South West College, Enniskillen Technology & Skills Centre Electrical apprentice Daniel Knox, employed with GP Electrical and Security, has been selected to join WorldSkills UK to take part in Team UK and compete at EuroSkills Finals in the Polish city of Gdańsk.
Daniel will now join an intensive training programme with the UK team, which is set to make a triumphant return to compete at EuroSkills, Europe’s largest skills event, this Autumn, which is taking place in Poland for the first time.
Team UK – which heads to the EuroSkills Finals in the Polish city of Gdańsk from 5 - 9 September – will comprise of 20 elite apprentices and students skilled in a broad spectrum of disciplines from engineering to construction, digital to creative. Following success at last year’s international WorldSkills event, the UK will compete in Robot Systems Integration and Digital Construction for the first time at the European Competition.
Governments and industry will be watching with interest to benchmark how well Team UK performs compared to the country’s main European competitors. At the event, 600 skilled young professionals, under the age of 25, from 32 member countries, including Germany, Switzerland and France, will compete.
Over 100,000 spectators from across Poland and Europe are expected to attend this year’s finals, after the event faced disruption in recent years due to the pandemic.
Ben Blackledge, Interim Chief Executive, WorldSkills UK, which selects and trains Team UK to the highest international standard said: “The EuroSkills Finals provides a valuable mechanism for benchmarking the quality of skills. Through its competition-based assessment of young people’s skills against European industry standards, we can compare UK standards against those in the rest of Europe and importantly bring that international best practice back to the UK through the programmes we run at WorldSkills UK.
“This will be a life-enhancing opportunity for Daniel Knox and I wish them the best of luck. They and the rest of Team are the embodiment not only of the characteristics that we should aspire for in a young workforce, but for the UK Government’s ambitions for Global Britain too.
South West College, Electrical apprentice Daniel Knox, from Enniskillen, said: “I am incredibly grateful for the tremendous honour of making it this far, and I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to both my employer Gary Phair, GP Electrical and Security and the College for their unwavering support throughout this journey. The exceptional guidance provided by the dedicated lecturers at the College has been invaluable, and now I cannot wait to enhance my technical skills and mindset even more as I embark on the WorldSkills UK squad training.”
To secure a place in Team UK, the apprentices and students have been through an exhaustive selection process, taking part in the prestigious WorldSkills UK National Competitions. Following the European Finals, they will continue their training with WorldSkills UK with the aim of being selected for the WorldSkills Finals, which take place in Lyon, France next year.