Weekends and evenings spent training to hone the skills to compete and win. Exercises to become quicker, more agile, and competitive with the best of the best.
These aren’t the efforts of athletic competitors that might immediately come to mind. They are members of WorldSkills UK’s training program for WorldSkills Shanghai 2026, and they’re ready to take on the challenge of using their talent in digital construction and mechanical engineering to compete in ultimate skills competitions.
Get ready to meet some skills superstars.
At the age of 20, Sophia Ali is already a full-time BIM coordinator at Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks Transmission (SSEN) and a member of Squad UK, hoping to gain a spot and represent the digital construction category at WorldSkills Shanghai 2026.
And there’s Stuart Lyons who is already on his way to EuroSkills Herning 2025 this fall in Denmark. He’s representing the UK for mechanical engineering and has his eye on WorldSkills Shanghai 2026 as well.
Discover their journeys, the incredible experience of skills competitions for students, and the impact it’s already making on their education and careers.
At an early age, Sophia Ali was intrigued by architecture and even teaching herself how to do her own architectural drawings. Now, at the age of 20, she’s already completed her HNC and HND in Architectural Technology from New College Lanarkshire and is embarking on her professional career as a full-time BIM coordinator with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Transmission.
But she hasn’t completely left her learning experience behind. Each weekend, you’ll find her training for the opportunity to compete in WorldSkills Shanghai 2026.
This year, Ali was selected by WorldSkills UK to join the 18-month intensive training program to compete for a single spot to represent the UK for the digital construction category at WorldSkills Shanghai 2026. The training includes everything from bootcamps and mock competitions to access to educational psychologists and nutritionists.
The digital construction Squad UK is led by Michael McGuire—a seasoned veteran of WorldSkills competitions—and Isabelle Barron who is now joining as a specialist trainer after her own success at EuroSkills 2023 and WorldSkills 2024.
As Ali and her two teammates continue their preparation, they know only one will ultimately come out on top to compete for the UK. While this is a huge goal for Ali, there’s more to it than just the competition.
“Competition teaches a lot of important, industry-related things that make it much easier to go straight into work,” she says. “One of the most attractive parts for me is the skills development and access to all of these great resources just to learn more.”
Last year, Ali completed a summer placement at a Scottish power company for BIM modeling with Autodesk Revit. Now, as a BIM coordinator at SSEN Transmission, she manages the information side of their projects—including substations, overhead lines, and underground cables—in Autodesk Construction Cloud and ensures they follow ISO 19650 standards.
“I always wanted to be part of something meaningful that would make an impact,” she says. “With everything going on with climate change and decarbonization right now, it’s quite appealing to work in the energy industry.”
Balancing a career and training with Squad UK is a major investment. But, according to Ali, SSEN Transmission sees it as an advantage and whole-heartedly supports her.
“Although my role is primarily focused on information management, I’ve also been involved in Revit modeling with the CAD team, which has helped me develop across different areas,” she says. “SSEN Transmission has been really supportive of my training with Squad UK, especially as we’re still early in our BIM implementation journey. They value the additional knowledge and training I’m gaining from experts across the industry. It’s been great for my personal growth and for contributing to the development of the wider team.”
—Sophia Ali, BIM Coordinator at SSEN Transmission and WorldSkills Squad UK member
For Stuart Lyons, there wasn’t much of a question in his mind that engineering would be his chosen route.
“Growing up, I’d always want to know how things work and put things together,” he says. “In high school we started doing more CAD in class and something just clicked in my mind. It didn’t feel like schoolwork because it was really fun, and I knew this was where I wanted to go in the future.”
Like Ali, Lyons was introduced to WorldSkills UK early on at New College Lanarkshire. Additive manufacturing was a new category for WorldSkills, so he was intrigued. Despite the lack of experience, he decided to go for it and learn how to 3D print with Autodesk Fusion from scratch.
“I studied a little bit of Fusion in class,” he says. “But the additive manufacturing coach with WorldSkills UK did a great amount of training where it made you feel ready to go.”
At the WorldSkills UK national finals in 2024, Lyons faced the intense pressure of the competition. The challenge and project are unknown and only revealed in the room. Last year’s project was to design and 3D print a line holder for drill bits of various sizes and with specific requirements. Each drill bit had to fit only into its designated slot, with no overlap between sizes.
“We didn’t have any information about the printers or their dimensional accuracy, so we had to run test prints to determine how closely the printed results matched our CAD measurements,” Lyons says. “We had four hours to complete the design, and the final print had to be finished before the task ended, regardless of how long it took to produce.”
In the end, Lyons earned a bronze medal for his stellar performance throughout nationals. Even he was a bit surprised at the experience and transformational changes afterward.
“They always say about how it raises your confidence, and I always thought that was just a line they said to get you to do it,” he says. “But after going to nationals and placing bronze, I feel like I am much more confident about myself. I know for a fact that my skills are worthy of even just a bronze has increased my confidence much more in every part of my life.”
Lyons is one of the few competitors to compete in multiple categories. After winning the bronze medal in additive manufacturing, he joined the mechanical engineering team for Squad UK.
Since Lyons has used Inventor much more than Fusion, he feels “at home” with the software and training. And there’s certainly plenty of training to be done every weekend at his college. On Friday and Saturday, he and his teammates will typically do past competition projects and then mark them up. Sunday is devoted to learning something completely new in Inventor or Fusion.
“It’s quite intensive as we work through different exercises and former projects,” Lyons says. “But I just love learning in Inventor.”
“At EuroSkills, we know we’re going to need to do a task or two with Fusion for reverse engineering a 3D scan, so we’re getting up to speed more with it in general,” he continues. “We’ve been primarily using Inventor and learning new things like shortcuts and generally just learning how to be quicker with new things we didn’t learn in class.”
—Stuart Lyons, WorldSkills UK and Squad UK competitor
With his HND in hand, Lyons is looking forward to starting his career—all while continuing his intense training for EuroSkills in September and potentially earning a spot for WorldSkills 2026 with Squad UK. His experiences both in college and WorldSkills UK have made a profound impact.
“Participating in WorldSkills UK has not only increased my technical skills, but my ability to absorb new software,” he says. “When I go into industry and they’re using another CAD software, I know I can easily learn it. I’m so much quicker now, and it’s easier to bring things from my mind onto the screen. It’s just an overall boost.”
“Obviously the career prospects are also quite good,” he continues. “Someone can say they’re good at Inventor. But if you have it on your CV that you’ve medaled for a mechanical engineering competition, it actually shows an employer that your skills are what they say they are. You have all the hard and soft skills that you’ve already shown off to the world.”
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