Coleg Cambria flies the flag for Wales at UK skills Olympics

WALES will be flying the flag with more representatives than any other home nation at this year’s WorldSkills UK competition.

And 11 of those participating in the event – to be held across six venues in November – are from Coleg Cambria, which has sites in Northop, Deeside, Llysfasi and Wrexham.

They are in the following categories:

Aircraft Maintenance: Rosie Boddy (Airbus/Cambria), Jamie Harding (Airbus/Cambria) and Tymoteusz Rozanski

Beauty Therapist: Lucia Contento and Abbie Smith

Beauty Therapy Practitioner: Isabelle Bailey

Construction Metalwork: Rhys Stanhope

Manufacturing Team Challenge: James Coyle, Benjamin Wynn and Kumnan Lipdo

Network Infrastructure Technician: Cameron Thompson

Congratulating those selected, Cambria’s Learner Experience and Enterprise Manager Rona Griffiths said: “Once again our students and apprentices have done themselves and the college proud by making the list for WorldSkills UK.

“Every year we produce the most incredible, skilled participants in a wide range of areas – good luck to you all.”

Wales has maintained its top spot of having the highest number of competitors of all UK regions since 2015. This year, over one in four of the finalists are Welsh and with two categories still yet to be announced, it’s likely this number will increase.

WorldSkills supports young people across the world to take part in competition-led training, assessment, and benchmarking, with representatives from national teams testing their ability to achieve world-class standards in an Olympic-style skills tournament.

The competitions challenge learners in five different sectors to be named best in their skill including Construction and Infrastructure, Engineering and Technology, Health, Hospitality and Lifestyle, IT and Enterprise and Media and Creative.

Paul Evans, Project Director for Inspiring Skills Excellence in Wales, said: “Once again it’s a fantastic achievement for Wales to be so strongly represented at the UK National Finals, with another record number of competitors taking part this November.

“I’m extremely proud and eager to see how our competitors fair – congratulations and good luck to all of the finalists!”

Ben Blackledge, Deputy CEO of WorldSkills UK, added: “I want to offer my congratulations to everyone who registered for our competitions this year, especially those who are now going on to compete in November’s finals.

“We are really excited to be taking the show on the road again this year with finals hosted by colleges across the UK. We hope seeing the finals in person or catching up with our online content will inspire more young people to develop their skills and have a go at one of our competitions next year.”