Skills and Competencies of Industrial Employees in the Industry 5.0 Environment

The Fourth Industrial Revolution means implementing new technologies and creating cyber-physical systems composed of intelligent resources communicating with each other. The widespread digitization of processes increases process efficiency, production flexibility, and the possibility of achieving the contemporary aims of sustainable development, sustainable production and consumption, and efficient energy consumption. Currently, a definite game changer is taking place in the autonomy of cyber-physical systems. Cyber-physical systems are expected to be human-oriented, more resilient to disruption and oriented to the ecological aspects identified with sustainability. The move away from the dehumanization of cyber-physical systems has led to the emergence of the Industry 5.0 concept supported by the European Commission. The new challenges identified by the Industry 5.0 concept, especially in the implementation of human-centric technologies and principles of sustainability and resilience, pose challenges to the knowledge and skills of today’s manufacturing engineers. Hence, the article’s main aim is to identify industrial employees’ essential skills and competencies in implementing Industry 5.0. The achievements and results presented in the article were obtained based on a survey conducted among experts representing universities and Polish companies, mainly meant manufacturing, R&D and service companies. The study includes aspects related to the problem of implementation of digital technologies identified with the fourth industrial revolution in the conditions of development of the concept of Industry 5.0. In addition, the directions of development of knowledge and competencies of employees are indicated, which can serve the development of the educational system of modern engineers.