AN Earith student has won a gold award at the country’s leading IT skills competition.

Lewis Bourne proved to be the best young IT technician in England, coming first in the Cisco IT Technician competition at the Skills Show at Birmingham’s NEC.

The Cambridge Regional College student took part in two days of testing in front of thousands of visitors.

The 20-year-old, who is now working as an apprentice with the college’s Smart Computing IT training agency, said he was delighted: “I thought the other competitors had done better then me so I was very surprised but ecstatic when they announced that I had won gold. It was very stressful but my tutors worked hard with me to prepare for the competition.”

IT lecturer Pete Lawrence said: “Lewis was competing against the best in the country but he held his nerves, did not panic and maintained a positive focus on the tasks at hand.

“He performed outstandingly well.”

Lewis has now been invited to compete for a place in the national WorldSkills team - where he could win the chance to represent the country at WorldSkills 2015 in Brazil.