The ageing maintenance team: planning for the retirements coming

The extruder on line 3 throws a fault nobody's seen for years. The night fitter rings the one person who'd know. They pick up on the second ring, half asleep, and talk them through it from memory. Swap the card in slot 4, reset the drive, then hold the jog button for five seconds before you start it. Back running in 20 minutes.

Now picture the same night two years from now. That engineer has retired. The number still rings, but they're on holiday in Spain, and they've earned the right not to answer.

Most maintenance teams have a few of these people. They've been on site 25 years. They know which machines have been modified, which drawings are wrong and which fault codes lie. Very little of it is written down.

When they go, the knowledge goes with them, unless you plan for it.

Find out who's in the gap

Start with a simple list. Every engineer, their trade, the machines they're the go-to for, and roughly when they might want to stop or slow down.

That last column needs care. There's no default retirement age any more, and people can usually work as long as they want. An employer can only force retirement at a set age with a good reason, such as a legal age limit for the job (GOV.UK, working after State Pension age). So you can't plan by birthday. Plenty of engineers will want to work past 66. Plenty will want to go earlier.

The State Pension age is moving as well. It rises from 66 to 67 between 2026 and 2028* (GOV.UK, State Pension age timetable). Some of your team may be rethinking their dates right now.

The best way to find out is to ask, in an open way, as part of a normal career chat. Ask everyone the same thing, at any age: what do you want the next few years to look like? Write down what they tell you, and never assume.

The knowledge nobody wrote down

The real risk is in the knowledge more than the headcount. You can replace an engineer. Replacing 25 years of one site's quirks is much harder.

Go machine by machine and ask who could fix it at 2am without ringing anyone. If the answer is one name, and that name is close to retiring, you have a problem with a date on it. We've written about what happens when the only person who knows the machine is on holiday. Retirement is the same problem, made permanent.

Then start getting it out of their heads:

• Pair them with someone on every breakdown on their machines. Talk through the fault-finding out loud.
• Get them to mark up the drawings. Every link, every bypass, every wire that doesn't match.
• Record short phone videos of the awkward jobs: the bearing that only comes out one way, the reset sequence on the old press.
• Check you have current PLC and drive backups, and that someone else knows where they are and how to load them.

HSE's page on older workers suggests the same thing: working alongside colleagues "in a structured programme, to capture knowledge and learn from their experience" (HSE, older workers). Our posts on building a skills matrix and machine documentation go further.

Keep them longer, on their terms

Many engineers in their 60s don't want to stop dead. They want fewer nights, no on-call and no crawling under conveyors. Make that deal.

All employees can ask for flexible working from their first day. That covers hours, start and finish times, days and place of work. You have to deal with a request in a reasonable manner, and you can refuse it only for a good business reason (GOV.UK, flexible working).

We'd go further than the minimum. Offer it before they ask. A senior engineer on four days, days only, spending half their time teaching, is worth more to you than one who hands in their notice because nights got too much.

Think about shift length too. HSE's shift work guide says 12-hour shifts may raise the risk of fatigue and ill health in vulnerable groups, and names older workers as one. It suggests shorter shifts for those workers where needed (HSG256).

But don't write people off. HSE's guidance says you shouldn't assume a job is too physical for an older worker. It also says no separate risk assessment is needed just because of age. Review your normal one if something significant changes, and talk to the person before you decide what to change.

Plan the hire before the leaving do

Engineers are hard to find right now, and a good one can take months to recruit. If someone tells you they'll go in 18 months, start then, not when they hand in their notice.

There are three ways to fill the gap, and most sites need all of them:

1. Hire early, so the new engineer overlaps with the one who's leaving. Six months of overlap is worth more than any handover document.
2. Grow your own. Apprentices take years, which is why you start now.
3. Line up outside cover for the months in between, so the team isn't stretched thin while you recruit.

The cost of getting this wrong shows up on a night like the one at the top. A fault the old hand would fix in 20 minutes takes a stranger four hours, because nobody knows about the card in slot 4. Add up what four hours of that line costs you, and the overlap salary looks cheap.

What to do on Monday

1. List every machine where only one person can fix it without help. Note how close that person is to retiring.
2. Have an open career chat with each engineer about the next few years. Ask everyone the same question.
3. Pick the riskiest machine and start pairing someone with the expert on it this month.
4. Check your PLC and drive backups exist, are current, and that two people know where they are.

* State Pension age timetable correct as of 3 October 2026. Check GOV.UK's State Pension age timetable and GOV.UK on flexible working for the latest.