The SkillPLUMB 2024 UK Champion and gold medal winner has been named as 19-year outdated David Bateman-Smith of South West School NI and Ashley McFarland Plumbing & Heating.
In what turned out to be an especially shut occasion, held at Oldham School as a part of the WorldSkills UK Nationwide Finals, David was intently adopted by three collectively tied second place opponents and one other three joint third place opponents.
Silver medals had been awarded to Shaun Wilcox of Moray School UHI and Moray Council, Elliot Julian of Cornwall School and Nicholls Plumbing & Heating, and Jackson Gill of New School Durham and CGE Yorkshire Ltd.
Tied for third place and every receiving a bronze medal had been Jack Fenton of Belfast Metropolitan School / Ian Reid Heating, Samuel Web page of Suffolk New School / Whitwell Providers and Dillon Newton of Cornwall School / Justin Eyre Plumbing & Heating.
Gold medal winner David had already competed within the 2023 SkillPLUMB closing and acquired a Extremely Counseled point out; he returned this yr to win the Northern Eire warmth and finally take the highest spot on the UK closing final week. Throughout two and a half days, opponents needed to sort out a advanced plumbing set up job and, in a primary for this yr, display low carbon data in a brand new warmth pump job developed in collaboration with Perfect Heating.
SkillPLUMB is organised by business charity BPEC and is a part of the WorldSkills UK competitors framework.
Neil Collishaw, CEO of BPEC, mentioned: “This yr on the closing we noticed an unprecedented commonplace of excellence, with opponents demonstrating outstanding ability and dedication. It was nice to see so many guests to the competitors and we’re very grateful for the help from our sponsors; particularly I’d wish to thank our headline sponsor Perfect Heating for incorporating a model new warmth pump module on the UK finals.
“We’re very happy with all eight SkillPLUMB finalists, all of them carried out fantastically and are nice function fashions and ambassadors for our business.”
Andrew Johnson, Coaching Director of Perfect Heating, added: “This competitors is the head occasion for the business. It showcases abilities, encourages opponents to be one of the best they are often and drives up requirements again within the office. Throughout our coaching centres presently we’re witnessing nice curiosity in warmth pumps – round 70% of our coaching exercise is warmth pump associated. So we had been delighted to work with SkillPLUMB and BPEC this yr to introduce these ideas to opponents and begin elevating consciousness of this rising ingredient of the business.”
SkillPLUMB is open to plumbing apprentices and Degree 2 or 3 plumbing college students. Subsequent yr’s competitors will open in March 2025. To seek out out extra go to www.bpec.org.uk/skillplumb