Report finds aging equipment, skills gap and lack of data access top maintenance challenges of 2026

The top five challenges facing maintenance professionals today are aging infrastructure and equipment; knowledge gaps among employees; lack of digitization and usable data; budget pressure and fragmented processes. That’s according to the Timly Maintenance Report 2026 documenting maintenance conditions for European manufacturers, put out by Timly, an asset management software company.

Placing as an even higher risk than the permanent skills gap beleaguering industrial companies for decades now, Timly rated aging equipment and infrastructure as the top issue for industrial maintenance. The report’s authors noted that companies operating buildings, vehicles or machinery past their expected lifestyle can lead to improvised repairs and on to unplanned downtime. According to Timly, unplanned downtime reduces company revenue at the world’s largest 500 companies by about 11%.

The skills gap remains a serious problem, and Timly ranks it as the second most pressing maintenance challenge. As is true elsewhere in industrial businesses, maintenance professionals are retiring faster than trained neophytes can replace them. According to a 2023 survey from Europäische Union Timly cites, 63% of SMEs reported a lack of qualified personnel.

Runner-up issues on the list of issues were “lack of digitization and data access,” “budget pressure and short-term thinking” and “fragmented systems and processes” where maintenance activities lack clear accountability.