What 2026’s Skilled Labor Shortage Means for Maintenance Teams

Across facilities, manufacturing, construction, retail and other asset-heavy industries, maintenance teams are struggling to find qualified talent. In the construction sector alone, 88 percent of companies report having open positions they can’t fill, and 92 percent say they’re struggling to recruit workers with the skills they need — evidence that the broader labor gap shows up across technical job classes, including maintenance-adjacent roles.

The skilled labor shortage in maintenance has been building for years, driven by an aging workforce, fewer new entrants into technical fields and rising competition for trained workers. It’s no longer a temporary hiring challenge, but a structural constraint reshaping operations.

Let’s explore how the maintenance sector reached this point, which industries are most affected, and why digital workflows and mobile-first tools are becoming the go-to for teams trying to close the skills gap.

The Skilled Labor Shortage in Maintenance by the Numbers 

As demand grows and talent remains scarce, maintenance teams are feeling the pressure. The facilities management industry is projected to exceed $3 trillion in global spend by 2026 — roughly the size of France’s GDP — and is rapidly shifting toward outsourcing and integrated service models, which are expected to grow at a 6.6 percent CAGR through 2030. As workloads increase, the skilled labor shortage in maintenance is becoming impossible to ignore.

These numbers illustrate the challenges maintenance professionals are facing:

• Aging workforce: Over 68 percent of facility operators and technicians are above 45, and 21 percent remain active beyond retirement age. Older employees hold the deep operational knowledge that can lead to significant business continuity risks over the next five to 15 years.
• Talent gap: McKinsey estimates 20 skilled trade job openings for every one new worker through 2032, highlighting the difficulty of recruiting maintenance technicians, HVAC specialists, electricians and related roles.
  Financial impact: “The extraordinary rate of churn” in skilled trades could cost companies more than $5.3 billion annually in hiring and training.
  Future workforce needs: The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) projects the U.S. will require 140,000 electricians, HVAC pipefitters, heavy equipment operators, welders and construction laborers by 2030.
• Digital adoption priority: More than two‑thirds of teams expect to adopt AI‑powered maintenance solutions by 2026, suggesting many organizations see advanced analytics and predictive tools as key ways to address talent and workload gaps. 

Time-to-hire delays increase workload on remaining staff, extend preventive maintenance schedules and raise the risk of downtime or safety incidents. Organizations that ignore these shortages face escalating costs and operational disruptions that go far beyond HR metrics.

Why Maintenance Teams Face Increased Shortages More Than Others 

Maintenance teams face the skilled labor shortage more than other functions because they require more than headcount; they require experience. A large share of today’s maintenance workforce is nearing retirement, and when senior technicians exit, decades of institutional knowledge leave with them. That knowledge — understanding asset quirks, recognizing early warning signs, navigating safety and compliance requirements — is difficult to replace through hiring alone.

At the same time, fewer new workers are entering skilled trades at the pace needed to offset retirements. This widening experience gap makes maintenance uniquely vulnerable, particularly in asset-heavy environments where reliability depends on both technical skill and contextual knowledge.

Maintenance work itself is also becoming more complex. As CSIS noted in America’s AI Action Plan, “To build the infrastructure needed to power America’s AI future, we must also invest in the workforce that will build, operate and maintain it — including roles such as electricians, advanced HVAC technicians and a host of other high-paying occupations.”

Skilled labor is central to operational resilience and innovation. But with fewer experienced technicians available, teams are forced to do more with less. Preventive maintenance gets delayed, minor issues escalate, and the margin for error shrinks. That means staffing gaps turn into extended outages, higher failure rates and costly production interruptions.

Why ‘Hiring More People’ Isn’t a Realistic Fix Anymore 

In 2026, simply adding more bodies isn’t realistic. The talent pool is smaller, retirement rates are high, and specialty trade roles take 45 to 60 days to hire, with onboarding stretching 12 to 18 months before new hires reach full productivity. Maintenance leaders are shifting from headcount growth to maximizing output per technician through captured knowledge, streamlined workflows and smarter asset prioritization.

Industry Breakdown: How the Shortage Shows Up Across Sectors 

With hiring constraints limiting traditional solutions, the operational impact varies by industry, shaped by asset complexity, regulatory pressure and scale.

Facilities Management & Commercial Real Estate

In facilities management (FM) and commercial real estate (CRE), understaffing often shows up as deferred maintenance and increased compliance risk. According to JLL, 84 percent of FM and CRE leaders cite budget constraints and rising operational costs as top concerns, making it harder to absorb labor shortages without cutting corners.

Deferred work increases exposure to safety incidents, failed inspections and tenant dissatisfaction — especially in regulated environments such as healthcare, education and Class A office buildings. 

