As someone who currently works in this area (particularly Building Automation) I can tell you it's a growing and well-paying field, just check out the postings in your area in websites like Indeed or LinkedIn for current opportunities. If you don't have a profile I recommend you make one in those sites as well.

Also even inside automation, there are many different fields you can work in like manufacturing, transport, process industry, energy management, HVAC, lighting, etc.

To get started I would recommend getting an internship or a low paying position for a short period of time(like a year) to gain experience and then make a jump to a better company.

Below, is a list of a few resources that you can use to kick start your career:

• Since automation is closely related to electrical installations you should be familiar with the NFPA National Electrical Code if you live in America, if not get acquainted with the equivalent standard in your country.
  
  This book is an easy to follow guide to the actual technical stuff and saves time in figuring out the jargon of the code itself.
  
  https://www.amazon.ca/Practical-Electrical-Wiring-Residential-Commercial/dp/0971977984
  
  You will need to learn how to manufacture control panels that's a skill that's learned on the field but keep an eye out for UL508a - Standard for Industrial Control Panels, or the equivalent in your jurisdiction.
  
  
• The drafting software will probably be dictated by the company you work in, but as a basis, you should always know AutoCAD as is the defacto CAD software for most companies, (there's a world of options out there, myself I'm quite fond of the Eplan software package).
  
• For technical knowledge, you can consult the great publications of ATP. I would particularly recommend their books about Motor and Drives.
  
  http://www.atplearning.com/category/4/electrical-and-electronic-systems
  
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• For programming of basic ruled based and PID controllers, check out the courses over at Udemy they are cheap, and they teach very widely used PLCs in the industry like Siemens and Allen Bradley.
  
  https://www.udemy.com/learn-siemens-s7-1200-plc-from-scratch-using-tia/
  
  
• Learn about automation networks particularly the open protocols like Modbus, BACnet, Profibus, etc. https://www.udemy.com/mastering-modbus-rs485-network-communication/
  
• For more advanced control systems it is very beneficial to have solid linear algebra knowledge, and understand the concepts of Modern Control Theory like what Fourier & Laplace transforms actually do. This is so you can do things like Model-Based Controls and Artificial Neural Networks, and all the other good stuff like Machine Learning.
  
• Learn a programming language like Python which is free and has a million resources useful for automation. This will not only be useful for automation but as well as other pesky tasks us engineering end up doing like, bill of materials, quotes, project management and such.
  
  https://www.udemy.com/python-for-data-science-and-machine-learning-bootcamp/
  
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  Good luck out there, learning is fun!!!!