In the last few decades, vocational education has started attracting the attention of governments, policy makers, teachers, businessmen and wider public audiences, all because they recognized the hidden potential of vocational education. Research of vocational education occured after the recognition of its hidden potentials, and while there are many studies on vocational education internationally, only a few can be found in the national context. Vocational teachers as educational professionals have a task to prepare new generations of young people who will be ready and competent when they enter the world of work. In order to achieve that goal, vocational teachers need to possess a variety of competencies. This paper consists of a theoretical part which describes the secondary school system, vocational teachers and the frameworks of (vocational) teacher competencies. The paper also elaborates on the research results whose goal was to describe and understand the vocational teacher competencies and the ways of their acquisition. The research was predominantly focused on the vocational teachers from Technical School Slavonski Brod. The research results show that vocational teachers posess the needed competencies, and the ways for acquiring these competencies include formal education, working in the industry, acquiring the knowledge and skills from mentors and school counselor, professional development, working on projects and other activities in school. Participants said that it would we better if there were more professional development opportunities provided by the Agencies for education since professional development is the main source for acquiring and developing the teaching skills. Vocational teachers also gave their opinions about the job of a vocational teacher, stating that it is not just a job, but a profession. Furthermore, the participants said that the teaching job is an everyday challenge, but also an opportunity to work with people as well as to participate in many activities.