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9 June 2026

WorldSkills 2017: Team UK strikes gold in Abu Dhabi

Team UK has retained its top-10 position at WorldSkills this year, after our competitors bagged one gold, three silvers, three bronzes, and 13 medallions of excellence in Abu Dhabi. Download out free souvenir supplement covering the journey undertaken by TeamUK for WorldSkills 2017. Click here. Our competitors will be going home with their heads held […]

Somerset Skills & Learning to make major redundancies after AEB debacle

A large community learning provider in Somerset that was hit hard by the adult education budget fiasco is likely to close six centres and make over 50 redundancies in the coming months. Somerset Skills & Learning, which currently teaches around 10,000 students and employs around 200 staff, was left £1 million short of the funding […]

WorldSkills 2017: High praise from first skills minister to visit in eight years

The skills and apprenticeships minister has pledged to bottle the “essence” of WorldSkills Abu Dhabi and “sprinkle it around the UK” in her bid to breakdown the “barriers” our country faces in bridging the skills gap. Anne Milton today became the first UK minister to attend the global competition in eight years, and said all […]

WorldSkills 2017: BAE Systems apprentice aims for gold

Team UK’s Shane Carpenter is hoping the 12 weeks he was allowed off work from Britain’s biggest defence manufacturer to prepare for WorldSkills is enough to bag him a place on the podium at the end of competitions. The 21-year-old IT Network System Administrator, who benefitted from the generosity of BAE Systems during the summer, […]

WorldSkills 2017: General Assembly hands 2021 competition to China

The WorldSkills General Assembly has today officially confirmed that Shanghai will host the 2021 competition. China was the only country in the running for the award, after Switzerland pulled out its bid earlier this year. On the eve of the Abu Dhabi opening ceremony, the General Assembly made it official that Shanghai would host the 46th […]

FE Week asks: Neil Bentley on the vital role of WorldSkills

As Team UK packed their belongings and headed to the sandy deserts of Abu Dhabi for WorldSkills 2017, FE Week’s senior reporter Billy Camden caught up with WorldSkills UK’s boss Neil Bentley on the importance of the event given our country’s prominent new skills agenda. The government’s desire to turn the UK into a nation of […]

WorldSkills 2017: A school visit to remember for Team UK

Singing, dancing, glow-in-the-dark shows and a bird of prey; Team UK’s first outing in Abu Dhabi certainly had it all as they visited a local school ahead of WorldSkills 2017. For some the highlight was the energetic rendition of S Club 7’s smash hit ‘Reach for the stars’, and for others it was the Scottish […]