The share of industrial manufacturers operating highly automated processes is set to more than double by decade's end, according to a global outlook published by PricewaterhouseCoopers in February 2026. The report, drawing on responses from 443 senior executives across 24 territories, signals a structural shift in capital allocation and workforce strategy poised to redefine competitive positioning across global manufacturing - including metalworking and fabrication.
Background
PwC's Global Industrial Manufacturing Sector Outlook 2026 frames the current moment as a historic inflection point for the global $16 trillion industrial manufacturing industry. The report captures a sector moving from scattered digital pilots to integrated, enterprise-wide automation - a transition driven by converging pressures: labor shortages, geopolitical supply chain disruptions, and rapid maturation of AI-enabled production technologies. The findings follow years of incremental robotics and digitalization investment now accelerating into a decisive scaling phase.
Details
The headline data point is stark: the median share of manufacturers expecting to have highly automated key processes will rise from 18% to 50% by 2030, according to PwC. Broader technology adoption across operations is projected to climb from 26% today to 68% by 2030 - a near-tripling across the value chain.
The report draws a sharp distinction between what it calls "future-fit" companies - the top quintile of respondents defined by agility, innovation speed, and data readiness - and the rest. Future-fit manufacturers currently report a median automation rate of 29%, compared with 15% for other companies, and expect that figure to reach 65% by 2030, versus 45% for peers. Those lagging face compounding disadvantages: according to PwC, the performance gap widens as technology and capability advantages reinforce one another.
The investment surge extends well beyond the shop floor. Adoption of advanced technology in production and operations is projected to reach 76% heavy use by 2030, up from 29% currently, while product design and development will climb from 37% to 72%. Back-office functions - including finance and human resources - are set to quadruple their automation levels by decade's end, according to the report.
Robotics and AI drive different aspects of this transformation. According to PwC, robotics investment is seen as primarily productivity-focused by 78% of respondents, while AI is expected to deliver both growth and productivity gains in roughly equal measure - 47% and 46% respectively.
Ryan Hawk, Global Industrials and Services Leader at PwC US, stated that "the most meaningful performance differentiation will come from how coherently those technologies, including AI and automation, work together." He emphasized that manufacturers must treat AI and automation as an integrated system rather than a collection of isolated tools.
Workforce readiness emerged as a critical execution risk. 70% of executives rate developing new capabilities internally as their top means of accessing growth opportunities, yet the report identifies persistent gaps in data quality, digital skills, and organizational culture as the primary barriers to realizing that ambition. Hawk noted that organizations where frontline teams do not feel supported in learning new skills see adoption slow, regardless of leadership confidence in digital transformation.
Revenue models are shifting as well. Manufacturers project that 44% of total revenue will come from outside traditional industrial and consumer product manufacturing by 2030, with technology, digital and communications services, defense and governmental offerings, and energy production identified by PwC as the top three growth areas.
Outlook
For plant managers, process engineers, and procurement teams, the PwC data reinforces the urgency of aligning capital expenditure cycles with automation roadmaps - particularly in production operations, CNC integration, and quality systems where technology adoption is set to nearly triple. The widening capability gap between future-fit operators and the broader field suggests that deferring investment carries increasing strategic risk. Executives planning workforce strategy face a parallel imperative: upskilling programs and an organizational culture that supports experimentation will determine whether technology investment translates into measurable throughput and quality gains on the shop floor.
