Dr Gary Allwood, Published: January 30, 2024 - Updated: January 30, 2024
Technology and the workforce are changing alongside an evolving industry landscape. These changes require specific technical, problem-solving, and personal skills we need to rapidly adapt to the requirements of the industries we work in.
In this blog, I'll explore the most critical skills to focus on developing in the face of a rapidly evolving digital landscape across the industry. If you're interested in learning more, watch the on-demand webinar.
Technical skills
Your technical skills as the engine that drives your career. Just like a car engine, our technical skills require an occasional service to ensure they’re still up to scratch. This is a lifelong learning mindset that will hold you in good stead when adapting to new and emerging technologies.
Here’s a quick snapshot of some of the technical attributes that are beneficial in Industry 4.0 work environments, particularly if you’re coming from an OT background:
- IT Infrastructure
- IT Governance
- Data Science
- Data Integration
- Computer Programming
- Cyber Security
- Business Analytics
- Project Management
As you can see, many of these skills relate to IT, data, and its associated challenges – bringing us back to the concept of IT-OT convergence. As systems become more interconnected, we need to understand how this connectivity affects the way we work alongside technology.
Watch the on-demand webinar for a comprehensive rundown of these technical skills.
Problem-solving skills
Another element that is often neglected when it comes to upskilling is our ability to problem-solve. I consider problem-solving skills one of the most important aspects of your professional skillset to improve. Here are some problem-solving skills that you may want to build throughout your career journey:
- Innovation
- Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship
- Lateral thinking and creativity
- Reasoning
- Analysing and diagnosing
- Decision making
You may or may not consider yourself a great problem solver, but it's interesting when we think about problem-solving and how we improve upon that skill. Becoming a better problem solver is about being thrown into an unknown situation and your process of coming up with a unique solution.
Personal skills
We need to understand how to be good at collaborating and communicating to be effective in any work environment – let alone Industry 4.0. As part of that, you might want to improve your social intelligence and your emotional intelligence by harnessing some of these personal skills:
- Task Collaboration
- Communication
- Social Intelligence
- Cultural and Diversity Awareness
- Influencing Others
- Conflict Resolution
- Self-Regulation
- Lifelong Learning
- Career Management
One of my favourite terms on this list is lifelong learning. In my opinion, the workforce is no longer the place where you go to university, get a degree, get a job, and work for 40 years. That's not typically going to be the case in the future. You’re more likely to move across different industries and have lots of different jobs throughout your career – but to do that and be successful, we need to be constantly upskilling.
Adjusting to Industry 4.0 – learn to be an IT-OT all-rounder
The reality is the IT and OT space is converging. The automation stack is evolving in Industry 4.0 to accommodate this blend, and therefore the skills required to perform well in an industry environment are changing.
You don’t need to be an expert in both, but we just need to be aware of some of the technologies and tools, some of the crossover, and some of the issues that arise from this IT-OT convergence. In closing, I recommend exploring some of the tools and applications that are available, many of which are open source and begin your pathway to lifelong learning!
Interested in learning more about the skills you need to thrive in Industry 4.0? Watch the on-demand webinar.
About the author
Dr Gary Allwood is the Training and Operations Manager for Skills Lab, helping many companies across Australia on their digital transformation journeys. Achieving a doctorate in engineering and physics, Dr Allwood also has real-life experience as a Senior Engineer, working with SCADA systems, sensors, optical fibres and optoelectronics.
