A FORMER Pembrokeshire College joinery student from Kilgetty was amongst 22 of the UK's most highly-skilled young people chosen to take part in a top international contest.

Christopher Caine was a member of Team UK - elite apprentices and students working in the engineering, digital, construction and professional industries - who travelled to Budapest for EuroSkills 2018.

The team was up against the best Europe has to offer in the four-day contest.

Before leaving for Hungary last month, Christopher and fellow team members were the guests at a Parliamentary reception attended by the minister of state for apprenticeships and skills, Anne Milton MP.

She told them: "We are moving to a world where it's not about where you come from, or whether you went to university - but what skills you can offer to an employer and help them become more productive."

The team members have all spent a minimum of two years in intensive training, winning regional and national competitions, as well as progressing through intensive team selection processes and months of accelerated training.

Dr Neil Bentley, the chief executive of WorldSkills UK, urged the young people to "go and do your country proud".

He added: "With Brexit now only months away, we need to benchmark our young people's skills against the best of the rest of the EU.

"It's only through putting our young people to the test in a time-pressured environment against the highest of specifications that we'll know whether we are developing the skills levels we need in the UK to boost productivity, compete economically and attract inward investment to help create jobs into the future."