Last night the UK’s data community gathered to attend the sold-out British Data Awards 2025 ceremony, hosted by Jo Caulfield.
Featuring food, drink, comedy, live music, a flying cube and just a few awards, the fifth edition of the British Data Awards, with headline partner Data Literacy Academy, did not disappoint.
But aside from a wonderful evening, what really makes us most proud about this campaign is the sheer range of individuals and organisations from all across the UK that take part – be it FTSE 100 giants, fast-moving start-ups, government departments, not-for-profits and everything in between.
Our Finalists embody the strength and vibrancy of the UK’s data ecosystem, and with a record 448 nominations submitted this year, competition to be named a Finalist, let alone a Winner or Highly Commended was especially tough. Therefore, we’d like to say thank you to everyone who shared their data success stories with us. As an annual quest that sets out to discover and celebrate the UK’s data success stories, we’re confident that the British Data Awards 2025 has uncovered a few gems!
Greg Freeman, Founder & CEO, Data Literacy Academy, our 2025 headline partner said, “Huge congratulations to all the Winners and Finalists at this year’s British Data Awards. The success stories showcased last night expertly demonstrated how data is transforming the ways we live, work and connect. It was the perfect opportunity to celebrate the people behind the success stories, who are dedicated to driving meaningful change.”
For one last time, we’d like to extend our thanks to the British Data Awards 2025 all-star judging panel:
Abel Aboh: Advisor – AI Governance, Bank of England | Helen Blaikie: Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Aston University | Neil Carden: President EMEA, Blend | Dr Sophie Carr: Founder, Bays Consulting | Caroline Carruthers: CEO, Carruthers and Jackson | Rob Holtom: Executive Director, Digital, Data & Tech, Information Commissioner’s Office | Jason Johnson: Co-Founder, Predatech | Kinnari Ladha: Chief Data Officer, Merlin Entertainments | Di Mayze: Chief Data & AI Officer, Marks & Spencer | George McCrea: Director Data Science, Analytics & Visualisation, The Crown Estate | Adrian Pinder: Head, Digital & Data, DS Smith | Niresh Rajah: Chief Data & AI Officer, DLA Piper | Professor Ed Rochead: Chair, Alliance for Data Science Professionals | Adam Ryan: Chief Data Officer, Calligo | Miryem Salah: Chief Data Officer & Director of Vodafone Business IT Hubs, Vodafone | Nick Sawyer: Director of Data & Analytics, Bupa Dental Care | Lucy Vickers: Chief Data Officer & Chief Statistician, Department of Health & Social Care
Some highlights of the British Data Awards 2025 ceremony
The Winners of the fifth edition of the British Data Awards are:
Start-Up of the Year: Fundpath
SME of the Year: Smith Institute
Large Company of the Year: British Airways
Public Sector Organisation of the Year: Education Authority
Not-For-Profit of the Year: RNLI
Financial Services Company of the Year: Lloyds Banking Group (Consumer Digital Index)
Technology Company of the Year: ElectraLink
Analytics Company of the Year: INTENT HQ (Winner) | Solomonic (Highly Commended)
Healthcare Organisation of the Year (presented by NixInfinity-AI): Cera (Winner) | Bioscript Group (Highly Commended)
Data Vendor of the Year: Preqin
Climate Change Initiative of the Year: FOIL
Generative AI Initiative of the Year: The Financial Times
BI Solution of the Year: CorEvitas (Winner) | INEOS FPS and Blend (Highly Commended)
Rising Star of the Year (presented by Calligo): Peng Wang, Carlsberg Britvic (Winner) | Taran Manku, Direct Line Group (Highly Commended)
Data Leader of the Year (In-House) presented by Exponentia.ai: Professor Victor Chang, Aston University (Winner) | Sami Rahman, Hypebeast (Highly Commended)
Data Leader of the Year (Partner): Roisin McCarthy, Founder, Women in Data (Winner) | Greg Freeman, Founder & CEO, Data Literacy Academy (Highly Commended)
Data Partnership of the Year: Greater London Authority (Winner) | Kent and Medway Data Warehouse, Kent and Medway ICB, Kent and Medway Cancer Alliance (Highly Commended)
Data Protection/Privacy Initiative of the Year: pixevety (Winner) | Admiral Group (Highly Commended)
Data for Good Consulting Initiative of the Year: FTI Consulting (Winner) | 67 Bricks (Highly Commended)
Data Management Solution of the Year: NixInfinity-AI (Winner) | Anmut (Highly Commended)
Consultancy of the Year: Baringa Partners (Winner) | Cynozure (Highly Commended)
Education Initiative of the Year: Lloyds Banking Group (Winner) | PwC (Highly Commended)
Best Place to Work in Data: North Sea Transition Authority (Winner) | Aviva (Highly Commended)
AI Company of the Year (presented by Experian): Skin Analytics (Winner) | Featurespace (Highly Commended)
Data Team of the Year (<20 people) presented by DinMo: UK Polar Data Centre, British Antarctic Survey (Winner) | Superdrug (Highly Commended)
Data Team of the Year (20+ people) presented by DinMo: Aviva (Winner) | NHS Business Services Authority (Highly Commended)
Innovation of the Year (presented by Data Literacy Academy): Inizio Medical and Blend (Winner) | Wilson James (Highly Commended)
Data Transformation of the Year (presented by Data Literacy Academy): Education Authority | Co-op (Highly Commended)
Data for Good Initiative of the Year (presented by Data Literacy Academy): Dogs Trust & West Yorkshire Police, Project Spotlight – Joint Winners | Mindstep (Highly Commended)
Alongside announcing the Winners of each category, highlights from each of the winning entries were shared during the ceremony. We’ve shared some short summaries below for a couple of categories.
