PLC and Automation Jobs by Country: How to Search Internationally

To find automation jobs by country, search for the job titles each region actually uses, not just "PLC programmer". Filter by country, and read the adverts for the PLC and SCADA platforms they name. Apply on the employer's own career site where you can. The free EDWartens job board at edwartens.com/jobs collects PLC, SCADA, controls, instrumentation and commissioning jobs from employers' career sites and the Adzuna job search, filed by country.

Checked 1 October 2026. Job title examples come from the US O*NET database and the UK's Prospects careers service. What we say about the EDWartens board is taken from the code that runs it.

What are automation jobs called in different countries?

The same work goes by different names, and a search for one title misses most of the market. O*NET, the US Department of Labor's occupation database, lists automation engineer, control systems engineer, controls engineering specialist and process controls engineer among the job titles reported for mechatronics engineers. It also lists PLC software among that role's technology skills. In the UK, Prospects profiles the control and instrumentation (C&I) engineer, who designs, installs, manages and maintains the equipment that monitors and controls processes.

A few practical notes:

• "Controls" is the North American word. Controls engineer and controls technician cover most PLC work there. Many UK employers use the same words.
• Search in the local language. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, adverts may be written in German even at multinational firms. SPS is the German abbreviation for PLC, so search SPS-Programmierer and SPS-Programmierung alongside the English titles.
• Process industries say "instrumentation". Oil, gas, chemicals, water and power often advertise instrumentation and control (I&C) roles. These include DCS and field instruments as well as PLCs.
• Field roles hide under service titles. Field service engineer, commissioning engineer and site engineer roles are often PLC jobs with travel. Read the description, not just the title.
• Leave out the false friends. Test automation, marketing automation and RPA (robotic process automation) are software jobs that share the word "automation".

What do employers ask for?

Across countries, automation adverts ask for a similar core. Read 20 adverts in your target country and you will see the pattern for yourself.

1. A named PLC platform. Siemens TIA Portal and Rockwell Studio 5000 appear most often in many markets, but regional brands matter. Mitsubishi and Omron are common across much of Asia, and Beckhoff and CODESYS-based controllers in machine building.
2. HMI and SCADA. WinCC, FactoryTalk View, Ignition, AVEVA (Wonderware) and others, depending on sector.
3. Networks. PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, Modbus, OPC UA, and the basics of IP addressing.
4. Drawings and electrical skill. Reading schematics, fault-finding on 24 V DC control circuits, and sometimes panel design.
5. Commissioning and troubleshooting. Experience bringing a machine or plant up, or at least simulation work that shows you can.
6. Travel and documents. Many controls roles involve site visits. A driving licence and a passport are common requirements.
7. Safety and standards. Machine safety, functional safety or hazardous-area knowledge for some roles, depending on the industry and the country.

Where robot adoption is high, robot integration skills are worth adding. The IFR's World Robotics 2026 report puts China, the United States, Japan, Korea and Germany as the five largest robot markets in 2025, with India sixth.

Where should you search?

• The employer's own career site. Automation vendors, integrators and large manufacturers post here first. Adverts copied to job boards can be out of date.
• National and regional job boards. Each country has its own leaders. In the EU, the EURES portal searches vacancies across European countries.
• Aggregators and search APIs such as Adzuna, which cover many countries in one place.
• LinkedIn and recruiters. Specialist automation recruiters handle many contract and field roles. Keep your profile's job title in the local terms.
• System integrators. Integrators hire PLC and SCADA engineers constantly. Look up the integrators in your target city.

Visas and the right to work

Check the right-to-work rules before you apply abroad. Many countries need an employer to sponsor a work visa, and each country publishes its own rules on its government immigration website. An advert that says "must have the right to work in [country]" usually means the employer will not sponsor.

How does the EDWartens job board work?

The board at edwartens.com/jobs is free, public and needs no account. Here is what it does, taken from the code that runs it.

Where the jobs come from. The board has two sources:

• Employers' own career sites, read directly: Bosch, Continental, Wabtec, Rockwell Automation, ABB, GE Vernova, Hitachi Energy, Johnson Controls, Emerson and Honeywell. These are marked "Direct from employer".
• The Adzuna job search API, with one broad, newest-first search per country board. It looks for PLC, SCADA, automation, controls, instrumentation, robotics and commissioning in adverts up to 30 days old. It covers the UK, US, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore and South Africa, with a separate search for India. These adverts carry a "Jobs by Adzuna" badge.

The site says the board is refreshed twice a day. Each sweep takes the newest matches, so the board is a fresh selection of automation jobs, not every job in a country.

What gets filtered out. Every advert must look like automation work. Employer adverts have to pass a stricter rule: the title must look like controls work, or the description must name at least two specific things such as PLC, SCADA, HMI, DCS, a fieldbus or commissioning. Software titles that borrow the words (test automation, RPA, DevOps and similar) are dropped.

How jobs are filed by country. Each job is given a country from its location: country names first, then states and provinces, then US and Canadian state codes, then known cities. If the location cannot be read reliably, the job is shown under all countries instead of being filed in the wrong one. Each country has its own page at edwartens.com/jobs/ followed by the two-letter code, for example edwartens.com/jobs/de for Germany or edwartens.com/jobs/ae for the UAE. Jobs are listed newest first, 24 to a page.

Filters. On a country page you can search by title, city or employer, and tick:

• Entry-level friendly: adverts that mention trainee, graduate engineer, entry level or fresher, or that ask for no more than three years of experience.
• Direct from employer: only jobs read from employers' own career sites.
• Remote: adverts whose location says the work is remote or home-based. Remote monitoring and remote operations roles done in an office are not counted.

Freshness. A job stays on the board while its source keeps listing it. Fourteen days after it was last seen, it is retired automatically.

Pay and applying. Pay is shown only when the advert states it. The board never estimates a salary. Apply takes you to the employer's or Adzuna's page. EDWartens does not write the adverts, collect applications or charge anyone.

Countries with few jobs. A country with fewer than five live jobs is not indexed by search engines. Its page instead lists the employers' career sites to search directly, nearby countries, and remote roles.

Limits to keep in mind. The board covers the countries and employers above, not the whole market. National job boards and recruiters in your country will have jobs it does not. Use it as one source and a quick read of what is hiring, and check every advert on the employer's own page.

Get ready before you apply

• Match your CV to each advert's wording. The ATS resume checker and job description analyzer help.
• Practise the questions controls interviews really ask, with PLC interview questions and answers and the interview question prep tool.
• Close the platform gap with a free course: Siemens TIA Portal, Allen-Bradley Studio 5000, industrial instrumentation, and TIA Portal commissioning and troubleshooting for field roles.
• Read the automation engineer career guide for how the roles connect, and the freelance automation engineer guide if contract work appeals.

An optional EDWartens Certificate of Completion, from US$2.99, can go on your CV after you pass a course's final assessment. Employers can check it at edwartens.com/verification.

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