Apprentice technician Josh Beedham of Scarborough will be competing against other apprentices, and Steve Saxby of Hull will be up against qualified technicians, in the Institute of Road Transport Engineers (IRTE) Skills Challenge on 22 June.
The IRTE Skills Challenge is an annual competition held in Bristol which aims to find engineering stars from around the country who are working in the bus and coach sectors.
Bus engineers need traditional mechanical skills, but they also need to be able to weld, find faults, use state-of-the-art computer systems and diagnose solutions on complex modern buses, and the IRTE Skills Challenge celebrates this expertise.
Josh and Steve have been chosen to represent East Yorkshire from the company’s 130-strong engineering team, and they’ll be challenged to a number of theoretical and practical tests on the day to prove their skills.
Robert Gibson, East Yorkshire’s Chief Engineer, said that the competition for places had been fierce this year, but that he has high hopes for the two East Yorkshire competitors.
“Our engineering team have worked really hard under difficult circumstances throughout the pandemic, and it’s great to see that they’re getting to show off their skills at a national level,” he said. “At East Yorkshire we’ve got lots of highly motivated and talented engineers, but Josh and Steve really stood out, and we think they’ve got a great chance of winning their categories.”
Technician Steve Saxby said “Competing in the IRTE Skills Challenge is a great opportunity, and we’re really looking forward to meeting other technicians from around the UK. We don’t know what tasks we’re going to be set, but we’ll give it our best shot and hopefully we can bring home one of the prizes to East Yorkshire.”
East Yorkshire’s engineers keep the region moving by making sure the company’s modern buses are clean, safe and reliable when they’re on the road. The team have a wide range of skills, from apprentices learning on the job, to highly trained technicians, electricians, painters and mechanics.