Greater London Authority took home the inaugural ‘Data Partnership of the Year’ award for their High Streets Data Service (HSDS) – a public-private partnership with 35 London borough councils and local business groups, and four major data providers. HSDS is a centralised, affordable (and self-financing) data service providing hyperlocal insights on footfall, retail spending, tourism, business openings and closures, and storefront vacancies across London’s 600+ high streets. By transforming private sector data into a public asset, HSDS reduces costs while giving local decision-makers intelligence to support smarter investment and better placemaking. The judges “loved this memorable entry” which combined “community, commercial understanding, and excellent data storytelling”.
Skin Analytics swooped the hotly contested ‘AI Company of the Year’ trophy. Skin cancer is the largest referring cancer speciality within the NHS and Skin Analytics’ Artificial Intelligence as a Medical Device (AIaMD) extends dermatology capacity, speeds up current diagnostic pathways and improves patient outcomes. They have assessed over 140,000 NHS patients suspected of having of skin cancer, found nearly 14,000 instances, and helped hospitals remove the need for up to 95% of face-to-face NHS urgent suspected skin cancer appointments. Judges praised this entry for its “problem-orientated AI. It’s clear that the team have had to be persistent in developing a solution that works safely in an area of high innovation and challenge.”
Improving data literacy, developing data talent and building data-centric cultures was a key theme found across so many Finalist submissions this year but the ‘Education Initiative of the Year’ was awarded to Lloyds Banking Group for their ambitious Data Summer School. With >25,000 attendees (including >14,000 non data colleagues) it covered a variety of subjects across 156 virtual classes. Classes were created with three proficiency levels: “advanced beginner”, “competent”, and “proficient” and were grouped to form badging pathways, where colleagues could collect badges to recognise their learning, incentivising them to join more sessions.
The final award presented on the night was ‘Data for Good Initiative of the Year’. In what is always a super competitive category, two organisations stood out and were awarded joint Winner status.
West Yorkshire Police is the fourth largest UK police force and faces key challenges such as limited funding and barriers to innovation. Project Spotlight recognises that traditional communications and hotspot policing are no longer as effective, and that policing should become more data driven and innovative. Spotlight draws on the principles of ‘deterrence’ through routine activity theory to create triangulated campaigns that are part of a wider problem-solving plan. Campaigns are developed from scanning and analysis of the problem, and combined with marketing data to create campaigns that are directly targeted at the problem or elements of the problem. Social media marketing techniques are then used to directly deliver messages to its target audience, empowering them to speak up and report crime, make potential offenders think about their actions, and promote deterrence.
Focused on three small locations in Leeds (responsible for 15% of all serious violent crime in West Yorkshire), within 6 months these locations had a 39% reduction in serious violent crime and a 35% reduction in total crime, preventing 100’s of victims of crime. Project Spotlight has already been adopted by other UK forces and is being developed into a national toolkit supported by the National Police Chief Counsel.
Dogs Trust uses data to provide evidence for initiatives that enhance dog welfare, the rehoming process, owner support and contribute to national policy. For example, the Post Adoption Support study tracks rehomed dogs and identifies risk factors for behaviour and health problems within the first four months post-adoption, informing pre- and post-adoption advice. Digitising their data collection and developing an online database logging dogs’ behaviour, welfare, and health data are part of efforts to put data at the heart of the organisation.
British Data Awards 2025 Partners
This year we were joined by Data Literacy Academy as our headline partner.
Data Literacy Academy closes the data literacy gap by creating a meaningful change process with live, in-person and practical classes for your business teams, from the world’s best data educators; meaning your business can become truly data-driven.
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.
DinMo: Is a leading customer data activation platform, that integrates natively with your existing cloud data environment, eliminating the need for data duplication. They empower data teams to give their marketing counterparts well-governed and secure self-service access to their cloud data. This autonomy allows marketing teams to create, manage, and sync customer audiences, events, and attributes across all platforms, including CRM, advertising, and support systems.
Experian Data Quality: Empower businesses with data they can trust. Experian Data Quality offers comprehensive data management solutions that help organisations to cleanse, standardise and enhance their data to help them get the most out of their information.
NixInfinity-AI: Are focused on data management transformation to ensure that organisations don’t get left behind. They do this by delivering data engineering and automation, which includes AI and big data technology.
Exponentia.ai: An AI-Tech company transforming businesses through AI, ML and data analytics solutions. Exponentia.ai helps organisations solve complex business challenges by combining industry experience, data and AI-first engineering practices, and their proprietary technology solutions to achieve business outcomes at scale.
All roads lead to 2026!
While it’s only been a few hours since we announced our 2025 winners, we already have one eye on the sixth edition of the British Data Awards. If you’d like to stay up to date with our plans, please follow us on LinkedIn for a regular flow of updates!
We’re delighted to reveal that Atombit will be the headline partner for the British Data Awards 2026.
Atombit is an Experience Intelligence innovator and AI solutions provider, transforming how businesses build profitable, enduring relationships with customers and employees. By combining data, AI, and automation in smarter, more integrated ways, they deliver measurable outcomes at pace and scale. Their solutions accelerate ROI and solve real CX and EX challenges.
