State of 3D Printing: Profile hiring in the additive manufacturing industry

Posted By Jessica Van Zeijderveld on Jun 19, 2018 | 0 comments

We’re up and running with our third part of our series on analyzing our 2018 edition of the State of 3D Printing. Over a 1000 respondents told us their views on the 3D printing industry and with their answers, we were able to trace out some key developments that will have a major impact on the future of additive manufacturing. In this blog post, we will focus on the profile hiring aspect. Our respondents were able to tell us a bit more about themselves, what their level of expertise is and how long they have been using 3D printing. Other respondents were able to tell us more about their current profile hiring at their business but also on what kind of profiles they are planning to hire. If you are currently interested in either trying to get hired or wanting to hire someone – related to additive manufacturing – this blog post is ideal for you!

Level of expertise took a major leap upwards

Let’s take a look at last year’s level of expertise first. 40% of last year’s respondents deemed themselves, beginners, 40% intermediates and only 20% saw themselves as true experts in the additive manufacturing process. These numbers have significantly changed in our 2018 edition. This year, only 15% deemed themselves, beginners, 41% saw themselves as intermediates and an immense 44% now see themselves as full-on experts. This means that people have become more and more comfortable with 3D printing over the year(s). We can expect people to move out of their rookie comfort zone and experiment more and more with 3D printing now that more people have got to know the ins and outs of this technology. Experts tend to specialize in their type of 3D printing technologies and are more on the lookout for new applications. This backs up the fact that metal 3D printing is being applied more, which we stated in our previous analysis on the State of 3D printing regarding the development of technologies, materials, and finishes.

Fewer people starting out with 3D printing                

The 3D printing technology has been around for quite a bit now so we asked our respondents how many years they have been using this manufacturing method. It turns out that the part of our respondents who have less than 1 year of experience decreased by 17% meaning that there are fewer people starting out with 3D printing in the past year. The segment with 3 to 5 years experience has increased by 16%. The fact that fewer people are starting out with 3D printing backs up our previous statement of the level of expertise taking a major leap upwards. The more years you have mastered learning this manufacturing type, the more experience you have gained. In the years to come people will have gained more and more knowledge in 3D printing which will lead to new developments not only with technologies, materials, and finishes, but also in new ways how a business will apply this manufacturing method. We have analyzed how businesses have been using 3D printing, focussing on e.g. costs, according to the State of 3D Printing in this blog post.

Businesses planning to hire slightly less 3D printing related profiles

Now that we know more about our respondents and how comfortable they are with additive manufacturing, you might be curious about how they will manage talent in their new business. We asked our respondents the question on if they are planning to actually hire new candidates in the upcoming year and if these candidates have any links to 3D printing. It turns out that 60% of this year’s respondents have said to not hire anyone new. This is the same percentage as last year. However, whereas last year only 19% was planning on hiring profiles related to 3D printing, this year 17% decided to do so. It can be expected that due to the level of expertise rising, slightly fewer people are needed on the shop floor. With 3D printing technology, it makes more sense to hire slightly fewer people but with more experience than hiring more generic 3D printing profiles with less experience. By hiring people with more expertise, 3D printing can be applied in more innovative and beneficial ways.

Project managers are the biggest profile hiring winners

If we look at what profiles are being hired in general, it can be said that businesses are taking a step backwards from hiring engineers, with 25% wanting to hire them this year compared to 37% last year, and designers, with 20% wanting to hire them this year compared to 37% last year. Respondents are more keen on hiring project managers. This year, 23% of our respondents are planning to hire projects managers compared to a meager 3% last year. If we correlate this to the increasing level of expertise, it can be assumed that 3D printing related projects are getting more comprehensive due to the execution being done by experts, meaning that project managers are more in need to track and smoothen out parts of the project.

Want to read about other additive manufacturing related trends?

The developments related to profile hiring are not the only parts we analyzed in our 2018 edition of the State of 3D Printing. We dissected sectors as well such as industrial goods, aeronautics, and consumer goods. Besides industries, we also saw some interesting developments in our power users section. Want to know more about overall 3D printing related developments such as developments on materials, technologies and such? Everything can be found in our State of 3D Printing ebook. Would you like to stay up to date on additive manufacturing developments on the go? Subscribe to our newsletter!