From our position recruiting across metallurgy, advanced materials and manufacturing in the United States, the drive to secure domestic supplies of refractory metals and other critical metals is no longer just a policy discussion. It is beginning to reshape the hiring market.

By Phillip Hodson, Co-founder & President at Kensington360 — August 18, 2026

Rare earth elements tend to dominate the headlines, but refractory metals such as tungsten, tantalum, niobium, molybdenum and rhenium are equally important to some of America’s most advanced industries. Their ability to withstand extreme temperatures, corrosion, pressure and wear makes them essential to aerospace engines, defence systems, electronics, energy infrastructure, cutting tools and high-performance manufacturing.

As the United States looks to reduce its dependence on vulnerable overseas supply chains, investment is moving into domestic extraction, processing, refining, recycling and advanced material production. For businesses, this represents an opportunity to secure supply, improve control over quality and build closer relationships with strategically important customers.

However, from a recruitment perspective, it also exposes a significant problem. The United States does not only need more refractory metal capacity. It needs considerably more people who understand how to develop, process, qualify and manufacture these materials at scale.

Why refractory metals are becoming a commercial priority

The business case for onshoring is increasingly driven by resilience rather than just political positioning. For advanced manufacturers, access to material is fundamental to production. If a critical alloying element, powder or processed material becomes unavailable, it may not be possible to replace it quickly with an alternative supplier. Aerospace, defence, medical and energy products often require extensive testing and qualification, meaning that even an apparently minor supply interruption can delay production for months.

According to the US Geological Survey, the United States was completely dependent on imports for its tantalum consumption in 2024 and approximately 50% dependent on imports for tungsten. Tungsten and niobium were also among the minerals found to carry the highest probability-weighted economic risk from a potential supply disruption.

Rhenium was added to the 2025 US Critical Minerals List, reflecting its importance to high-performance jet engines and industrial gas turbines. The list now contains 60 minerals considered vital to the American economy or national security and vulnerable to supply-chain disruption.

These figures matter to manufacturers because the impact of disruption extends far beyond the initial cost of the material. It can affect production schedules, customer deliveries, qualification timelines, margins and a company’s ability to compete for long-term programs.

The question facing US businesses is therefore changing. It is no longer simply about whether they can purchase the materials they need today. It is about whether they can guarantee a stable, traceable and commercially viable supply over the next ten or twenty years.

Onshoring involves more than opening mines

One of the most important distinctions in the critical-metals conversation is the difference between domestic resources and domestic capability. Having refractory metal deposits in the United States does not automatically create a secure American supply chain. Between the initial extraction of a mineral and its use in a qualified aerospace, defence or energy component are multiple stages of processing, refining, purification, alloying, powder production, manufacturing, testing and certification.

A gap at any point can leave the entire supply chain dependent on overseas expertise. The US Government reached a similar conclusion in its January 2026 assessment of processed critical minerals. It found that America can possess domestic mining capacity and still remain dependent on imported products because it lacks sufficient processing and downstream manufacturing capability.

This is why the most meaningful onshoring activity will not take place exclusively at the mining stage. The United States also needs metallurgical processing facilities, specialist refiners, powder producers, alloy manufacturers, recyclers, testing laboratories and companies capable of converting these materials into qualified components. From our perspective, this is where the employment impact becomes much broader.

The market will require more than mining engineers and geologists. It will need extractive metallurgists, materials scientists, process engineers, furnace specialists, powder metallurgy experts, quality leaders, automation engineers, commissioning professionals and operational executives who can take a new facility from development into stable commercial production.

These are already difficult people to find.

The talent market is smaller than many businesses expect

Refractory metals sit within a highly specialist part of the US manufacturing economy. The available talent is not distributed evenly across the country, and much of the relevant knowledge is concentrated within a relatively small number of businesses, universities, national laboratories and established industrial regions. This creates a very different recruitment challenge from hiring for a general manufacturing expansion.

A company may be able to attract hundreds of production applicants within a local market but still struggle to identify a single person with direct experience of a particular refining process, high-temperature alloy or customer qualification standard.

Location makes the problem even more difficult. New mines, processing sites and manufacturing facilities are not always being developed close to established clusters of metallurgical talent. Businesses may therefore need candidates to relocate into areas where there is no mature market for their specialism. At the same time, these companies are not competing for talent only with other refractory metal producers. They are competing with aerospace OEMs, defence contractors, battery manufacturers, semiconductor businesses, specialty chemical companies, steel producers, additive manufacturing companies and national laboratories.

