China Tops WorldSkills Shanghai With Record 41 Golds
The 48th WorldSkills Competition closed in Shanghai on the evening of September 27, with China claiming its best-ever result since it began competing in 2011. The Chinese delegation won 41 gold, 11 silver, and 4 bronze medals, plus six certificates of merit — finishing first in both the gold medal count and overall team score for the fifth consecutive time, according to Xinhua News.
The six-day event, held from September 22 to 27 at the Shanghai World Expo Culture Center and other venues, drew 1,385 competitors from 68 countries and regions across 64 skill categories — with both figures setting records for the competition’s history.
A Record-Breaking Edition
This year’s edition was the largest in WorldSkills history, with more participating countries and regions and more competitors than ever before. China fielded 71 competitors across all 64 categories — its third time entering every single event — a scale that underscores the country’s deepening investment in vocational skills training.
The competition covered six broad fields: Structure & Building Technology; Manufacturing & Engineering Technology; Information & Communication Technology; Creative Arts & Fashion; Social & Personal Services; and Transportation & Logistics.
China’s dominance in specific disciplines was striking. The CNC Milling event delivered a sixth consecutive title for China, while Bricklaying and Fashion Technology each secured a fifth straight championship. Electrical Installations, Electronics, and Autonomous Mobile Robotics notched four consecutive titles apiece.
He Xiaoman Wins the “Gold of Golds”
The standout individual performance came from He Xiaoman, a 2006-born student at Changchun Digital Technology Vocational College, who won the Albert Vidal Award — the competition’s highest honor, given to the single highest-scoring competitor across all categories.
As The Paper reported, He triumphed in the Rail Vehicle Technology category and was the only female competitor in that discipline worldwide. The award, named after the founder of the WorldSkills organization, is often described as the “gold medal of gold medals.” It marked China’s third time winning the accolade.
“The growth and experiences along the way are far more valuable than the results themselves,” He said. She added that she hopes to work in the rail vehicle technology industry and use her experience to encourage more young people — especially more women — to enter engineering fields. “Don’t be limited by stereotypes — women’s paths should grow ever wider.”
Luo Zhaoqiang, China’s chief expert for the category, told The Paper that He spent more time on the project than the other eight competitors combined — a reflection of the physical and mental demands of a discipline in which competitors must single-handedly lift door panels weighing 20 to 25 kilograms.
Skills Change Lives
Alongside He, the Best Competitor Award for the Chinese delegation went to Jiao Jiao of the Body Repair category. Born in Zheng’an, Guizhou, Jiao moved to Shanghai at 16 to study body repair, benefiting from a paired vocational education support program.
“Skills brought me out of the mountains; I want to pass my craft on to more children,” she said.
Several other female competitors drew attention for breaking stereotypes in male-dominated fields. According to a Xinhua feature, Dai Xinyi from Hong Kong was the only female competitor in the Tiling category.
New Categories, New Skills
The competition introduced six new categories reflecting emerging industries: Drone Systems, Smart Security Technology, Software Testing, Digital Interactive Media Design, Dental Prosthetics Technology, and Retail.
For the first time, artificial intelligence was woven into the competition design. As Lianhe Zaobao reported, organizers deployed locally hosted large language models, allowing competitors to call AI interfaces to assist with software testing tasks — a nod to how the AI wave is reshaping the skill requirements of the modern workforce.
Even the medals reflected local identity. The awards used China’s traditional mortise-and-tenon structure as a visual motif, with the reverse side featuring a Shanghai Shikumen lintel crossed with modern city silhouettes — the first irregular medal in WorldSkills history. The event also featured the WorldSkills Conference and the WorldSkills Expo, alongside promotional ambassador Li Ziqi, appointed in June 2026.
A Policy Statement
China’s results were framed by a Human Resources and Social Security Ministry official as evidence of the country’s manufacturing strength and skilled-talent pipeline.
The official noted that Structure & Building Technology and Manufacturing & Engineering Technology together contributed nearly half of China’s gold medals, “fully demonstrating the development level of Chinese manufacturing.” Information & Communication Technology and Creative Arts & Fashion also performed strongly, while Social & Personal Services and Transportation & Logistics achieved new breakthroughs.
The scale of China’s participation was clear well before the closing ceremony. As QiuShi reported on September 19, the full 71-strong delegation had assembled in Shanghai, on a mission to “promote learning, training, evaluation, and capacity-building through competition.”
Francis Hourant, president of the WorldSkills organization, offered a strong endorsement of China’s approach. “The Chinese government attaches great importance to vocational education and regards the WorldSkills Competition as the cornerstone of the vocational education and training system — this approach is worth learning from,” he said.
What’s Next
China’s trajectory at the competition has been steep. At the 47th edition in Lyon in 2024, it won 36 gold medals across 59 categories; the jump to 41 golds across 64 categories two years later reflects both the country’s expanding skill base and its deliberate strategy of entering every available discipline.
The results add weight to Beijing’s push to elevate vocational education as central to industrial upgrading, particularly as automation and AI reshape what employers demand. For the young competitors themselves — many of them born after 2000 — the message carried a distinctly personal dimension. As hairdressing silver medalist Li Xin put it: “I’m not a particularly talented competitor — I’m a girl who can endure hardship and has goals to strive for.”
With the competition now closed, attention turns to the next edition and whether China can extend its run at the top — and to how the new AI-integrated categories will evolve as they appear at future games.