The UK’s newest crop of top vocational and technical skills champions have been announced as the results of last week’s WorldSkills UK national finals are finally revealed.
From a special broadcast from the ‘Steph’s Packed Lunch’ studio, Steph announced over 200 bronze, silver and gold medal winners across 63 award categories.
The national finals were split into five categories: foundation skills, construction and infrastructure, digital business & creative, engineering & technology, and health, hospitality and lifestyle.
Southern Regional College topped the medal table, moving from third position last year, with 32 medal points.
City of Glasgow College maintained their second place position with 28 medal points including five golds, one silver and two bronze.
Coleg Gwent shot up the table from 11th place to 3rd place.
North Warwickshire & South Leicestershire College was the winning organisation for foundation skills medals, with Chichester College Group and Coleg Gwent not far behind in second and third.
Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann, WordSkills UK chief executive said: “To be named among the top performing organisations in the WorldSkills UK national finals is a fantastic achievement and recognises the high level of teaching standards within these colleges and training providers.”
The winners
Two hundred and seventeen young people have been recognised in total, an increase on last year’s 186.
Rosie Boddy, from Airbus UK, won gold for aircraft maintenance, Tymoteusz Rozanski, from Coleg Cambria won silver and Bradly Pettitt from Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group in third.
Other gold medal winners included Chloe Vicary, from Coleg Gwent, for creative media make-up, City of Glasgow College’s Lidia Modlinska in website development and Jade Oakes from Riverside College in painting and decorating.
Zeeshan Hassan, from Oldham College, and Margret Holly McCauley-Brown, from Coleg Sir Gar, came joint first in foundation skills: health and social care.
Sam Hurst, from North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College, and Amy Sanderson, from New College Durham, both won gold medals in foundation skills: restaurant service.
Bentley-Gockmann said: “If we are to create a high value skills economy in the UK then organisations like these are going to play a vital role in getting us there, and they need to be celebrated for their commitment to excellence for their students and apprentices.
“It is also great to see such strong representation in the medal table from organisations who are part of our Centre of Excellence programme. The initiative, which was launched in 2020 in partnership with NCFE, to drive up standards of technical training, has seen us work with educators across the UK to transfer international best practice to ensure young people are being equipped with the world-class skills that employers are demanding. To date over 37,000 learners and apprentices have benefited, and it was fantastic to see some of them demonstrating what they have learnt in our National Finals.”
The full results for every competition category can be found in our special WorldSkills UK national finals supplement, published today.
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