“Facilities management should no longer be viewed as a mere cost center but a strategic business enabler that fortifies resilience, fuels productivity and ultimately creates a competitive advantage,” said Paul Morgan, global COO of Real Estate Management Services at JLL. “In an environment marked by volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity, the need for more intelligent AI powered by data-driven facilities management has never been more essential.” 

Manufacturing & Industrial Operations

In response to staffing constraints, manufacturers are going all-in on automation investments. According to Deloitte, 46 percent of organizations rank process automation as a top-two investment priority, while 37 percent prioritize physical automation, signaling a shift toward technology as a labor offset. 

And talent gaps aren’t exclusive to the shop floor: 48 percent report difficulty filling production and operations management roles, and 46 percent struggle with staff planning and scheduling functions. 

With fewer experienced hands, visibility, coordination and preventive planning become harder to maintain. When planning slips, preventive work gets delayed, response times slow, and the risk of unplanned downtime increases.

Construction & Infrastructure

Construction and infrastructure projects in the U.S. are increasingly constrained by an aging and insufficient workforce. According to a workforce survey conducted by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), 92 percent of contractors report difficulty filling open positions, signaling a persistent shortage of qualified labor across skilled trades.

These gaps have direct operational consequences. As Ken Simonson, chief economist at AGC, explained: “Construction projects of all types are being delayed because there aren’t enough qualified workers available for firms to hire.”

When experienced tradespeople are unavailable, maintenance tasks are often deprioritized in favor of critical path work. This creates bottlenecks in equipment upkeep, inspections and repairs, raising the likelihood of breakdowns, rework and schedule overruns. For large infrastructure programs and long-term capital projects, the loss of skilled maintenance capacity compounds risk over time, making delays more costly and harder to recover from.

Retail, Warehousing & Multi-Site Operations

Retail and multi-site operators face a scale problem: many assets and few qualified technicians to maintain them. With maintenance roles increasingly hard to fill, travel time between sites, inconsistent reporting and reactive fixes stretch already lean teams further. 

Major employers are responding with in-house training to build talent pipelines, but even a single store equipment failure, such as a refrigeration breakdown, can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost inventory.

How Digital Maintenance Tools Help Close the Gap

Maintenance software like Coast helps teams work smarter, not harder. By standardizing workflows, providing real-time visibility and enabling predictive insights, these solutions help lean teams do more with less. Here’s how:

Standardized Workflows Reduce Tribal Knowledge Loss

With a digital solution, maintenance teams can store information about repeatable processes, standard operating procedures and checklists that ensure critical institutional knowledge isn’t lost when senior technicians retire or move on. Standardized workflows accelerate onboarding for junior techs, helping them contribute faster and reducing the risk of errors. 

Mobile-First Tools Save Time Where It Actually Matters

If the goal is to do more with less, mobile-first platforms are the answer. They cut down on paperwork, reduce unnecessary return trips and give field teams real-time updates. 

Preventive Maintenance & Predictive Insights

Teams are moving from reactive to predictive strategies. In fact, 44 percent of facilities professionals would prioritize software for predictive maintenance. AI analyzes asset trends and anomalies, predicts failures and enables digital twins and augmented reality for more precise interventions.

An impressive 27 percent of maintenance organizations already use predictive maintenance, and more than two-thirds expect to adopt AI-powered solutions by the end of 2026.

Data Visibility for Leaner Teams

With clear visibility, teams can implement smarter scheduling and labor allocation to prioritize high-risk tasks while balancing routine work across available staff. This reduces reactive maintenance, prevents bottlenecks and helps avoid overloading individual technicians.

What Maintenance Leaders Should Be Doing Now 

The smartest moves in 2026 aren’t massive system overhauls but targeted, practical improvements:

• Audit technician time allocation: How much of your technician’s work is actually spent on wrench time versus paperwork and unplanned work? Small visibility gaps compound with short-staffed teams.
• Identify knowledge bottlenecks: If critical know-how lives in people instead of processes, document procedures and standardize workflows now. 
• Evaluate mobile readiness: Work orders and asset data that depend on paper or office-bound systems cap productivity.

How Maintenance Teams Can Do More With Fewer Technicians

The skilled labor shortage in maintenance is no longer a future risk — it’s an operational reality. An aging workforce and fewer new entrants are driving up hiring costs, stretching teams thin and putting uptime and safety at risk. 

The shortage isn’t going away, but digital tools enable fewer people to do more. Teams that embrace mobile-first platforms, predictive analytics and standardized workflows can protect uptime, reduce risk and turn maintenance into a strategic advantage.

Want to learn how Coast helps maintenance teams work smarter by streamlining operations? Sign up for a free trial or demo today.