IW Chamber Business Awards

Yes. Your business must be based on the Island and must have completed your first full year of trading.

Yes. Any business can enter in two categories for free. Subsequent entries will be charged at £110 plus VAT per entry for IW Chamber members or £220 plus VAT for non-members.

No. The awards are open to any Island based business.

Entry criteria and application forms will be available from Monday 1st December 2025.

The Awards Entry Deadline has been extended to the 28th February 2026. All applications must be submitted via email to Awards@IWChamber.co.uk before 11.59pm on Saturday 28th February. No entries will be accepted after this time.

No. This date and time are final and any entries received after this time will not be included.

All entries must be submitted via email and to the awards@iwchamber.co.uk email address.

We will aim to acknowledge receipt of your submission via email within 4 working days.

The strongest advice we can give you is to read the entry requirements for each category thoroughly and supply the evidence required. Remember that the judges may have no prior knowledge of your business or your activity. This is your opportunity to tell your story and show them, with evidence, what makes your business so exceptional.

Entries should reflect activity in the calendar year of 2025, from January 1st to December 31st 2025. Entries should reflect activity within this time frame although year on year and historical comparisons can be included to show growth and scale.

Your award entry will be judged on your activity within the time frame of the awards not the lifetime of your business.

An award winning entry will tell a strong story well, with supporting evidence to back up the claims. Facts and figures are important but so is context – don’t forget to explain the background to your numbers and the way that your business operates. Keep things in the relevant context – the Isle of Wight business community, your sector in the UK, the global market etc.

Include photographs if necessary or they would help the judges understand what you do. Supporting materials can be submitted but your entry should stand up on its own. Make sure that all the key facts and evidence are in your main entry. Supporting material should provide further detail if required. You can include website links within your entry and this can include links to video material (eg Youtube).

If you are supplying additional material, please do so as a PDF or limited selection of documents, attached to the same email as your application form. All submissions should be less than 10MB in total for your email.

The judging panel is comprised of impartial business experts. Some are Island based, others on the mainland and some are internationally based. Your business will be judged wholly on your entry and the information that you provide. Your entry will be treated in confidence.

The judging panel will assess all valid entries. Submissions that are incomplete or exceed the word limit or any other entry requirements will not be judged. Shortlists for each category and the number of nominations will reflect the quality of submissions within each individual category. The judge’s decision is final.

A shortlist will be published following the judging process. Please look out for further communications from the Chamber.

Winners will be announced and presented with their award at the ceremony in September 2026.

The strongest advice we can give you is to read the entry requirements for each category thoroughly and supply the evidence required. Remember that the judges may have no prior knowledge of your business or your activity. This is your opportunity to tell your story and show them, with evidence, what makes your business so exceptional.