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WorldSkills Plumbing and Heating competitors-in-training gathered at the triennial World Plumbing Conference (WPC2026) in Birmingham, United Kingdom, this June to experience what the biennial competition in Shanghai will be like, just three months before the event.
The Skills Forum at WPC2026, a new addition to the UK’s annual InstallerSHOW, attracted plumbing competitors and experts from around the world.
Sixteen Countries Join Forces in Birmingham
Of the 35 countries registered to compete in the Plumbing and Heating competition at WorldSkills Shanghai 2026 in September, 16 sent representatives to the Skills Forum at WPC2026: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
At the actual WorldSkills competitions, each competitor works alone under time pressure, but at the Skills Forum, countries worked in groups of two or three on tasks drawn from previous WorldSkills events, including faucets and fixture installations, pipe bending, press tools, and soldering.
Competitors could stop, ask questions, and repeat a technique before moving on, honing their competition skills in this simulated environment. Chintan Daiya (India), WorldSkills International's independent test project designer and assessor for Plumbing and Heating, led the three-day event, with additional support from young champions Ruben Duggan (UK) and Weilong Sun (China), silver and gold medal winners respectively, from the last WorldSkills Plumbing and Heating competition (Lyon, France in 2024).
U.S. competitor, Charles Goede (left), working on Test Project installation techniques with Dutch competitor Bryan Smit.
The Skills Forum was made possible with generous support from UK event host partners InstallerSHOW and CIPHE, while GROHE, a key sponsor for the WorldSkills Plumbing and Heating competition under LIXIL’s WorldSkills Global Industry Partnership, ran an adjoining demo area showcasing tools and fittings.
Brazilian competitor Estefany Barbosa (front), together with her Expert mentor Cláudio Cassemiro Nogueira, is guided by Manfred Kühn (right), Global Product Trainer with GROHE AG.
WorldSkills UK further enhanced the Skills Forum area by running parallel competition training workshops in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, as well as Electrical Installation.
The international participants also spent time on the InstallerSHOW floor, which included more than 900 exhibitors, and joined various conference presentations.
The Plumbing Labor Gap Impacts Every Country That Sent a Team
In the U.S. alone, an analysis by John Dunham & Associates, reported by Bloomberg, projects a shortage of 550,000 plumbers by next year. The World Plumbing Council reports similar shortages globally.
Seán Kearney, IWSH Managing Director, directly connected WorldSkills competitions to solving that shortage by elevating the plumbing profession on a global stage. “The Skills Forum at WPC2026 brought together a new generation of talented young plumbers from all over the world, coming together in the same space, to explore and work on the same technical challenges,” he said. “While preparing for WorldSkills Shanghai 2026, the timing of World Plumbing Conference 2026 and InstallerSHOW provided a unique opportunity for shared learning, while demonstrating how the plumbing industry is working to close the global skills gap.”
Chintan Daiya (center) is joined on the WPC2026 stage by (left to right) Maria Bøhnke (Boss Ladies Europe); Csilla Szigetvári (WorldSkills Hungary) and Parisa Shirazi (WorldSkills UK) for a conference panel discussing Global Workforce Development Through TVET.
A Long-Standing WorldSkills Partnership
IWSH is the public charity of IAPMO, which has served as a WorldSkills Global Industry Partner for 11 years. The Skills Forum at WPC2026 builds on that relationship, illustrating how IWSH contributes to workforce development across its programs: addressing the WASH crisis with skilled plumbers, giving the next generation early exposure to the trade, and partnering with organizations worldwide to scale what works. The Skills Forum did all three in one event.
The Skills Forum at WPC2026 took place during a milestone year for both organizations as IWSH marks its 10th anniversary and IAPMO celebrates its centennial.
