Former England footballer Graeme Le Saux has been announced as this year’s guest speaker at the annual Guild of Architectural Ironmongers (GAI) Education Awards.

Graeme will lead the celebrations, which will recognise the outstanding educational achievements of the door hardware industry’s rising stars at the Royal Lancaster hotel in London on 8 November.

As well as his role in the national team, Graeme also played for Chelsea Southampton and Blackburn Rovers, helping the latter win the Premier League in 1995. Since his retirement from football in 2005, Graeme has worked as a pundit for the BBC and frequently undertakes project work with the FA, UEFA, FIFA and the Premier League.

The GAI Education Awards include Gold, Silver and Bronze awards for the top students in the Diploma and the Pinnacle Award, sponsored by ASSA ABLOY, for the student with the best aggregate results over the three years of the Diploma programme.

The GAI Diploma is designed to give students a high level of product knowledge and the ability to write accurate hardware specifications and quotations. The qualification is particularly suited to those in customer service, contract management, scheduling and estimating, and sales.

GAI president, David Stacey, said:

“The Education Awards is a great opportunity to recognise students’ hard work over the past three years. It is also a chance for companies to celebrate the individuals within their teams who are going above and beyond to offer architects and contractors high-quality technical knowledge.”

The only recognised architectural ironmongery qualification in the world, the Guild’s education programme has been running for more than 50 years, training future generations of architectural ironmongers to British and European standards.

This year’s GAI Education Awards is sponsored by dormakaba.

To book your tickets to the 2018 GAI Education Awards, visit the GAI website: httZp://www.gai.org.uk/events-117/gai-education-awards2018/book-here?prv=1