Required Competencies for Robotics in a Digital Era

The transition to a digital economy radically changes the labor market: digital competencies become critical in all areas. One of the main mega-trends that occur together with digitization is a robotization. Robotics is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. However, a significant barrier to the development of robotics around the world is the lack of qualified employees and the lack of the required competencies (so called «skill gap»). The survey of organizations in the field of robotics (universities, research institutes, manufacturers) and interviews with their leaders was conducted at the end of 2016 in Russia. The data collected in the survey was enriched by job advertisements analysis: job postings aggregator indeed.com to identify top required skills in robotics on the international market (vacancies from USA, Great Britain and Canada were included) and Russian job postings aggregator hh.ru. This assures comparison of countries at different development stages, which influence companies’ innovation activities. In general, professions in robotics are "international": the most important competencies of specialists in Russia and abroad coincide. The results showed that currently in most Russian organizations (61%) there exists a shortage of qualified staff. Employers indicate that the already unfilled demand for highly skilled personnel will only grow in the future. According to more than 70% representatives of surveyed organizations, in the next 5 years will increase the importance of specialized knowledge in the field of robotics, understanding of the latest trends in the field of robotics and possession of special methods and techniques. All this should be combined with deep theoretical knowledge, which are stable important for this the field, and the ability to adequately apply them in practice.