Record entries and 200 shortlisted: Britain’s small businesses defy the gloom at the UK’s flagship business awards

From a nine-generation family farm to a challenger radio station, the 2026 Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards shortlist tells a different story about British SMEs, and one of them will win £500,000 of ITV airtime

At a time when small business confidence is under well-documented pressure, the Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards has announced its 2026 finalists: almost 200 businesses and business leaders shortlisted from a record field of entries overwhelming majority of them small and medium-sized firms, spanning all 20 categories and every corner of the UK economy.

The shortlist reads like a map of SME Britain. A ninth-generation family farm, Tulleys Farm, that now welcomes nearly two million visitors a year. Boom Radio, the challenger station built for the over-50s. A Leeds bearings exporter, a Kent swimming school, a Bristol sandwich institution, a stairlift installer, artisan food brands, family funeral directors, and fast-scaling names like Pip&Nut and Octopus Electric Vehicles, alongside household names such as Fortnum & Mason and Kendamil.

Amanda Murphy, CEO, Lloyds Business and Commercial Banking, said: “Behind every successful business is a story of ambition, determination and innovation. Inspiring entrepreneurs backing themselves to succeed. That’s exactly what the Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards celebrates. Our finalists are creating jobs, bringing new ideas to market, investing in their communities and helping drive growth across the UK’s nations and regions. They represent the very best of British enterprise and we’re incredibly proud to back them.”

For one SME on the shortlist, the night will be transformative in the most literal sense. The new ITV Growth Accelerator Award, created with media partner ITV, carries the largest and most commercially valuable prize ever offered by a UK business awards programme: £500,000 of ITV advertising across ITV’s broadcast channels and ITVX, putting a small business in front of millions of viewers. All eleven shortlisted brands also receive an ITV Growth Package of subsidised airtime, bespoke coaching from ITV’s SME incubator team and TV creative at cost, taking national television, long the preserve of big-budget advertisers, within reach of small firms.

Sarah Austin, Founder of Empowered Events, which owns and produces the Awards, knows the SME journey first-hand: she started the programme from her kitchen table after being made redundant from a FTSE events business while on maternity leave. She said: “Reading this finalist list is like reading the story of modern Britain. A zero-carbon housebuilder tackling the housing crisis. A ninth-generation family farm welcoming two million visitors. A challenger radio station, and founders turning kitchen-table ideas into international brands. Every one of them backed themselves before anyone else did, and that’s the quality we celebrate above all others. Confidence surveys tell one story about British small business. This shortlist tells another, and I know which one I believe.”

Winners will be announced at the gala ceremony at Grosvenor House, London, on Tuesday 10 November 2026, in front of 1,200 business leaders, with Lloyds Bank as headline partner, ITV as media partner and the support of the UK government. In keeping with Awards tradition, winners will ring the opening bell at the London Stock Exchange and be celebrated at the programme’s annual reception at the House of Commons.

Since launch, the Awards have raised over £100,000 for charity.

View the full list of finalists.