{"id":514482,"date":"2025-10-20T13:31:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/514482\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T13:31:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:31:14","slug":"toyota-apprentices-hoping-to-represent-uk-in-skills-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/514482\/","title":{"rendered":"Toyota apprentices hoping to represent UK in skills competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two apprentices at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingderby.co.uk\/bondholders\/toyota\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Toyota Manufacturing UK<\/a> are training to represent the UK at the finals of an international skills competition.<\/p>\n<p>Emily Bettridge, 23, and Liz Hopkinson, 22, are aiming to compete at the 48th WorldSkills competition in Shanghai in 2026, following their gold medal success at the national finals.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1365\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Emily-and-Liz-1-scaled-1-1365x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52977\" style=\"object-fit:cover\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>The pair are both multi-skilled mechatronics maintenance technician apprentices undertaking their apprenticeships with Burton and South Derbyshire College at the Toyota\u2019s Burnaston factory.<\/p>\n<p>They impressed judges at the UK finals last November with their technical precision and teamwork, earning top honours in the mechatronics category.<\/p>\n<p>Members of \u2018Squad UK\u2019 train under the guidance of highly skilled trainers, industry experts, former medal winners and performance coaches.<\/p>\n<p>The top performers will be selected next spring to become official members of Team UK at the Shanghai finals where they will be expected to perform previously unseen tests to a professional standard within a fixed time limit.<\/p>\n<p>WorldSkills is recognised globally as the ultimate benchmark for vocational excellence, bringing together over 1,500 young people from more than 80 countries to compete in technical disciplines ranging from engineering and digital to hospitality and creative arts.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Emily-and-Liz-3-scaled-1-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52978\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>The UK will compete in over 30 skills at the 48th WorldSkills finals, including 3D Digital Game Art, Robot Systems Integration and Renewable Energy.<\/p>\n<p>Liz, who joined TMUK at the same time as Emily in September 2022, said: \u201cWe started training for WorldSkills about a year ago, got through the national qualifiers, and then went on to win gold at the finals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe training is really high intensity \u2013 there\u2019s a lot of time pressure and problem-solving \u2013 but it\u2019s helped me grow so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Emily, who also won Apprentice of the Year in BSDC\u2019s FE &amp; Apprenticeship Awards, said: \u201cCompeting in WorldSkills has pushed me to my limits, but it\u2019s been one of the most rewarding experiences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe intensity of the competition environment really develops your skills \u2013 from programming to working under pressure \u2013 and you bring all of that back to your job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    Related Articles&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two apprentices at Toyota Manufacturing UK are training to represent the UK at the finals of an international&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,168092,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-514482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-toyota-motor-manufacturing-uk-ltd","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115406746020046035","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}