Following its creation by the United Nations in 2014, World Youth Skills Day is annually themed to help equip young people with the skills needed for employment and entrepreneurship.
In line with this year’s theme of “Youth empowerment through AI and digital skills,” we’re recognising two of our WorldSkills UK Digital Construction medallists, by exploring more around what WorldSkills involves and how its pathway can help develop our talented young people across a range of industries.
What is WorldSkills?
WorldSkills is a globally recognised platform promoting specialist workplace skills for young people.
Acting as a partnership between employers, education and governments, it looks to use international best practice to raise standards in technical learning – providing young people with career-focused support through training and skills camps.
An international charity, WorldSkills also holds a bi-annual skills competition in the form of national and global championships, focused on giving young people the chance to develop and showcase their technical skills.
With over 80 countries now involved with WorldSkills, the last ‘skills Olympics’, held in 2024, had 1400 participants competing against their peers in over 60 different disciplines.
The WorldSkills pathway
As most WorldSkills competitions limit competitors to a maximum age of 22, the development programme is aimed specifically at young people. For BakerHicks entrants Paul Hudson, Architecture Technician, and Adam Rodger, Architecture Trainee, this pathway into Digital Construction started in college.
With the programme involving a three-to-four-year cycle, they combined practical workplace opportunities at BakerHicks with the technical skills learnt throughout their studies, following pathways that have taken them beyond regional competition right through to national success.
Paul’s impressive gold medal in Digital Construction in the 2021 WorldSkills UK Nationals saw him represent the UK on the international stage in Lyon in 2024, while, more recently, Adam picked up silver in the same category, in the 2024 WorldSkills UK competition.
The WorldSkills experience
With the WorldSkills UK national finals taking place over two days, and the international finals over four days, all finalists in their respective vocations, are tested on a wide range of technical skills.
Adam recalls:
The first day we were given a BIM Execution Plan to familiarise ourselves with, then we started setting up project grids and levels, modelling the structure of a four-level apartment building, and finally creating the architectural model. Day two, we then had to use ACC to interrogate a model, run clash detection between an MEP and structural model, before modelling a penthouse on the apartment block we’d worked on the day before.
By the end, I was exhausted, but hearing my name called out as silver medal winner made all the hours of practice worth it.
Finalists are also assessed on non-technical performance areas including mentality, body language and ability to perform under pressure – characteristics helping to prepare young people for wider challenges faced in the working world.
Paul, now a WorldSkills mentor within BakerHicks, says:
The whole experience was very rewarding for me workwise – I could use what I was doing and contribute beyond my trainee role to help improve certain processes in the office. Then externally, I was also asked to speak at certain events because of my involvement at WorldSkills.
Overall, you meet a lot of new people and develop a lot of new connections, so, even beyond the progression career-wise, it’s ended up being a really good way for me to make connections with people of a similar level, in a similar industry.
