Winners announced at the inaugural Best SME Awards
Added by Love Business East Midlands | 28 April 2026
UPDATED: 28 April 2026
The inaugural Best SME Awards celebrated the UK's top-performing small and medium-sized enterprises, honouring Gold and Silver winners at the centrally located Mercure Daventry Court hotel.
The Best SME Awards are designed to highlight innovation, resilience, and business excellence, as SMEs play a vital role in the UK economy. The inaugural event drew exceptional entries from businesses demonstrating remarkable growth, creativity, and impact within their sectors.
Rachel Hayward from Ask the Chameleon from Burton upon Trent won Solopreneur of the Year (7 years+ trading) in this prestigious competition, a category specifically recognising an individual who has built a thriving business single-handedly, demonstrating exceptional skill, creativity, and determination in their chosen field.
The judging panel, made up of experienced business leaders and industry experts, faced a challenging task in selecting winners due to the high standard of entries.
Debbie Gilbert, founder of The Best SME Awards, said:
“These awards are needed to ensure UK SMEs are properly judged and recognised. Our business experts scrutinise each entry, with no voting, so winners truly earn their recognition.”
Head Judge, business expert Roma Bhowmick, added:
“I was impressed by the standard of entries showing innovation, meaningful impact, and excellent customer service. The winners reflect talent, ambition, and entrepreneurial spirit from across the UK. In these challenging trading conditions, the selected businesses truly demonstrated determination and resilience.”
Headline sponsor peer2peer founder John Acton commented,
“These awards really do demonstrate the tenacity of SMEs in the UK and showcase what talented businesses we have powering forward!”
The judges said Ask the Chameleon, lead by Rachel Hayward, was “an outstanding Best Solopreneur winner, blending sharp commercial insight with a genuine passion for helping others to grow.
The scale of her impact as a solo founder is incredible writing “winning words” that have helped businesses and charities secure many millions of pounds in funding, contracts and awards, unlocking new jobs, services and opportunities in their communities.
Rachel uses her expertise for good, to support small businesses and charities with skill‑swapping and collaboration and consistently giving back through networking and volunteering. This is solopreneurship at its BEST, values‑driven, impactful and deeply supportive of the wider business and charity ecosystem.”
Rachel said
“Winning this award is an incredible honour. It’s proof that even as a solo business owner, you can create meaningful impact at scale. While I craft the words, it’s my clients who bring them to life – together, we turn ideas into opportunities and outcomes that make a real difference.”
