Among the priorities of the vocational education reformation, highlighted in the concepts of development of vocational and technical (professional) education, the need to develop the standards of professional expertise for the professions and types of work is identified with regard to the prospects of development of production and scientific research. Main contradictions of development influencing the state of higher education in the regions emphasized on the basis of theoretical analysis were observed and used. Signs of the education revolution in the early 21st century are increase in the requirements to a specialist and the transition of the educational priorities from the order for assimilation of future specialists of certain information amounts to the qualities of the building, contributing to the implementation of a specific creative activity, so now the development of new approaches for improvement of training of highly qualified specialists is an extremely urgent problem. The main indicator of the future engineering specialist's professional competence is the established professional way of thinking, which represents his or her intellectual ability to solve professional problems.