Over 500 of the best students and apprentices from all over the UK came together for hours of intense competition in November, to be crowned as WorldSkills UK National Final winners.

WorldSkills is a global movement of over 80 countries which supports young people across the world via competition-based training. The UK National Final saw young people compete in 62 disciplines from 3D Digital Game Art to Laboratory Technician, and medalists were announced during an online celebration event on Friday 25 November.

An impressive 130 Welsh competitors have been announced as finalists for the WorldSkills UK National Finals taking place this November, seven of which are from Gower College Swansea!

The announcement follows a series of regional competitions that took place across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, hosting a string of talented young people. 

The finalists from Gower College Swansea are:

Foundation Skills: Restaurant Services

Ben Lewis, an electronics apprentice at Gower College Swansea, is set to represent Team UK at the WorldSkills 2022 competition in China.

Gower College Swansea student, Scott Tavner, has been entered straight into the WorldSkills Lyon squad after his outstanding performance in the WorldSkills UK 2021 National Finals.

WorldSkills is a global movement of over 80 countries, which supports young people across the world via competitions-based training, assessment, and benchmarking. The WorldSkills competitions are known by many as the ‘skills Olympics’, with competitors being trained to develop their personal and employability skills, as well as technical.

Gower College Swansea is to get a world-class skills boost after being selected to join an elite training programme.

The College is one of 12 leading institutions (colleges and Independent Training Providers) to have been selected to join the skills revolution by becoming part of WorldSkills UK’s Centre of Excellence. 

Gower College Swansea joins forces with WorldSkills UK to demonstrate world-class skills.

Students at Gower College Swansea demonstrated their world-class electronic engineering skills when they took part in a virtual training event with students from across China. 

The event was the first of its kind to be held in Wales, and was organised by WorldSkills UK, the education and skills charity, supporting its programme to exchange best practice in skills development with countries around the world.

Fourteen of the UK’s best young apprentices and professionals have been selected to take on the crème de la crème of their European peers in the first big skills pressure test of the post Brexit era – EuroSkills.

Rhys Watts, Electronic Engineering Apprentice Technician at Gower College Swansea, is the youngest of the team, representing the UK in the Electronics Prototyping category.

Five students from Gower College Swansea have won places in the WorldSkills Long Squad after coming top in their fields in the National Finals in November.

Liam Hughes, Ben Lewis, Rhys Watts and Nathan Evans were four of the five winners in the Industrial Electronics category, while Paulina Skoczek won a place for Restaurant Services.

The UK’s best young apprentices and vocational students have been crowned the nations’ No.1 in a glittering ceremony in Birmingham.

WorldSkills UK LIVE, which attracted more than 80,000 young people to the NEC, was the backdrop for the National Finals of WorldSkills UK’s Competitions and saw more than 500 young people compete in over 70 different disciplines. 

Taking part in WorldSkills UK Competitions equips young people with the world-class skills needed to help UK businesses better compete globally.  

During the recent WorldSkills Kazan 2019 competition event, no less than six of the 19 medals won by Team UK came from Wales.

Among the medal winners was Collette Gorvett, who studied Hospitality and Catering at Gower College Swansea before being snapped up by The Ritz in London. Collette competed in the Restaurant Services category, where she impressed the judges with her talents in making mocktails, restaurant mise en place and fine dining, and was eventually awarded a coveted Medallion of Excellence.