The objective of this article is to analyse the designer skills and company needs that are important for design culture development in the coming era of Industry 5.0. For this purpose, 83 SMEs operating in the manufacturing sector in Italy, Spain, Romania, and Poland were analysed. Qualitative and quantita-tive research conducted within the European project Intride let the authors state that in the 21st century context, companies will need to look for designers with specific skills. Based on their study, the authors indicate the most important skills for further development of design culture from the areas of soft, technological, design, digital, and green skills. Further, the authors suggest that it is necessary to con-tinue research on identifying the most needed skills for smart designers in manufacturing and in rele-vant curricula at universities, which might fill educational gaps related to these skills. They propose the concept of the “smart designer” as a design innovation trigger in the manufacturing sector.

Implementing solutions related to Industry 4.0 is a challenge for Polish industrial enterprises, regardless of size or affiliation to a larger, international organisation. The aim of this article is to examine the awareness, readiness and ability of these enterprises to meet this challenge. This study was conducted on a group of 60 randomly selected representatives of companies operating in Poland. A structured interview consisting of 32 questions, carried out using the English computer-assisted web interview (CAWI) method, was used to collect the data. Statistical differences between companies employing up to 249 people and companies employing at least 250 people were verified by the use of the nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test. Latent variables were also extracted, and the comparison was conducted using the independent samples from a Student’s t-test. Regardless of the differences in responses between companies employing up to 249 employees and those employing 250 or more, the results showed an insufficient level of knowledge of technological solutions as well as a lack of awareness about supporting business development by means of specialised technology providers. Even though little awareness of the importance of Industry 4.0 solutions was identified, identifying key determinants for raising awareness of these solutions among companies operating in Poland may become not only the basis of further scientific research but also of a vital catalogue of activities that can be used to disseminate knowledge in this area. Both paths are extremely important for Polish enterprises. Practical implementation of Industry 4.0 measures particularly entails additional support for small and medium-sized enterprises (hereinafter SME) investment in technological, financial and human resources.