The UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF) is delighted to announce a new partnership with Unibots CIC, an innovative non-profit organisation that hosts a country-wide robotics competition, bringing together university teams to design, build and compete in autonomous non-combat robotics.

Through this partnership, UKESF will support Unibots in its mission to provide a competitive platform for student growth, whilst making practical robotics more accessible and social. The collaboration reflects UKESF’s commitment to ensuring that Electronics undergraduates have the opportunity to develop their technical and non-technical skills, ready to thrive in the workplace.

Unibots is an exciting, national programme. In 2026, 36 university teams participated in the fun and collaborative challenge to create a compact, fully autonomous robot and put it to the test in a competitive arena. In doing so, the students applied their university learning to a complete engineering system, balancing mechanical design, electronics, software and strategy.

The competition helps participants develop valuable attributes to improve their work-readiness, including problem-solving, teamwork, resilience and communication. It also creates a vibrant, inclusive community where students from UK universities can learn from one another and build their own supportive network.

Speaking about the partnership, UKESF CEO, Stewart Edmondson said

“At the UKESF, we are passionate about creating opportunities for young people to develop the skills and experience needed to succeed in Electronics engineering. Unibots represents exactly the kind of practical, student-centred initiative that inspires innovation, creativity and teamwork. We are excited to partner with the Unibots team and support the growth of a competition that is helping to develop the next generation of engineering talent.”

Bruce Wilson, one of the Unibots directors said:

“Unibots was created with one mission in mind: challenge students to create ‘simple’ machines. We really believe in project-based learning, where countless engineering skills can only be explored through hands-on activities; and traditional theory teaching doesn’t quite fill all the gaps! We are incredibly excited about this partnership with the UKESF and the opportunity to grow alongside such a well-connected organisation. Together, we hope to provide students with an even better competition experience, and to help them develop their skills, teamwork, and confidence. We hope that while doing so, we can expand to more students across the UK, and cultivate our robotics community through training and knowledge-sharing.”

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