By Phil Hodgson (Director)
The UK building services engineering recruitment market remains active, although the landscape has become notably more selective compared to the aggressive post-pandemic hiring cycles seen across 2022–2024.
From a recruitment perspective, the market is no longer experiencing universal growth across every discipline. Instead, the sector has split into clear winners and weaker areas, with technically complex sectors such as data centres, energy infrastructure and high-end refurbishment continuing to perform strongly, while other areas including parts of sustainability consulting, speculative commercial development and residential-led work have softened considerably.
While demand for experienced MEP design engineers remains relatively healthy overall, many consultancies are now hiring far more cautiously, with businesses focusing heavily on profitability, utilisation and strategic growth rather than large-scale headcount expansion.
Overall Recruitment Market Conditions
The wider UK recruitment market has cooled throughout early 2026, with permanent hiring slowing across many sectors. However, engineering and technical consultancy recruitment continues to outperform much of the broader professional services market.
Within building services consultancy recruitment, demand remains strongest for experienced engineers capable of independently delivering technically complex projects, managing clients and contributing commercially to businesses.
The market remains particularly active for:
Senior Mechanical Engineers
Senior Electrical Engineers
Associate-level MEP Engineers
Technical Design Leads
Senior Directors
Data Centre Design Engineers
In contrast, recruitment activity at graduate, junior and intermediate levels has become far more competitive.
Many employers have reduced lower-level hiring activity due to tighter project margins, slower project starts and increased pressure on training resources. Graduate engineers and junior candidates requiring visa sponsorship are facing particularly difficult market conditions following recent increases to UK skilled worker visa salary thresholds and tighter sponsorship requirements.
This has created a noticeable divide in the market between highly experienced engineers, who remain in strong demand, and less experienced engineers, where candidate supply is now significantly outweighing available opportunities.
Permanent Recruitment Trends
Permanent recruitment remains active but significantly more measured than in previous years.
Most consultancies continue to recruit strategically rather than expansively, with interview processes becoming longer and more technically focused. Employers are placing increasing emphasis on:
Technical delivery capability
Commercial awareness
Client-facing skills
Sector-specific project experience
Software and digital capability
Revenue generation potential
Counteroffers remain common for senior engineers with specialist expertise, particularly within data centres, infrastructure and technically demanding refurbishment projects.
Regional markets such as Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Bristol continue to perform steadily, although London remains the dominant market for high-value technical recruitment activity.
Salary inflation has also started to stabilise after several years of aggressive increases. While top-tier senior engineers can still command strong salary growth, most employers are now attempting to balance pay competitiveness with tighter operating margins.
Contract Recruitment Trends
The contract design market has strengthened throughout 2026 as consultancies increasingly seek flexibility around project delivery and headcount exposure.
Many firms are using contractors to support peaks in workload without committing to long-term permanent growth, particularly on fast-moving technical projects and specialist design packages.
The strongest contract demand currently sits within:
Electrical Design Engineering
Mechanical Design Engineering
Data Centre Design
Outside IR35 opportunities still exist in certain areas of the market, particularly for specialist design expertise, although overall IR35 caution remains across much of the consultancy sector.
Experienced contractors with hyperscale data centre or major infrastructure project backgrounds continue to command premium day rates.
Redundancy Activity & Market Restructuring
While the market remains active overall, 2026 has seen an increase in selective redundancy activity and internal restructuring across parts of the consultancy sector.
A number of consultancies have quietly reduced headcount in weaker-performing divisions as businesses adapt to changing market conditions and tighter profitability targets.
One widely discussed example in the industry has been recent restructuring activity at Cundall, where market pressures and changing workloads have reportedly contributed to selective cuts within parts of the business. Previous industry reporting has highlighted the consultancy reshaping areas of its workforce during softer market conditions. (CIBSE Journal)
Importantly, the current redundancy activity is not typically being driven by a collapse in workload across the entire industry. Instead, it is more commonly linked to:
Uneven sector performance
Reduced utilisation in specific teams
Sustainability market slowdowns
Delayed commercial developments
Increased salary overheads
Hiring overexpansion during previous growth years
Most consultancies remain cautious about making large-scale engineering redundancies due to the ongoing long-term skills shortage across the sector.
Sustainability Recruitment – One of the Hardest Hit Areas
One of the biggest changes in the market throughout 2025 into 2026 has been the slowdown across parts of the sustainability recruitment sector.
While sustainability remains critically important strategically, many consultancies rapidly expanded ESG, net zero and sustainability teams during the height of the green building boom. As project budgets have tightened and some clients have delayed or scaled back sustainability ambitions, demand has softened significantly in comparison to previous years.
