Skills Competition Wales success for aeronautical engineer from Llay

A 21-year-old from Llay, Wrexham, has won a gold medal in the final of a national skills competition.

Backed by the Welsh Government through the European Social Fund, ‘Skills Competition Wales’ is a series of events held in colleges across the country, designed to celebrate vocational skills and create highly skilled, talented employees for the Welsh workforce.

Laura Green, who is currently studying for Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Aeronautical Engineering at Coleg Cambria whilst completing an apprenticeship three days a week at Airbus, competed against four other students from across Wales in a series of aircraft mechanical maintenance challenges. The competitors were tasked with performing a brake maintenance check on a jet provost and a metalwork test on an air dam plate as well as an hour-long theory examination.

Laura said: “My day-to-day apprenticeship work involves building aircraft wings, so the tasks we had to perform for the competition didn’t seem too daunting or different from what I was used to.

“There are four girls and around 80 boys on my engineering course, so I’m used to being in the minority. It was so nice to see that at the WorldSkills final there were three boys and two girls, which is a much better ratio!

“After doing my GCSEs I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I worked as a lifeguard at the local swimming baths for three years but I wanted to try something completely different.

“My dad used to work for Airbus, and my boyfriend also did the apprenticeship that I’m now doing, so I decided to apply for it myself and thankfully got accepted – I was so happy! I’m looking forward to being fully qualified and working at Airbus by November 2019.”

More than 50 competitions are taking place this year, across a wide range of different vocations from bricklaying and hairdressing to aeronautical engineering and culinary art.

The successful youngsters may then go on to be shortlisted for the UK Squad, competing against the world’s most talented young people at the EuroSkills competition in Austria, in 2020, or the WorldSkills international final in Shanghai in 2021.

Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning, Eluned Morgan said: “Competitions like these are essential for establishing transferable skills for the future, and allow young people at the start of their careers to flourish.

“They provide individuals from Wales with the opportunity to demonstrate their skills as well as the chance to go further and compete on a national or even international level.

“I would like to congratulate Laura on her brilliant achievement and wish her the best of luck in the next stage of the competition and I look forward to seeing her prosper in her future career.”