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From managing multimillion-dollar capital projects and supply chains to overseeing global operations and compliance, the finance organization sits at the intersection of nearly every decision a manufacturer makes. But as factories, offices, and entire supply chains become digitized, the finance function is evolving rapidly. AI and automation are taking over standard processes freeing finance teams to focus on insight, not input.

As manufacturing companies invest in automation, digital twins, and advanced analytics, finance teams are becoming the integrators who connect financial insight with operational execution. They are expected to forecast outcomes, model uncertainty, and guide investment strategies with precision and agility, helping the C-suite decide how and where to allocate capital for the greatest return.

“Finance professionals today need more than analytical skills; they must be able to translate complex data into actionable insights. The two most essential skills? I’d say data literacy and strategic judgment, paired with strong communication. It’s not just about understanding how the technology works, it’s about making it meaningful for the business,” explained Brandi Britton, Global Executive Director, Contract Finance and Accounting, Robert Half, a staffing services and consulting firm that focuses on specialized talent, including finance and accounting roles.

In order to gain insights about rapidly changing finance skillsets, Manufacturers Alliance analyzed U.S. and manufacturing employment information from January 2019 to August 2025 for 11 job codes, including Chief Executives, Financial Managers, Accountants, and all Financial Specialists, using data from Lightcast, which collects job postings from multiple websites and combines them with government and other proprietary data. Additionally, we interviewed staffing services and consulting firms that have expertise in helping manufacturing companies hire financial personnel and implement technology solutions.

Old Skills Decline, New Skills Ascend

Automation has made routine tasks the most vulnerable. Lightcast manufacturing data show that accounts payable skills grew only 1.3% and data entry 2.6%, confirming their exposure to elimination. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects just 1% job growth for budget analysts through 2025, illustrating the stagnation of purely administrative finance work.

Analytical skills once differentiated candidates; today they show only 3.4% growth, while mathematics (+20.2%) surges ahead — a shift from generic analysis to rigorous quantitative methods. In contrast, technical and forecasting capabilities are expanding rapidly. Across U.S. job postings, financial analysis (+27.9%), automation (+30.5%), and process improvement (+27.0%) rank among the fastest-growing skills. Within manufacturing, demand for pricing analysts and supply chain financial analysts underscores the pivot toward strategic decision-making and operational cost optimization.

Global consulting firm RSM US LLP, which supports manufacturers with finance technology solutions, highlighted the change in skillsets. “The demand for predictive modeling, advanced analytics and financial risk management has grown significantly—not just in volume, but in urgency. Companies need people who can anticipate outcomes, model scenarios and guide strategy,” explained Dave McLaughlin, Managing Director of Financial Consulting at RSM US LLP.

This momentum naturally converges in financial planning and analysis (FP&A), where planning has shifted from periodic cycles to continuous, analytics-led forecasting. Manufacturing companies are doubling down on this approach—forecasting appears in 57% of budget analyst job postings, while financial analyst roles increasingly advertise for capabilities such as risk management (+26.2%) and computer science (+26.8%), signaling that quantitative literacy is now essential even for traditional finance titles.

Industry recruiters also report this shift. As Robert Half’s Britton explained, “With supply chain volatility and pricing pressures, finance teams are being asked to play a more proactive role in forecasting and risk mitigation. Skills such as advanced Excel modeling, ERP fluency, and even scenario planning are more critical.”

Specialized roles are more than a trend. The data shows that among the highest-value finance roles, Financial Risk Specialists merge compliance and data science: Python (24.5% growth) and statistics (22.7% growth) are now core skills, and 18% of job postings require a Ph.D. The highest volume of individual postings in the specialist category belongs to Risk Analysts and Risk Managers, who collectively accounted for over 22,900 unique job postings, demonstrating concentrated demand in this area. And emerging job titles such as Finance Business Partner and Corporate Development Analyst illustrate finance’s deeper integration within core operations. 

Soft-skill development is also shifting from communication to strategic influence. Critical thinking (+23.4%) and influencing (+22.4%) indicate that finance leaders are now expected to translate data into persuasive narratives that shape direction, not merely report results. Similarly, communication (3.6% growth) has become a baseline expectation, while more specific skills like presentations (+23%) define advancement.