This has particularly affected:
Junior Sustainability Consultants
Graduate ESG Consultants
Net Zero Analysts
Building Performance Analysts
Entry-level Building Physics Engineers
Senior sustainability specialists with strong commercial or technically integrated design capability still remain valuable, but purely compliance-focused or heavily theoretical sustainability roles have become noticeably harder to secure.
The market is increasingly favouring engineers and consultants who can combine sustainability knowledge with core technical MEP design capability rather than operating in standalone advisory roles.
Data Centres – Still the Dominant Growth Sector
Data centres continue to be the standout sector within UK building services recruitment.
Driven by AI expansion, cloud computing growth and hyperscale investment, demand across mission critical design continues to significantly outperform the wider market.
The strongest hiring demand remains within:
Electrical Design
Power Infrastructure
Cooling/HVAC Design
BIM & Digital Engineering
Technical Design Management
Engineers with genuine hyperscale or mission critical project experience remain among the most sought-after candidates in the entire building services market.
Many consultancies are continuing to build specialist data centre teams aggressively despite wider market caution elsewhere.
Healthcare – Stable & Consistent
Healthcare continues to provide relatively stable workload and recruitment demand.
NHS framework work, laboratories, life sciences and specialist healthcare facilities are continuing to support demand for technically strong MEP design engineers, particularly those with healthcare standards and compliance knowledge.
While the sector is not seeing explosive growth, it remains one of the more reliable markets during wider economic uncertainty.
Commercial Offices – More Polarised
The commercial office sector has become increasingly selective.
Prime Grade A refurbishment schemes, energy-efficient retrofits and sustainable repositioning projects continue to move forward, particularly in London. However, speculative office developments without strong ESG or occupier demand are seeing slower progress.
This has created a mixed recruitment market where some consultancies remain busy with refurbishment and retrofit work, while others more reliant on traditional speculative office developments are seeing softer workloads.
Residential – Still Under Pressure
Residential remains one of the weaker sectors within the consultancy market.
Ongoing viability challenges, planning delays, borrowing costs and slower housing activity continue to impact recruitment confidence across many residential-focused consultancies.
Build-to-rent and high-end residential projects continue to generate some activity, but mainstream residential development remains subdued compared to infrastructure and mission critical sectors.
Infrastructure, Defence & Energy – Quietly Strong
Infrastructure-related sectors continue to perform steadily, particularly where projects are backed by long-term public funding or national investment programmes.
Defence, energy transition and technically complex infrastructure projects are supporting stable recruitment demand for experienced design engineers, particularly those capable of operating within highly regulated environments.
The Skills Shortage Still Exists — But It Has Changed
Despite some cooling in the market, the long-term building services skills shortage has not disappeared.
However, the shortage is now concentrated far more heavily around experienced, technically capable engineers rather than junior staff.
The biggest shortages currently exist around:
Senior Electrical Engineers
Senior Mechanical Engineers
Associate Directors
Technical Design Leads
Data Centre Specialists
To cite just one example, I recently took a Senior Electrical Engineer to market on a Monday at 11am, looking for a salary range of £55- £60k, by Thursday 9am the very same week, the deal was done at £65k. There were a total of 11 firms interested in hiring this individual!
At the same time, graduate and lower-level engineers are facing a significantly more competitive market than in previous years, particularly candidates requiring sponsorship visas.
The recent increases to skilled worker salary thresholds have made sponsorship financially more difficult for many consultancies, especially for junior engineers whose salaries may no longer comfortably meet visa requirements.
As a result, many employers are prioritising candidates with unrestricted UK working rights unless there is a particularly specialist technical requirement.
Outlook for the Rest of 2026
The overall outlook for the remainder of 2026 remains cautiously positive for building services engineering recruitment, although the market is expected to remain highly selective.
The strongest opportunities are likely to remain within:
Data Centres
Energy Infrastructure
Healthcare
Defence
Technical Refurbishment
Low Carbon MEP Design
Digital Engineering
Businesses with strong technical reputations, healthy project pipelines and genuine sector specialisms are still recruiting actively.
However, the market has clearly shifted away from the broad “hire at all costs” mentality of previous years. Employers are now focusing much more heavily on productivity, technical quality and commercially valuable experience.
For candidates, specialist expertise and technical depth are increasingly becoming the key differentiators in an evolving and more competitive consultancy market.
If you are a client or a candidate who is looking to hire or make your next career move, please do feel free to reach out and get in contact with me at phil@marchwooduk.com or call me on 07441343352.