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The UK Best Places To Work Awards 2026 recognised studios and businesses across three company-size categories at a ceremony in London on October 1. The reported judging split was 80% employee survey and 20% company survey. Here are the named winners and special-award recipients.

Who won the UK Best Places To Work Awards 2026?

The main awards named winners in small, mid-sized, and large-company categories. The lists below preserve the category labels and names reported by GamesIndustry.biz.

Small companies

  • Fireshine Games
  • Lively
  • MLC Studio
  • Playstack
  • Silent Games
  • Snap Finger Click
  • Stellar Entertainment Software
  • Swipe Right
  • Tanglewood Games

Mid-sized companies

  • Behaviour Interactive UK
  • Electric Square
  • Expression Games
  • Fenris Creations
  • Hangar 13
  • HundredStar Games
  • Kinetic Games
  • Maverick Games
  • Rare
  • Studio Gobo
  • Wushu Studios

Large companies

  • Frontier Developments
  • Jagex: The RuneScape Company
  • Playground Games
  • TT Games

Who won the special awards?

Award Winner
G Into Gaming Award Jo Haslam, Design Director at Snap Finger Click
Corporate Social Responsibility Award Jagex: The RuneScape Company
Diversity Award Snap Finger Click
Education Award Dink
Environmental Award Rare
Health and Wellbeing Award Hangar 13
Training and Development Award NaturalMotion Games
HR Hero Award Leah Wilson, IO Interactive

How were the awards judged?

The GamesIndustry.biz-attributed report says the employee survey contributed 80% of the score and the company survey contributed 20%. It does not describe the survey questions, response rates, scoring thresholds, or validation process, so the published weighting alone does not show how individual workplaces were assessed.

When and where were the awards held?

The ceremony took place at the Royal Institution in London on October 1, 2026, after the GamesIndustry.biz HR Summit. The summit drew 79 representatives from 41 companies. Liz Prince MBE, Business Manager at Amiqus, described the summit as a setting for discussion and shared learning, with the awards highlighting studios and businesses. The event report also quotes Playground Games HR and Recruitment Director Paul Evans supporting recognition of the UK’s mid-sized studios.

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What the awards do—and do not—show

The special-award categories recognize distinct areas such as diversity, education, environmental responsibility, health and wellbeing, and training and development. That range shows what the programme chose to recognize; a listed award by itself is not independent verification of workplace outcomes. The main-category lists are category recognitions, not a ranked league table.

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