AN ENGINEERING apprentice from Darwen will represent the UK at the largest international skills competition in the world after grabbing gold in the national contest.

Thomas Woodburn, an 18-year-old engineering and fabrication apprentice at Darwen-based WEC Group Ltd, picked up a gold award at the WorldSkills UK final in construction metalwork.

MORE TOP STORIES:

At the three- day competition at the NEC in Birmingham, Mr Woodburn fought off stiff competition, including from four other WEC Group apprentices, and will now represent the UK at the WorldSkills competition in Abu Dhabi in 2017.

Mr Woodburn said it was a complete surprise to win the award and he was excited to represent his country.

He said: “I am very proud of what I’ve achieved and I would like to say a big thank-you to our training and development manager Kris Mercer for getting us all to this stage.

“I must admit that hearing my name announced as the winner was a shock, as the standards were so high.

“On the third day, I was running out of time to complete my fabrication, but I managed to finish it in the nick of time.

“A big thank you as well to WorldSkills and the judges. I’m really looking forward to training with Squad UK and representing the country in 2017.”

The WorldSkills event sees around 1,000 young people worldwide compete for medals in more than 40 different skills including welding, web design, cooking and bricklaying.

Mr Woodburn secured a place at the national final after scoring very highly in the construction metalwork regional heats earlier this year.

WEC Group Training Ac-ademy apprentices competed against some 100 entrants from around the UK to make it to the final 13, with WEC and East Lancashire contributing almost 50 per cent of the finalists.

Chris Taylor, 24, and in his fifth year at WEC, also managed to snatch bronze scoring higher than previous gold medallists.

Mr Mercer, WEC training and development manager, said: “We’re very proud of all of our apprentices’ achievement and it’s a tribute to the investment by WEC Group in our training programme and the hard work put in by the lads.”