FMJ Facilities Management magazine providing industry-specific intelligence to FM and property professionals
Employers are being encouraged to get behind “a big push for skills” with the launch of the 2025 WorldSkills competition.
Sponsors are being invited to sign up this month ahead of entries opening in February for the world’s largest skills competition designed to celebrate and showcase emerging technical talent.
WorldSkills involves more than 80 countries and is a partnership between the education sector, businesses, and governments. It was set up over 60 years ago to help young people develop through competitions-based training, assessment, and benchmarking to support economic growth and create employment opportunities.
The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) is an organising partner of the WorldSkills UK competition that celebrates emerging and existing technical skills in the refrigeration and air conditioning (RAC) category. UK students and apprentices aged 16 and above are now being invited to put their skills to the test and could ultimately win a place on the UK team that will compete at the 2028 international Skills Olympics in Japan.
The refrigeration and air conditioning (RAC) competition is a nine-month process, including regional heats and intensive training, before the ultimate test of the national finals in November, which will be held in Wales.
Entrants will have to demonstrate their skills and knowledge through tasks inspired by real life industry scenarios. They will be tested on digital programming, fault finding/diagnosis, fabrication, service, maintenance, and record keeping as well as their ability to charge equipment and recover refrigerants in line with environmental legislation.
Candidates must be working towards a level 3 qualification or equivalent in refrigeration/air conditioning/heat pumps or have achieved a qualification within the last 12 months.
Those students and apprentices who excel in the national finals could then be selected to join WorldSkills UK’s international development and training programme, which can lead to them being selected for Team UK.
WorldSkills said it was helping the UK become a ‘skills economy’ by “boosting the prestige of technical and professional education by embedding world-class training standards…to help drive investment, jobs, and economic growth”.
The qualifying competitions are run across sectors including digital, creative, and engineering, and BESA will deliver a range of tests, designed by industry experts, for the RAC competitors.
BESA’s Head of Skills and Policy Stuart Rattray said: “This is an amazing opportunity for young people in our industry to showcase and celebrate their skills in a prestigious international competition. As well as promoting themselves, they will also be demonstrating to the world the importance of the RAC sector and the breadth and depth of talent we have here in the UK.
He added: “The competition does more than showcase and develop talent, it also helps to identify skills gaps in specific areas and can make great strides towards addressing them thanks to its close links with government.
“Our corporate supporters can also demonstrate their commitment to developing the deep pool of talent our industry needs to thrive. These ‘Olympic class’ challenges are the ultimate test of practical skills and technical knowledge working across our rapidly expanding range of technologies and solutions.”
Ben Blackledge, CEO of WorldSkills UK, said that taking part in the competition “can be a life-changing experience that develops crucial skills and boosts future earnings”.
He added that 87 per cent of previous entrants said taking part had improved their technical knowledge and 79 per cent had developed better personal and employability skills.
For more information about the competition and how to enter visit BESA’s WorldSkills Competition page and details of sponsorship opportunities are here.
FMJ has partnered with Watco to deliver a webinar on Thursday 30th January where we will be grilling a panel of experts on how facilities managers can maintain a safe workplace while balancing shrinking budgets.
The webinar follows the Lifting the Lid report series that the industrial paint and repair products specialist has been developing over the past few years based on research conducted with FMs across the UK. The research explored core responsibilities of the FM role, including how they have evolved in the past decade, and the associated challenges to manage.
Watco’s Sales Director and key contributor to the reports, Chris Budd, will be joined by a panel of experts including Phil Pinnington, Head of Audit & Consultancy at the British Safety Council, Nick Bray, Head of HSEQ, ISS UK and Ireland and Jenni Gallop, Director of Estates and Facilities at Provide Community.
With decades of combined experience in the introduction and management of health and safety in complex, demanding environments, the panel will provide the audience with recommendations broken down into steps that can be introduced immediately.
The panel will discuss the research data from FMs across the UK, the evidence they have seen of those experiences across industries and their first-hand recommendations on how to manage those challenges and ease the pressure.
Click here to sign up for the webinar.
