This September, Hexagon and Oracle Red Bull Sim Racing will launch the 2026 Future Skills Challenge, as the competition returns with a broader mission: to help manufacturers recognise the digital-native problem-solvers they may be overlooking.
Following a successful debut in 2025, which more than 1,100 successfully completed, the Challenge will again invite participants worldwide to test the skills shaping the future of high-performance engineering, manufacturing, and the growing role of disruptive technologies.
The online competition opens on 1 September and runs until 21 October, at which point the selected finalists will be invited to the Red Bull Technology Campus in the UK on 17 November.
Manufacturing talent
Manufacturing’s talent challenge is not simply a shortage, it is also a leakage problem. Technically capable people often move into other sectors before they ever consider a career in advanced manufacturing. In the UK, Skills England data cited by government in 2026 found that only 7% of total science graduates entered the manufacturing workforce in academic year 2021/22. Forrester Consulting research commissioned by Hexagon also found global manufacturers cite problem solving and digital literacy as key gaps among new job applicants, while the World Economic Forum identifies AI and big data, technological literacy, analytical thinking, creative thinking, resilience, and agility among growing in importance as core skills over the next 4 years.
The Future Skills Challenge is designed to make that issue visible. It asks whether the pattern recognition, data interpretation, strategic thinking and rapid decision-making developed through gaming, sim racing, and esports could become pathways to digital manufacturing careers echoing the recruitment drive we have seen from employers such as the armed forces for drone pilots and intelligence analysts.
Hexagon’s point of view
Hexagon is supporting this effort because its Manufacturing Intelligence business area works with customers facing a talent acquisition Catch-22. Its products are used by manufacturers across the connected loop that defines modern production: production software that helps turn design intent into efficient production and machining strategies; high speed CMMs, 3D laser scanning and robotic inspection technologies that connect the virtual designs and manufacturing plans with their physical product so in digital twins so that smart people and AI can improve.
The same data-led mindset that helps sim racers read telemetry and optimise performance is increasingly important for manufacturers producing complex products such as racing cars, aircraft components, drones, eVTOLs, and wind turbines
“Manufacturing has changed enormously, but the industry’s perception of who belongs in engineering has not always kept pace,” said Emanuel Viklund, President of Hexagon’s Portable Metrology Division. “Factories need people who can interpret data, solve complex problems and work confidently with production software, metrology, simulation, automation, and AI. The Future Skills Challenge helps digital-native talent see manufacturing as a place where those abilities can make a real-world impact.”
“Elite sim racing is about far more than speed,” said Morgan Ashurst, Esports & Gaming Lead at Oracle Red Bull Sim Racing. “Drivers and engineers work with live data, changing conditions, and constant trade-offs. They have to communicate clearly, learn quickly, and make decisions under pressure. Those behaviours translate naturally into high-performance engineering and modern manufacturing.”
Learn more at hexagon.com.
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