logo

Engineers and IT Specialists as Business Buyers: Why Technical Graduates Are Ideal Successors for Medium-Sized Companies

The job market for engineers and IT specialists changed dramatically in 2025. What appears to be a crisis for many affected individuals is actually the gateway to an alternative career – as entrepreneurs. Why technical graduates structurally fit well with medium-sized companies and how the transition succeeds.

11 min reading time

Until a few years ago, being an engineer or computer scientist in Germany was considered a guarantee of employment. Those who completed a technical degree were in high demand on the job market—companies competed for technical talent with entry-level salaries, relocation packages, and development programs.

This picture changed fundamentally in 2025.

The German industry noticeably reduced its workforce during the 2025 economic crisis. By the end of the year, around 5.38 million people were still employed in the sector—about 124,000 fewer than the previous year. The automotive industry experienced the steepest job cuts, with nearly seven percent of positions—approximately 51,500 jobs—eliminated within a year. According to IG Metall Bavaria, the layoffs no longer affect only production: “Previously, job cuts mainly hit semi-skilled workers—today, engineers are also affected.”

The VDI/IW Engineer Monitor shows a cooling labor market: vacancies for engineering and IT professions decreased by 22.1 percent in the second quarter of 2025, while simultaneously 54,926 people from these fields registered as unemployed—the highest level since data collection began in 2011.

What does this mean for those affected? For many experienced engineers and IT specialists who suddenly find themselves on the job market after ten or fifteen years in industry, there is an option that few have on their radar: taking over a medium-sized company.

Why Structural Change Is an Opportunity

Job cuts in the automotive and mechanical engineering sectors are not a cyclical downturn that will recover in one to two years. The consulting firm EY expects the industry to continue reducing jobs in 2026 due to weak orders and intense competitive pressure. At the same time, automotive corporations are increasingly relocating production as well as research and development abroad.

This means: an engineer with ten years of experience in drivetrain, quality assurance, or product development who is now being laid off cannot simply wait for the next upswing in their traditional segment. The jobs they knew will not return in this form in Germany.

At the same time, thousands of medium-sized companies in Germany are looking for successors—and they need exactly the qualifications this engineer brings. Yet this connection is rarely made.

What Technical Academics Bring to Acquisitions

The strengths of technical academics in business acquisitions are not abstract soft skills but concrete operational advantages that manifest in three areas:

Technical Judgment in Core Business

An engineer who takes over a manufacturing company understands the products, machines, and processes. They can engage with employees on equal footing, who have worked on these machines for twenty years. They recognize when a production process is inefficient—and know how to improve it.

This is a structural advantage over a purely commercially trained successor who must delegate technical decisions and rely on others’ assessments.

Project Experience and Structured Approach

Engineers are typically experienced in managing complex projects with many dependencies—under time pressure, with limited resources, and incomplete information. This is exactly what managing a medium-sized company entails.

Corporate structures provide an indirect training ground: those who have coordinated projects across departments in a large company have learned to lead without direct authority—a skill that is immediately useful in owner-managed SMEs with flat hierarchies.

Process Thinking and Quality Awareness

Many medium-sized companies have good products but unstructured internal processes. Quality management, documentation, process optimization—these are areas where the previous owner often lacked capacity because they were tied up in day-to-day operations.

A technically trained successor coming from an environment with ISO standards, Lean methods, or SCRUM structures can create immediate added value here. This is not a theoretical promise—it is a concrete negotiation point with the seller.

The Most Concrete Matches: Which Companies Fit

Not every technical profile fits every type of company. The clearer the search profile, the more efficient the process.

For Mechanical and Production Engineers

Contract manufacturers and suppliers. Metal processing, CNC manufacturing, welded constructions—the segment is large, and the succession gap pronounced. Many of these businesses are profitable but invisible: they manufacture for OEMs, have stable order books, and their owners have no family successors. A mechanical engineer familiar with the craft will be taken seriously here immediately.

Special machine builders. Small companies that develop and build specialized machines for specific industrial applications often have a high manufacturing depth and strong market position in their niche—but little public visibility. That is precisely why they rarely find buyers.

Testing and measurement technology companies. Calibration labs, testing service providers, measurement technology firms—a growing segment due to regulatory requirements in industry, with stable customer relationships and often high margins.

For Electrical Engineers and Automation Technicians

Electrical and automation technology companies. Control cabinet construction, control technology, plant automation—companies in this segment are well positioned for the Industry 4.0 wave, provided someone actively drives this transition. Many owner-managed businesses know they must digitize but lack someone to push it forward.

Energy technology and photovoltaic installation companies. The expansion of renewable energies creates long-term tailwinds. Many installation companies for PV systems or heat pumps have grown in recent years but lack professional corporate structures—an ideal entry scenario for someone who wants to bring order to the operation.

