The SkillPLUMB 2024 UK Champion and gold medal winner has been named as 19-year old David Bateman-Smith of South West College NI and Ashley McFarland Plumbing & Heating.
In what turned out to be an extremely close event, held at Oldham College as part of the WorldSkills UK National Finals, David was closely followed by three jointly tied second place competitors and another three joint third place competitors.
Silver medals were awarded to Shaun Wilcox of Moray College UHI and Moray Council, Elliot Julian of Cornwall College and Nicholls Plumbing & Heating, and Jackson Gill of New College Durham and CGE Yorkshire Ltd.
Tied for third place and each receiving a bronze medal were Jack Fenton of Belfast Metropolitan College / Ian Reid Heating, Samuel Page of Suffolk New College / Whitwell Services and Dillon Newton of Cornwall College / Justin Eyre Plumbing & Heating.
Gold medal winner David had already competed in the 2023 SkillPLUMB final and received a Highly Commended mention; he returned this year to win the Northern Ireland heat and ultimately take the top spot at the UK final last week. Across two and a half days, competitors had to tackle a complex plumbing installation task and, in a first for this year, demonstrate low carbon knowledge in a new heat pump task developed in collaboration with Ideal Heating.
SkillPLUMB is organised by industry charity BPEC and is part of the WorldSkills UK competition framework.
Neil Collishaw, CEO of BPEC, said: “This year at the final we saw an unprecedented standard of excellence, with competitors demonstrating remarkable skill and dedication. It was great to see so many visitors to the competition and we are very grateful for the support from our sponsors; in particular I’d like to thank our headline sponsor Ideal Heating for incorporating a brand new heat pump module at the UK finals.
“We are very proud of all eight SkillPLUMB finalists, they all performed superbly and are great role models and ambassadors for our industry.”
Andrew Johnson, Training Director of Ideal Heating, added: “This competition is the pinnacle event for the industry. It showcases skills, encourages competitors to be the best they can be and drives up standards back in the workplace. Across our training centres currently we are witnessing great interest in heat pumps – around 70% of our training activity is heat pump related. So we were delighted to work with SkillPLUMB and BPEC this year to introduce these concepts to competitors and start raising awareness of this growing element of the industry.”
SkillPLUMB is open to plumbing apprentices and Level 2 or 3 plumbing students. Next year’s competition will open in March 2025. To find out more visit www.bpec.org.uk/skillplumb