Many of these sectors are targeting the same underlying capabilities. They want people who understand materials at a fundamental level, can improve complex production processes and are comfortable working in highly regulated or technically demanding environments. As investment increases, competition for those people will increase with it.

Refractory metals recruitment cannot be left until the facility is ready

One of the most common mistakes we see across advanced manufacturing is treating recruitment as the final stage of an expansion project.

A business secures investment, chooses a location, orders equipment and develops its production plan. Only then does it begin looking for the technical and operational people expected to make the project work.

In refractory metals, that sequence creates considerable risk. The right technical leaders should influence how a facility is designed, which equipment is selected, how processes are validated and how products will eventually be qualified by customers. If they are recruited after those decisions have already been made, the company may lose valuable time correcting technical assumptions or rebuilding its operating model.

Recruitment should begin while the business case is still being developed. Companies need to understand whether the skills required by their project genuinely exist in the domestic market, where those people are located, what would motivate them to move and how long it will take to secure them. That information should form part of site selection, investment planning and project scheduling. A facility should not be considered fully funded if the business has not accounted for the cost and difficulty of building the team required to operate it.

Businesses must hire for transferable expertise

Direct refractory metal experience will remain essential in certain positions, particularly where the role carries responsibility for process development, metallurgical performance or customer qualification. However, companies that insist every hire must come from an identical material, process and end market will quickly exhaust the available candidate pool. The stronger approach is to determine which technical capabilities are non-negotiable and which can be transferred from adjacent industries.

An extractive metallurgist from another critical-mineral supply chain may understand highly relevant separation and recovery processes. A process engineer from specialty chemicals may bring valuable experience of scaling complex production. A materials leader from aerospace superalloys may understand high-temperature performance and demanding qualification environments. Someone from additive manufacturing or powder metallurgy may already possess knowledge of powder characteristics, contamination control and material traceability.

Identifying these connections requires a recruitment process built around technical understanding rather than job titles and keywords. It also requires hiring managers to distinguish between experience that is immediately applicable and knowledge that can realistically be developed. If businesses cannot make that distinction, they will either overlook strong candidates or hire people whose experience is less relevant than it first appears.

Companies will need to sell the opportunity

Scarcity changes the recruitment relationship. The strongest metallurgical and materials candidates are unlikely to be actively applying for jobs. Many are already working on technically interesting programs, have strong relationships with their current employers and understand that their expertise is difficult to replace.

Simply advertising a position will not be enough to attract them. Businesses will need to communicate the technical challenge, the commercial backing behind the project and the influence the individual will have. Candidates will want to know whether the funding is secure, whether leadership understands the time required to develop a stable process and whether the company is genuinely committed to building domestic capability.

They will also assess the personal risk. Joining an early-stage processing or manufacturing project can mean leaving a secure position, relocating and attaching their reputation to a facility that has not yet reached production.

The companies that attract the best people will be those that present a credible long-term vision rather than simply offering a higher salary.

The workforce is part of national resilience

The national-security implications of refractory metal dependence are clear. Tungsten, tantalum, niobium and rhenium are used in products connected to aircraft, propulsion, energy, communications and defence. Yet the commercial argument for strengthening these supply chains stands on its own. Greater domestic capacity can give manufacturers better visibility, shorter communication lines, stronger quality control and less exposure to geopolitical disruption. It can also improve their position with customers who increasingly want to understand where strategically important materials originate.

But new capacity will only become productive capacity if businesses can recruit and retain the people required to operate it. We believe this will be one of the defining recruitment challenges within US metallurgy over the coming decade. Demand will grow for specialists who have traditionally operated in relatively small and disconnected markets. Businesses will need to look beyond obvious competitors, identify transferable expertise and engage talent much earlier in their investment cycle.

Onshoring refractory metals is not only a question of where America’s materials will come from. It is a question of who will turn those materials into the products on which American manufacturing depends. Building a durable refractory metals workforce is the work of the next decade, not the next quarter.

Kensington360 recruits across metallurgy, advanced materials and specialist manufacturing throughout the United States. Learn more about our work in the Materials sector. We help businesses map difficult talent markets, identify transferable technical expertise and build teams around new facilities, technologies and growth plans.

To discuss hiring within refractory metals, metallurgy or advanced manufacturing, contact phodson@kensington360.com.