Industrial Automation Market Grows on Investment and PLC Innovation
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Why it matters now: After a cautious 2024 and a largely flat 2025, the global machinery and industrial automation market is showing fresh momentum. Rising capital expenditure, rapid technological innovation, and the steady retirement of legacy control systems are converging to pull factories toward a new automation cycle. For manufacturers and plant operators, the question is no longer whether to modernize, but how quickly the programmable logic controller (PLC) at the heart of the production line can be upgraded.
Analyst Insight: The Business Research Company's latest press analysis positions capital investment and continuous innovation as the twin engines of sector growth. Independent forecasts from multiple research houses point in the same direction — a mid-single-digit to low-double-digit expansion of automation hardware and software through the early 2030s.
The Machinery and Industrial Automation Market: What the New Data Shows
The report frames sector expansion as propelled by rising capital expenditure into automation and continuous innovation across manufacturing. That narrative is echoed across the wider research landscape, where industrial automation is forecast to roughly double in value over the coming decade.
Estimates vary by methodology and scope, but the direction of travel is consistent: automation is no longer a discretionary IT project. It is becoming core industrial infrastructure.
Market size and growth forecasts (tap to expand)
| Segment | 2025 Value | Forecast | CAGR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global industrial automation | USD 169.82 bn | USD 443.54 bn by 2035 | 9.12% |
| Global PLC market | USD 17.00 bn | USD 25.26 bn by 2034 | 4.47% |
| PLC share of factory automation | 33.7% | Segment leader | — |
| Asia-Pacific PLC revenue share | 35.10% | Fastest region | 6.12% |
| Europe industrial automation share | 32.99% | Largest region | — |
Sources: Research and Markets, IMARC Group, Market Data Forecast, Mordor Intelligence, Fortune Business Insights.
Why PLCs Remain the Backbone of Factory-Floor Modernization
The findings place PLCs squarely at the core of this expansion. As the primary controllers coordinating machinery, robotics, and production lines, PLCs translate the Industry 4.0 promise into real-time physical action on the factory floor.
Their dominance is not accidental. PLCs offer robustness, reliability, and the flexibility to control complex sequences — qualities that make them irreplaceable in discrete manufacturing and machine control even as newer PC-based and edge platforms enter the market.
Market Trend: The PLC segment commanded a 33.7% share of the broader factory automation market in 2025. Compact and integrated PLCs are the fastest-growing product class, driven by machine builders who need repeatable, space-constrained control nodes for packaging, material handling, and distributed assembly.
Growth Drivers: Capital Investment and Continuous Innovation
Two forces are doing the heavy lifting. The first is capital expenditure: smart-factory programs, reshoring incentives, and electric-vehicle retooling are pushing fresh money into automated lines.
The second is innovation. Integration with Industrial Internet of Things platforms, the migration from proprietary fieldbus protocols to OPC UA-over-Ethernet, and the addition of edge analytics are turning the humble controller into a data-rich node on the network.
Key demand catalysts behind the automation cycle (tap to expand)
- Public-private investment: an estimated USD 48 billion in combined automation investment pledged across the US and EU between 2023 and 2025.
- EV and battery build-out: Germany's VDMA reported a 7% increase in automation orders in 2024, largely from EV platform retooling.
- Replacement cycles: aging DCS and PLC installations in oil & gas, power generation, and water treatment are due for full-system upgrades.
- Regulatory pressure: EU sustainability reporting timelines are accelerating investment in energy-management and smart utility monitoring.
Regional Dynamics: Asia-Pacific Leads, Europe Retools
Asia-Pacific is the largest and fastest-moving region for PLC demand, holding roughly 35% of global revenue. China, Japan, South Korea, and India anchor a manufacturing base that continues to scale automation capacity.
Europe remains the largest single market by overall automation value, shaped by decarbonization regulation and an aging industrial workforce. North America is advancing on the strength of reshoring and robotics adoption.
Headwinds: Legacy Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, and the Skills Gap
The outlook is strong, but not unqualified. Legacy infrastructure incompatibility remains a persistent obstacle, as brownfield plants struggle to bridge old control layers with modern digital platforms.
Cybersecurity vulnerabilities in operational technology have moved from theoretical to urgent, while skilled-labor shortages continue to slow deployment and maintenance. These constraints temper — but do not reverse — the growth trajectory.
Analyst Insight: The biggest near-term risk is not demand — it is execution. Plants that pair hardware upgrades with workforce training and security-by-design architecture will capture the value. Those that treat automation as a component swap will inherit new vulnerabilities on old infrastructure.
Frequently asked questions (tap to expand)
What is the machinery and industrial automation market?
It covers the hardware, software, and services that automate industrial production — including PLCs, SCADA, DCS, robotics, sensors, and control software used across manufacturing, energy, and process industries.
How fast is the PLC market growing?
Forecasts cluster around a 3.5% to 6% annual growth rate, with some analysts projecting up to 11% CAGR under aggressive Industry 4.0 scenarios. Long-term estimates reach USD 25 billion or more by the mid-2030s.
Why are PLCs important to factory automation?
PLCs are the real-time controllers that sequence and coordinate machinery. They offer industrial-grade reliability, deterministic control, and flexible scalability that general-purpose computing cannot match on the factory floor.
What are the biggest risks to the outlook?
Legacy system incompatibility, OT cybersecurity exposure, skilled-labor shortages, and cyclical swings in manufacturing capital expenditure.
The Bottom Line
The machinery and industrial automation market is accelerating on the back of rising investment and relentless innovation, with PLCs anchoring the modernization of the factory floor. The winners will be operators who modernize deliberately — upgrading control hardware while hardening security and upskilling the workforce that runs it.
For procurement and engineering teams, the strategic window is open now. Waiting for the next technology cycle risks falling behind a curve that is already steep.
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