ABOUT RISING EDGE AUTOMATION
Preparing the next generation of automation and control engineers.
Rising Edge Automation exists to close the automation skills gap by designing professional industrial automation training systems that build practical skills, lasting confidence and true industry readiness using genuine industrial hardware.
OUR PURPOSE
Helping people build the confidence to succeed in industrial automation.
Today’s industry depends on skilled automation and control engineers. PLCs, HMIs, safety devices, networks and industrial control systems sit at the heart of that work, yet too many learners still enter the workplace with limited hands-on experience using the real hardware they are expected to understand.
Reading about PLCs is useful. Simulation has its place. But confidence develops when learners write logic, test signals, operate HMIs, follow faults, reset systems and see cause and effect in front of them.
That is why Rising Edge designs professional training systems built on genuine industrial hardware — starting with Siemens, and expanding into further manufacturers and applications as curriculum and workforce needs grow.
MEET THE FOUNDER
The gap between education and industry is still too wide.
Too many young engineers, apprentices and even experienced maintenance staff are expected to work with PLCs without ever having had enough time to build confidence on the actual PLCs, HMIs and industrial components commonly used on the shop floor.
That matters, because understanding the theory is only one part of the job. Confidence comes when you can connect the hardware, write the logic, test signals, create an HMI screen, follow a fault and understand what the system is doing.
I know because that was my experience too.
When I finished my electrical engineering course, I had never programmed a PLC on industrial hardware. I learned once I entered the automation industry and had the chance to work with the equipment properly.
Over the next seven years — including five years with an industrial automation and training company — I worked with PLCs, HMIs, industrial maintenance, fault-finding and engineers from across the UK.
The more engineers I met, the more I realised I was not alone.
I spoke to apprentices, electricians, maintenance technicians and qualified engineers who all said similar things:
It was never about people lacking ability. In most cases, they simply had not been given enough access to the equipment.
Research from Enginuity estimates that engineering and manufacturing skills shortages and skills gaps cost UK businesses around £5.2 billion every year. That figure covers a much wider problem than PLC training alone, but it shows just how costly the gap between knowledge and practical capability has become.
Source: Enginuity, June 2026.
Later, I moved into industrial automation distribution, working with manufacturers, system integrators, colleges and employers across the UK.
The job changed, but the conversation did not.
And one question kept coming up:
“Do you sell PLC training kits?”
When I looked at the training systems already available, many did the job technically, but very few looked or felt like the equipment engineers actually work with in industry.
I wanted to build something that felt different. Something professional. Something built with actual PLCs, HMIs and industrial components. Something a learner would see and immediately want to get hands-on with.
“I want to learn on that.”
Rising Edge was not created because the world needed another PLC training kit. It was created because I believe people learn best by getting hands-on.
Give someone the chance to connect, program, test and fault-find using the kind of equipment they will actually meet on the shop floor, and confidence starts to grow.
That is what Rising Edge is here to do.
WHAT WE STAND FOR