Saluting the best of UK entrepreneurship

Hot news for UK entrepreneurs: The Spectator Economic Innovator of the Year Awards 2024, in partnership with Investec Wealth & Investment (UK), is open for entries. As ever, we’re excited to hear from high-growth businesses in every sector and every corner of the UK. We’re also delighted to welcome back our sponsor, Investec Wealth & Investment (UK), who have recently combined with Rathbones Group Plc to become the UK’s leading discretionary wealth manager. The combined business has an extensive footprint among UK wealth managers and a deep commitment to entrepreneurship.

This is the seventh year of our quest to salute the UK’s most innovative companies. It has been tremendously encouraging to see the number and breadth of entries grow year by year – we expect the all-time total of entries since 2018 to pass a thousand in 2024.

As usual, we’ll be judging the 2024 entries in six regions: London and South East; Midlands; North East; Scotland and Northern Ireland; South West; and West and North West. Within each of those regions we’ll pick finalists in two categories: ‘Breakthrough’ entrants, whose total revenues for the preceding financial year were less than £3 million, and ‘Scale-up’ entrants with annual revenues of £3 million or more.

We’ll pick an overall Economic Innovator of the Year from our regional finalists and we’ll make a special award for Excellence in Sustainability. We’ll also pick – in a new category, One to Watch – from among smaller entries that have just passed the threshold of commercialisation.

Last year, our winning ventures ranged from toxic gas detection to laptop-based education in prisons; from recycled plastics for road surfacing to sports equipment retailing.

Our overall winner was ComplyAdvantage, a pioneer in the use of AI for financial crime detection; and our Sustainability champion was Graphene Innovations Manchester.

It’s this extraordinary variety that makes our Economic Innovator Awards so challenging for our expert judges. But all our potential winners share similar passions: to perfect their products and services, to make a positive contribution to society, and to achieve national and international scale.

Even in these uncertain economic times, their optimism is infectious – and we’re glad to be able to put them in the spotlight at our gala Awards event in November. The overall winner will also enjoy an advertising campaign across The Spectator’s print and digital platforms to the value of £20,000.

If you’re an innovative, entrepreneur-led, for-profit company which is changing its marketplace, nominate yourself today via our simple online entry form. If you’re a customer, investor or admirer of a venture that fits this description, please encourage it to enter. The Spectator and Investec Wealth & Investment (UK) look forward to celebrating your future success.