The UK ‘struck gold’ in the desert at the WorldSkills Finals in Abu Dhabi.

Having battled through regional heats, a national final, a Team UK selection process and months of intensive training, 34 skilled young apprentices (or former apprentices) attended the ‘Skills Olympics.’

These included Bridie Thorne, 22, who was competing in Hairdressing. She works at Pride Hairdressing in Gloucester and trains at Reds Hair Company in Ross-on-Wye.

Bridie travelled to Abu Dhabi as part of Team UK, completing four days of competition at the 44th WorldSkills Finals on Sunday, October 15th.

She won a Medallion of Excellence (the International benchmark of excellence) for Hairdressing. And helped Team UK finish 10th (out of 77) in the medals table ahead of Germany. It was the smallest team to make the global top 10.

More than 1,000 young people, from 77 nations, who are specialist in 51 different disciplines from hairdressing to aircraft maintenance, plumbing to 3D Games design, competed for gold, silver and bronze medals.

Team UK is supported by WorldSkills UK, funded by the DfE which business, and has pioneered radical hothousing methods to bring young apprentices to international standards.

At the last WorldSkills Finals in 2015, held in Sao Paulo, Team UK finished seventh above favourites France and Germany.

Speaking before the event at a ministerial send-off at the House of Commons, Dr Neil Bentley, CEO of WorldSkills UK said: “This is just like the Olympic Games, competing teams from numerous nations with gold silver and bronze medals up for grabs – and World class standards about to be set. The heat of competition will be as fierce as the heat of the desert – but we are ready.”

Team UK picked up no less than 20 medals, one gold, three silver, three bronze and 13 medallions of excellence at a spectacular closing ceremony on Thursday, October 19th, in front of 15,000 people at the du Arena in Abu Dhabi.

This year’s competition was seen by many as a test for the nation’s ability to cope when the free movement of skilled labour is withdrawn in 2019.