Lincolnshire-based industrial automation and electrical engineering specialist Control Freaks Ltd says demand has climbed sharply following its move to a larger headquarters at Holbeach Technology Park, with the expanded facility already approaching capacity and order cover running into summer 2026. The company said the relocation was intended to increase manufacturing, testing, and systems-integration capability, but the market has obligingly consumed the extra headroom.
Control Freaks positions itself around high-reliability PLC solutions, safety systems, automation upgrades, and robotics integration with advanced visualisation, serving customers across food, process, leisure, and metal processing. The message is familiar across UK manufacturing: modernisation programmes are accelerating, functional safety requirements are tightening, and brownfield upgrades are rarely neat enough to be “just” a controls refresh.
Managing Director Clint Johnson attributed the surge partly to a tightening labour market for specialist controls capability. He said: “Our move to Holbeach Technology Park has given us the scale to take on more complex projects, but the uplift in demand has been even greater than expected. There is a clear shortage of skilled system engineers in the market, and as our workload grows, we will need to expand our team to ensure we continue delivering the level of technical depth and reliability our customers expect.”
That skills constraint matters because the difficult work in industrial automation is rarely the bill of materials. It is commissioning discipline, safety validation, documentation, and the ability to untangle legacy control architectures without creating new failure modes. When integrators run hot, lead times stretch, and manufacturers either defer upgrades or accept higher operational risk — neither option is particularly compatible with “digital transformation” brochures.
Control Freaks said its growth is underpinned by hands-on engineering and the ability to modernise both legacy and advanced automation environments, including deployments using Mitsubishi Electric Automation Systems technologies. The company also signalled further expansion of its systems-integration capability, implying recruitment and/or additional capacity investment if demand remains sustained.
For UK manufacturers, the subtext is uncomfortable: if you want modern controls, functional safety upgrades, and robotics integration, you are competing for scarce engineering hours, not just capex. The market will, eventually, correct — but it tends to do so by raising prices before it produces more engineers.