The Evolution of the Manufacturing CFO and the Role of AI

The manufacturing CFO has undergone one of the most significant role transformations in the industrial sector. In manufacturing environments where automation, analytics, and AI are reshaping how work gets done, CFOs are increasingly expected not just to endorse transformation, but to actively lead it—modeling new behaviors, sponsoring technology adoption, and driving cultural alignment across the enterprise. Their influence now spans plant performance, technology adoption, workforce strategy, and competitive positioning.

"That is the really important role for the CFO – to be the change champion to drive and connect different functions because he or she has a unique purview of the whole organization that others don't, and he or she can tie that to the bottom line or top line,” shared Chris Zheng, Principal for CFO Advisory, RSM US LLP.

In parallel with skills shifts in the finance workforce, CFOs themselves are placing markedly greater emphasis on long-term value creation and advanced capabilities. McKinsey reports that 55% of finance leaders now say “long-term planning and resource allocation” is a top priority—up from just 30% a year earlier. Meanwhile, 60% now list “strategic planning” as a top priority, versus 38% in 2023. 

Finance teams are investing in efficiency and automation, training staff to move from maintaining processes to fundamentally reinventing them. The McKinsey report also highlighted how technology is redefining the finance skill set: 85% of respondents expect generative AI and related tools to reduce manual work and unlock higher-order insights, while among the few early adopters, 71% report improved productivity from gen AI. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 45.8% of firms adopting AI and 49.8% of those implementing specialized software say their main motivation is improving the quality and reliability of processes. And a Manufacturers Alliance survey of 52 companies reported that 88% of finance departments identified improving productivity and efficiency as their top training goal, followed closely by 71% prioritizing preparation for AI and automation adoption. Together, these priorities underscore a broader shift: finance is no longer viewed as a cost center but as a strategic driver of organizational efficiency and transformation.

As RSM’s Zheng explained, “Digital technology, AI and automation have become the DNA of transformation,” replacing the old model where process, organizational, or technology changes could stand alone. “In the last 5-10 years, the ingredients of technology have evolved, but there's always a technology component,” Zheng said.

Top Goals of Manufacturing Finance Department Training Efforts

Note: Some responses fall into multiple categories, so total exceeds 100%.  

Source: Manufacturers Alliance Finance Workforce Survey, 2025

Many finance teams note that a significant share of today’s training efforts are not focused on building advanced new capabilities, but rather on helping employees meet the new baseline requirements of a digital finance environment. McKinsey's research on how finance teams are putting AI to work shows that, although adoption has accelerated sharply—with the share of CFOs using generative AI in five or more use cases jumping from 7% to 44% within a year—only about 5% of pilots deliver measurable P&L impact, largely because teams lack the foundational skills needed to operationalize these tools. Egon Zehnder’s global CFO survey reinforces this gap: 72% of CFOs say AI is strategically important, yet fewer than 10% have scaled AI across the finance function, citing workforce readiness as a primary barrier. Together, these findings show that much of today’s “upskilling” is actually baseline alignment: ensuring teams can function in a modern, automated workflow before organizations can fully unlock higher-order analytics, forecasting, or strategic value creation.

The New Language of Finance

Modern finance teams speak the language of code. Lightcast data confirm rapid projected growth in Python (+24.5%), R (+20.3%), Amazon Web Services (+24.0%), and Microsoft Azure (+28.9%) proficiency — once niche IT capabilities, now essential to financial modeling and automation. In manufacturing, SAP applications (+21.6%) and project management skills (+19.8%) dominate job postings, revealing the need to connect ERP data directly to forecasting and cost-control tools. Accordingly, more than half of Manufacturers Alliance members (54%) identified ERP and financial systems as a core focus of their finance training efforts.

Recruiter demand has surged market-wide: finance job descriptions referencing Python have nearly tripled in two years, prompting major institutions like Citigroup to offer internal coding classes (Netguru).

