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The King's Awards for Enterprise

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Eligibility

To apply for the King’s Award for Enterprise your organisation must:

  • be based in the UK (including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man)
  • have a good compliance record with government departments and agencies, such as showing you pay the right amount of tax to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on time
  • be a self-contained enterprise under its own management and complete its own accounts
  • have at least 2 full-time UK employees or part-time equivalents
  • demonstrate strong environmental, social and governance practices

Your organisation can be a business, non-profit or in the public sector.

Each of the award categories has additional entry criteria.

You can apply for more than one award category each year.

Young Founder

To apply for the Young Founder award, you must also:

  • be actively leading an organisation between 6 May 2026 and 8 September 2027
  • be aged between 18 and 30 years on 6 May 2027

You’ll need to prove that your organisation has achieved commercial success or growth potential, such as either:

  • a turnover of £250,000
  • £500,000 in external funding such as investments, loans or grants

You also need to provide evidence that you’ve made an impact over 5 different themes.

Theme Evidence needed
Fresh ideas and creative thinking Short video up to 2 mins outlining the founder’s journey from idea to impact
Driving growth and industry influence Business performance over the past 1 to 2 years showing growth and external recognition as a thought leader, such as speaking engagement testimonials, awards or media coverage
Leading and big picture thinking Your organisation’s long-term vision and how it’s implemented
Strategic resilience Examples of challenges you’ve faced and how the organisation adapted
Customer value How customer satisfaction is measured and used to improve products or services

Innovation

To apply for the Innovation award, you must also:

  • have an innovation that has not been sold before
  • have had your innovation available on the market for at least 2 years
  • have recovered all the investments made in your innovation or show that the innovation will recover its full costs in future
  • show outstanding commercial success as a result of innovation between 2 to 5 years

Your innovation should be in one of the following categories:

  • invention, design or production of goods
  • performance of services
  • marketing and distribution
  • after-sale support of goods or services

International Trade

To apply for the International Trade award, you must also:

  • have made a minimum of £100,000 in overseas sales in the first year of your entry and show year-on-year growth
  • prove that your organisation has achieved outstanding growth in overseas earnings relative to your business size and sector
  • prove steep year-on-year growth (without dips) in overseas sales over 3 years - or substantial year-on-year growth (without dips) over 6 years

Sustainability

To apply for the Sustainability award, you must also:

  • show how you’ve gone beyond sustainability compliance requirements for at least 2 years
  • show how your organisation has built sustainability into its vision and strategy
  • show the impact or positive outcomes of your actions or interventions

You can include examples, such as showing how you’ve:

  • developed an innovative product, service or process that has environmental benefits
  • made sustainability an essential part of your organisation, supply chain or community

Read the United Nations sustainable development goals to identify which goals are relevant to your work.

Promoting Opportunity through social mobility

To apply for this award, your organisation must have a programme that supports people from disadvantaged backgrounds in improving their job skills and their chances of finding work.

This includes doing one or more of the following, for at least 2 years:

  • providing work experience or careers advice
  • mentoring
  • offering interview and job-related training
  • making sure your recruitment process is open to everyone

You’ll need to prove the benefits for:

  • the people you’ve supported
  • your organisation
  • your employees
  • the wider community

You cannot apply if social mobility is the main focus of your organisation.

If you’re a training provider or educational organisation, you can only apply if you do one of the following:

  • apply with a business
  • have a social mobility initiative for your employees
View a printable version of the whole guide

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