Held at S&B Academy in Bristol, The 13th Annual Bus and Coach Skills Challenge – brought to you by IRTE – the pioneers behind the irtec and workshop accreditation schemes, the gold standard in the industry. This Summer celebrate excellence in road transport engineering and push the boundaries of skill development. The 2025 edition was on a mission to discover and elevate the next generation of talented bus and coach technicians.

The 2025 challenge took place at S&B Automotive Academy in Bristol on 2-6 June 2025 and will be followed by an awards ceremony in July where the winners will be crowned.

Q&A’s with Clarios’ Vince Ward

• You’ve returned as a sponsor of the Skills Challenge. What drew VARTA back to the competition? The VARTA team found the 2024 Skills Challenge a great platform to engage with the very best technicians in the sector, and an opportunity to highlight technical advancements within the bus and coach industry. Building on 2024, the team were really looking forward to meeting the 2025 competitors.

• How does the battery testing station you’ve set up reflect real-world challenges technicians face? Using real-world situations, the battery station put the competitor’s skills to the test – they had to deal with a variety of different battery technologies; AGM / EFB / SLI, now found in bus and coach applications. This highlights that there are a multitude of battery technologies to understand, each with their own characteristics and testing procedure.

• What early impressions have you had of how competitors are engaging with your tests? Similar to last year, there was some excellent young talent on display here; it’s inspirational to see how professional the candidates present themselves and the knowledge they possess. Best of luck to all those that competed, and best of luck at the awards later in July.