PLC jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-09-28, PLC appears in 455 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — Automation Engineer has the most postings mentioning PLC, with demand down 45% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-09-28
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Frequently asked questions about PLC
+Is PLC in demand in 2026?
Yes. PLC appears in 455 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28, with demand down 45% vs the prior 4 weeks. Automation Engineer accounts for the most postings mentioning PLC (27.5% of all postings mentioning PLC).
+What jobs require PLC?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28, among roles with at least 20 postings, the highest shares mentioning PLC are Automation and Controls Engineer (97.1% of that role’s postings mention PLC), Control Systems Engineer (29.2% of that role’s postings mention PLC), Mechanical Test Engineer (27.6% of that role’s postings mention PLC).
+What skills are commonly paired with PLC?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-09-28), PLC most often appears alongside SCADA, HMI, Python, EtherCAT, Modbus.
+Where is PLC most in demand?
As of 2026-09-28, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring PLC are El Segundo, Costa Mesa, Durham, Los Angeles, Redmond, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new PLC content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning PLC alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new PLC content from your Skillenai account.
Weekly job postings requiring PLC — last 90 days
Salary distribution
Box = 25th–75th percentile · tick = median · whisker = 10th–90th · USD, annualized
Roles most likely to require PLC
Among roles with at least 20 postings in the same period.
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | % of role postings mentioning skill |
|---|---|---|
| Automation and Controls Engineer | 34 | 97.1% |
| Control Systems Engineer | 14 | 29.2% |
| Mechanical Test Engineer | 8 | 27.6% |
| Automation Engineer | 125 | 17.8% |
| Manufacturing Systems Engineer | 5 | 13.5% |
| Technical Solution Architect | 1 | 5.0% |
| System Engineer | 3 | 4.7% |
| Propulsion Test Engineer | 1 | 4.5% |
| AI Application Engineer | 1 | 3.4% |
| Cybersecurity Architect | 2 | 2.8% |
Roles with the most PLC postings
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | Share of skill postings |
|---|---|---|
| Automation Engineer | 125 | 27.5% |
| Automation and Controls Engineer | 34 | 7.5% |
| Software Engineer | 16 | 3.5% |
| Control Systems Engineer | 14 | 3.1% |
| Systems Engineer | 11 | 2.4% |
| Test Engineer | 9 | 2.0% |
| Mechanical Test Engineer | 8 | 1.8% |
| Ground Support Equipment Engineer | 7 | 1.5% |
| Manufacturing Automation Engineer | 6 | 1.3% |
| Controls & Automation Engineer | 5 | 1.1% |
Top metros hiring for PLC
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| El Segundo | 81 | 17.8% |
| Costa Mesa | 11 | 2.4% |
| Durham | 10 | 2.2% |
| Los Angeles | 7 | 1.5% |
| Redmond | 6 | 1.3% |
| Pune | 5 | 1.1% |
| Atlanta | 4 | 0.9% |
| Austin | 4 | 0.9% |
| San Francisco | 4 | 0.9% |
Skills commonly paired with PLC
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How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28. 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 PLC by all postings for each role in the same window, ranking roles with at least 20 postings. Role distribution divides each role’s PLC postings by all PLC 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).
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- 9fbba30aa9eaae91
- data_as_of
- 2026-09-28
- 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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