Kelly Barthel, Principal, Interim Practice at Korn Ferry, a global recruiting and consulting firm, explained, “Clients are increasingly prioritizing proficiency in PowerBI and rapidly evolving generative AI tools when evaluating finance and accounting talent. Even highly qualified candidates may be passed over if they lack hands-on experience with data visualization, automation, or AI-enabled analytics."

Finance Software & Systems Skills Projected Growth

Source: Lightcast

Technical skills alone are not enough. Certain advanced skill sets—particularly those coming from pure programming or machine-learning backgrounds—often go underutilized in manufacturing finance roles because they lack the operational and cost-accounting context required to make financial data meaningful. As Dave McLaughlin, Managing Director of Financial Consulting at RSM US LLP noted, “It’s harder to teach finance and accounting to somebody who’s always been on the programming side. It’s harder to integrate that person than it is to have somebody with very strong core accounting and finance skills to learn programming tools.” 

According to the Lightcast analysis, visualization also defines financial communication. Skills such as dashboards (+25.3%), Power BI (+20.4%), and Tableau (+20.8%) are growing at double-digit rates, and 60% of finance departments participating in the Manufacturers Alliance survey identified data-visualization training as their top priority.

Skills Areas Currently Targeted for Finance Training

Source: Manufacturers Alliance survey, October 2025

As reported by 42% of Manufacturers Alliance respondents, AI and prompt engineering represent the single most significant capability gap for manufacturing finance departments. Business intelligence tools follow at 26%, underscoring the sector’s accelerating shift toward predictive analytics, automated reporting, and scenario-driven decision support.

Finance automation is fundamentally changing how teams allocate their time and effort. According to a benchmarking survey, FP&A professionals have historically spent roughly 75% of their time gathering and preparing data—leaving only a quarter for value-added analysis. Automation and analytics tools are now shifting that balance, enabling finance teams to focus on forecasting, scenario modeling, and strategic decision support rather than manual data compilation.

The Capacity Crisis 

Despite digital ambitions, many departments face acute resource limits. 41% cite limited training resources as their greatest obstacle, with time away from production next in line.

Hiring data confirms scarcity: manufacturing averages 4,905 monthly postings for Financial Risk Specialists but only 1,866 hires, showing that supply lags sharply behind demand. 

“Financial risk specialist roles are challenging to fill right now,” according to Robert Half’s Britton. “The demand has surged as companies navigate macroeconomic uncertainty, supply chain disruptions and evolving trade policies. Professionals need to understand not just the numbers, but the broader business implications."

This shortage of finance talent is fueling the data analytics outsourcing market, which is growing 25% annually. Additionally, companies are turning to the rapidly growing Finance and Accounting Outsourcing (FAO) market to assist as they restructure finance functions to focus on core business outcomes. 

“Manufacturing clients consistently struggle to find finance talent with the right blend of cost accounting, plant operations experience, and technical systems skills,” noted Korn Ferry’s Barthel. “Roles that require deep knowledge of standard costing, variance analysis, inventory accounting, and plant controllership are particularly challenging, especially when paired with tools like PowerBI, ERP expertise, and automation technologies.

Moving Forward in Today’s Finance Roles

Britton’s advice for finance executives: “Start small but start now. Digital transformation doesn’t have to mean a full system overhaul overnight. Begin by identifying one process, maybe forecasting or reporting, that could benefit from automation or better visualization. Consider hiring a contract professional to pilot the change and train your team. The key is to build momentum and show results. Once your team sees the impact, adoption becomes much easier. And remember, transformation is as much about having an adaptable mindset as it is about tools. Encourage curiosity, experimentation, and continuous learning.”

The evidence is unequivocal: manufacturing finance has crossed the threshold from transactional to technical. The modern finance professional is a predictive analyst, a technologist, and a strategic advisor. The profession’s future value will be defined not by how precisely it records the past, but by how accurately it forecasts and shapes what comes next.

Members Only

For a deeper dive into the skills driving finance transformation—including detailed data by department (Finance, Internal Audit, Tax, and Treasury), training effectiveness ratings, and cross-industry benchmarks—Manufacturers Alliance members can review the full survey results. These findings offer a comprehensive look at how manufacturers are prioritizing skill development, allocating training resources, and preparing their finance functions for an AI-enabled future.