Each year we set out on a quest to discover and celebrate the UK’s data success stories. And with 226 nominations received, a 43% increase compared to 2022, the 2023 edition of the British Data Awards proved to be quite the journey!
Last night our campaign took us to The Honourable Artillery Company in London, where the data community gathered to celebrate the Finalists and announce the Winners of the British Data Awards 2023. And despite the truly British weather, the cloudy skies and light rain couldn’t dampen the anticipation in the air or the razor-sharp wit of our host Jo Caulfield.
But as we reflect on the British Data Awards 2023, it’s the range of individuals and organisations taking part that is truly breathtaking – from cost-of-living inspired grassroots initiatives and small charities, through to large government departments, technology unicorns and some of the UK’s most recognised brands. While this certainly doesn’t make judging easy, it does underscore the strength and vibrancy of the UK’s data community, and this is something we should all be rightly proud of.
Building on this theme in her Welcome Address, Caroline Carruthers, CEO of Carruthers and Jackson, British Data Awards 2023 judge and industry-leader, talked about the strength of many of the entries submitted this year as well as her love of the data community.
Jason Johnson, Co-Founder of Predatech, and British Data Awards 2023 judge said, “Congratulations to all the Winners and Highly Commended in this year’s British Data Awards. I hope that all the organisations and individuals taking part this year feel immensely proud to be recognised for their data success stories on a national stage.”
For one last time, we’d like to thank the British Data Awards 2023 judges for sharing their insight and expertise with us:
Roshan Awatar: Group Director, Data & Analytics at Sky / Lynne Bailey: Chief Data Officer at KPMG UK / Neil Carden: CEO at Forth Point I A Blend360 Company / Dr Sophie Carr: Founder at Bays Consulting / Caroline Carruthers: CEO at Carruthers and Jackson / Christina Finlay: Director of Data & Analytics, Nest / Roxane Heaton: Chief Information Officer at Macmillan Cancer Support / Natalie Jakomis: Director of Data & Analytics at Rightmove / Jason Johnson: Co-Founder at Predatech / Natasha Lauer: Head of Marketing at Soda / Dr Jo Watts: CEO & Founder at effini.
And so, without any further ado, we’re delighted to introduce your British Data Awards 2023 Winners:
Innovation of the Year: Essex County Council
Healthcare Organisation of the Year: Hertility
Not-For-Profit of the Year: Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)
Public Sector Organisation of the Year: Essex County Council
Financial Services Firm of the Year: Crezco
Technology Company of the Year: Infinity
AI Company of the Year: Smartbox.ai
Analytics Company of the Year: Ekimetrics
Start-Up of the Year: Causal
SME of the Year: Mina
Large Company of the Year: Vodafone
Consultancy of the Year: Forth Point I A Blend360 Company (Winner) I Dufrain (Highly Commended)
Climate Change Initiative of the Year: Octopus Energy
Education Initiative of the Year: Education Authority Northern Ireland (Winner) I JLL (Highly Commended)
BI Solution of the Year: Panintelligence
Data Vendor of the Year: ElectraLink
Best Place to Work in Data (sponsored by New Possible): Specsavers (Winner) I The Data Shed (Highly Commended)
Data Transformation of the Year (sponsored by Calligo): Department for Education (Winner) I UK Power Networks (Highly Commended)
Rising Star of the Year: Xavi Forde, The Dot Collective (Winner) I Sami Rahman, Penguin Random House (Highly Commended) I Mandy Bath, Merkle (Highly Commended)
Data Leader of the Year (sponsored by Soda): Romit Sen, British Airways (Winner) I Ehsan Kian, Petrofac (Highly Commended)
Data for Good Consulting Initiative of the Year (sponsored by The Dot Collective): Policy in Practice I Bays Consulting (Highly Commended)
Data for Good Initiative of the Year (sponsored by The Dot Collective): University of Edinburgh (Winner) I PrecisionLife (Highly Commended)
This year our quest to celebrate the UK’s data success stories was joined by four category sponsors who are passionate about all things data, and we’d like to thank them all for their support:
Calligo, combines great minds in data science, privacy, security and engineering with leading machine learning, data analytics and cloud platforms to support the operational, customer-centric, and revenue-generation aspirations of some of the world’s most ambitious and progressive organisations.
New Possible, a next-generation employee insight platform that helps leaders build healthier businesses.
The Dot Collective, a fast growing tech consultancy passionate about data engineering, cloud and agile.
Soda, a data monitoring platform that allows teams to define what good data looks like, and resolve issues swiftly, before they have a downstream impact.
Today we’re previewing a few of the winning entries in some of the most competitive categories.
Essex County Council took home ‘Innovation of the Year’ for the work undertaken by their Data & Analytics team in estimating the impact of the emerging cost of living crisis upon future volumes of children in care. It is widely acknowledged that there is a correlation between child poverty, financial stress, and children in the care system, and Essex County Council wanted to understand how their future may look. The purpose of this work was to help the organisation prepare for potential demand shifts, and to understand the challenge that could be ahead. This was also the first time the Data & Analytics team have closely collaborated with academics outside of Essex to build trust and assurance in their work among internal stakeholders.
This project delivered their children’s leadership team with insight to prepare themselves for potential demand change and enabled them to identify preventative opportunities to intervene and stop children from reaching the point of entering care. The project has also helped to upskill the organisation around data usage. One of the judges noted that the entry was a “great use of analytics to serve the underserved – love the use of academics to help.”
The University of Edinburgh took home ‘Data for Good Initiative of the Year’ for a collaborative project between the Data Education in Schools project and the Scottish Sensory Centre, both based at the University of Edinburgh. This project has delivered approximately 500 British Sign Language terms relating to data science, cybersecurity, and computing science as part of a drive to ensure the Deaf community have equitable access to qualifications and careers in these fields. Videos have been created for each of the signs, alongside additional videos of definitions describing each of the terms in language suitable for school learners. In less than a year, this content has been viewed by 54,000 users.
Policy in Practice, a social policy software and analytics company, took home ‘Data for Good Consulting Initiative of the Year’. Their Low Income Family Tracker (LIFT) platform allows local authorities to use their administrative data to identify households who may be struggling financially or are at risk of future hardship. The information gained from the data analysis lets councils create highly targeted campaigns to boost benefit take-up by eligible households. This initiative has helped to boost the take up of Pension Credit and delivered tens of millions of pounds in financial support to pensioner households.
Specsavers proved that “Should’ve Gone to Specsavers” also applies to the data community as they scooped ‘Best Place to Work in Data’ based on the strength of their employee feedback shared on the New Possible platform. Alongside a world-class eNPS, employees commented positively about the strength and supportive nature of the team, flexible working, as well as the volume and variety of data they work with.
We’ve also published an edited version of a number of entries across three of the most popular categories. These entries can be found here.
The British Data Awards 2023 ceremony was hosted by the comedian Jo Caulfield, and took place at The Honourable Artillery Company, London on Thursday 11th May.
British Data Awards 2024
While we’ve only just announced our 2023 winners, we already have one eye on the British Data Awards 2024 and our planning for the fourth edition of the British Data Awards will begin shortly. If you’d like to stay up to date with the British Data Awards you can follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or register for email updates on this page.
