Award season is here: your guide to entering industrial & technical awards

Award season is a key part of the industrial PR calendar. If they haven’t already, publications and industry bodies are now opening submissions for awards that recognise innovation, performance, and impact. For businesses, awards offer an opportunity to celebrate successes, tell important stories and raise awareness. For industrial and technical PR teams, they offer a powerful platform to build authority, get extra value out of campaign or case study content, and reinforce brand messaging.

However, despite their value, many companies either overlook awards entirely or approach them without a clear strategy. Here are our top tips for making the most of award season 2026.

Focus on the right awards for you
Not all awards are created equal, and entering too many can dilute your chance of success. A targeted approach is far more effective.

Focus on awards that genuinely align with your sector and business goals. Look for credible judging panels or sponsors and make sure you are entering the right category rather than the most general one.

Our top tip would be to start with the project you want to submit and work back from there to find the right award rather than trying to manipulate your story into a category that isn’t quite the right fit.

To name just a few key awards:

• Pharma Industry Awards UK – Deadline 5 June
• Make UK Manufacturing Awards – Deadline 19 June
• The Manufacturer MX Awards – Deadline 9 July
• The Engineer Collaborate to Innovate Awards – Deadline 11th September
• IChemE Global Awards – Deadline 31st July

Tell a story and then back it up with evidence
Industrial and technical businesses often fall into the trap of diving too deep into products and specifications. Judges want to understand the bigger picture.

Answer questions such as: What challenge were you solving? Why was it important? What made your approach different? What was its impact? Essentially, treat the award entry as a mini case study and remember to ‘show not tell’.

Importantly, include measurable outcomes and data if possible. Quotes from customers or partners can also support your claims. The more tangible your results, the more convincing your entry will be.

Keep it clear and accessible
Even in highly technical categories, clarity is essential. Award judges are often reviewing a high volume of entries and may not be well versed in your jargon.

In the same vein, word count is incredibly important when it comes to award entries. It can be hard to write copy when you are limited something like 500 words. This is a real test of including only the information that truly matters by sticking to the formula of context, challenge, solution and evidence.

Don’t stop there
The value of awards doesn’t stop at submission.

Many awards coordinators provide shortlisted entries with a toolkit with email footers and social media collateral – so make sure you use it.

Once you have been shortlisted, it’s time to brief your team on a communications plan. Awards are often linked to a magazine or publishing house so any external communications should be directed that way. Draft a blog for your own website and plan potential follow up thought leadership. Importantly, align this all with the announcement date on the award website.

If you win, this news should also be front and centre of your interactions with customers and internal communications.

And if you don’t win, don’t worry, it is still an opportunity to expand on the story and demonstrate your good work. A shortlist announcement still deserves a spot on your website news or blog page. If the submission was about a collaboration with a client, you can reuse and adapt it for other marketing, so think about publishing an owned case study. If the entry centred around a product or individual, you could turn your research and copy into follow up written content for your own website or to pitch to the media.

Why it matters
With the right approach, industry awards can be an opportunity for PR teams to collaborate with partners and showcase impact through strategic storytelling.

In a competitive and increasingly challenging landscape industrial businesses cannot just wait for recognition, it must be earned from both a practical and PR standpoint.