For IT Specialists and Computer Scientists

IT service providers with SME client bases. Managed service providers, IT support companies, network service providers—these businesses usually have stable, recurring revenues through maintenance contracts. The business model is scalable, but first-generation owners often have no succession plan.

Industry-specific software companies. Software for bakeries, craft businesses, logistics companies, or municipal administrations—often established in the market for decades, with loyal customers and high switching costs. The downside: the software is often technically outdated. The upside for an IT-savvy successor: this is solvable.

Digital agencies and web development. A small, volatile market—but a possible option for IT professionals with client contact and project management experience, often available at an affordable price.

The Underrated Argument: The Mittelstand Needs Technical Expertise More Than Ever

Many medium-sized companies face the same challenge: they must digitize, automate, and modernize technically—but their owners are not technically trained and have little access to qualified specialists.

A technically trained successor can start precisely here: not only as managing director but as a driver of the company’s technical modernization.

This is an argument that counts in negotiations with the previous owner. Anyone who can explain to a 65-year-old entrepreneur why their company is better positioned for the next decade under technical leadership has a stronger negotiating position—and often a stronger emotional connection to the seller, who wants their life’s work to continue.

What Technical Academics Need to Build

No profile comes complete. For technical academics, the gaps lie in two areas:

Commercial skills. Reading profit and loss statements, preparing liquidity plans, assessing company valuations—these are new for many technically trained academics. However, they are learnable and not rocket science. Tax advisors, M&A consultants, and IHK start-up advisors can provide support. One- to two-day crash courses on company valuation for beginners are a sensible first step.

Leadership without formal authority. Those who have worked in a corporation are used to hierarchies and escalation paths. In the Mittelstand, you are the last escalation path. Leadership there relies more on trust, personal presence, and credibility than on organizational charts. This is a different muscle—but it can be trained.

When Is the Right Time to Take the Step?

For many technical academics, the question is: now immediately, or after the next job? The honest answer: there is no perfect moment. But some moments are more favorable than others.

Shortly after being laid off is a good time to start the search—not for the takeover itself, which usually takes six to twelve months from first contact to closing, but for orientation. Those who begin exploring options at the moment of layoff can use the search process to sharpen their profile and conduct initial conversations alongside unemployment benefits—without the pressure to decide immediately.

With a severance package, a favorable equity base often arises. Those bringing €40,000 to €80,000 net from severance are not considered risky clients by most banks and KfW programs—but serious takeover candidates.

After the first orientation year in another position, the moment is often less favorable because financial levers—unemployment benefits, start-up grants—have expired, and the risk subjectively seems higher, even though objectively it has hardly changed.

First Steps: How Technical Academics Can Start the Search Process

Getting started with the search process is easier than many think:

Define the search profile. Industry, size, region—as specific as possible. An electrical engineer from Stuttgart looking for an automation technology company with 5 to 15 employees within a 100-kilometer radius has a sharper profile than someone looking for “something technical.”

Search on aggregator platforms. Viaductus aggregates listings from over 70 German M&A platforms and brokers—and enables targeted searches by industry, size, and region. To the Viaductus company marketplace.

Place a purchase request. Many transactions are not publicly advertised—sellers seek discretion. Those who place a purchase request are contacted by brokers and sometimes directly by entrepreneurs who want to sell quietly.

Use IHK consultation. The Chambers of Industry and Commerce offer free initial consultations on business succession. A concrete conversation with an IHK advisor provides orientation on available funding instruments and local business offers.

Early due diligence. Going through the due diligence process with the first or second company teaches more about business acquisitions than any guide can. Not every due diligence has to end in a takeover—it is also valuable as a learning experience.

Conclusion: Crisis as a Fresh Start

Job cuts in German industry are initially a shock for those affected. But they are also a moment when many options must be reassessed—and when an option previously off the radar can suddenly become realistic.

Technical academics are good candidates for Mittelstand takeovers not despite their education but because of it. Technical judgment, project experience, quality awareness—these are competencies the Mittelstand needs. The step from employee to entrepreneur is significant. But for someone with a solid technical background, industry experience, and a realistic financing base, it is much more feasible than it appears from the outside.

Further Articles on Viaductus

Sources

About the author

Christopher Heckel profile picture

Christopher Heckel

Co-Founder & CTO

Christopher has led the digital transformation of financial solutions for SMEs as CTO of SME financier Creditshelf. viaductus was founded with the goal of helping people achieve their financial goals with technology for corporate acquisitions and sales.

How much is your company worth?

Use our free valuation tool and get a first well-founded assessment in just a few minutes.