Over 450 members and guests enjoyed a lavish celebration of young talent at the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) Industry Awards.
70 companies and individuals were recognised across 21 award categories with a particular focus on young achievers.
The Awards Dinner and after party sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric, were held at the historic Brewery, Chiswell Street, London following the Association’s Annual Conference at the same venue earlier in the day.
The event was hosted by Strictly Come Dancing and Britain's Got Talent drag performer La Voix who added glamour and humour to BESA's ceremony honouring those deemed to have gone “above and beyond the call of duty” for the greater good of the industry.
This included Sayes & Co who received a special commemorative award to mark 85 years of BESA membership and Kirsty Cogan, CEO of SFG20, who received the President's Award for Outstanding Achievement.
Categories covered the full supply chain from manufacturers and distributors though contractors, engineers, and clients, and reflected the industry’s efforts to get to grips with today’s big issues like competence and compliance, indoor air quality, and decarbonisation.
Achievers
There was a particular focus on young achievers at this year’s BESA Awards with the finalists in this year’s WorldSkills UK competition (Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heat Pump category) honoured as special guests. BESA is the organising partner of the competition, which celebrates both emerging and existing technical skills and is sponsored by BAXI.
Also attending was Sam Jones who had recently returned from Shanghai having won the Gold Medal at the 2026 Skills Olympics. He received another award to add to his collection from Kooltech. Another special award went to Ian Lemmon of Beijer Ref for his exceptional contribution to WorldSkills over many years as both judge and competition organiser.
And, as well as BESA’s long-standing apprentice categories covering specialist trades like refrigeration and air conditioning, and facilities and energy management, the Awards also included a new overall Trainee of the Year Award, which was won by Maisie Vaulters from F P Hurley & Sons, who secured an impressive double by also winning the Learner of the Year prize.
The highly sought after Rising Star Award celebrating exceptional young talent from across building engineering services was won by Shanie Chauhan of Crown House Technologies. And in another new development for this year, apprentices were able to attend the Awards free of charge thanks to the generous support of the Manly Trust.
“With all the talk about a ‘lost generation’ of young people struggling to find work in the UK, we felt our best contribution would be to put even more impressive young workers in the spotlight and celebrate their achievements,” said BESA’s senior group events and partnership manager Charlie Ward.
“BESA has a long tradition of celebrating the best and brightest talent, but we wanted to do even more this year by helping to showcase careers and opportunities that might otherwise go under the radar. We are also hugely grateful to the Manly Trust whose support will mean more young people can travel to the Conference and Awards.”
Category sponsors were: Schneider Electric, TICA, Ideal Heating and ACV, Geoffrey Robinson, Vexve, Milwaukee, Nuaire, AIRO, S&P and Mikropor.
See the full list of winners and shortlisted companies and individuals here.