- 3f5520a8c9e60748
- data_as_of
- 2026-09-30
- window_days
- 90
The demand, skills, and geo numbers on this page come from the same Skillenai labor market index that powers our API. Use it for compensation benchmarking, hiring-competition analysis, and skill-adoption tracking.
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