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5 November 2025
Hilton, Park Lane, London

Submit your entry

The DataIQ Awards

The DataIQ Awards honours both companies and individuals that have demonstrated excellence in the data industry over the past 12 months. As the data and analytics industry’s most prestigious awards, over 400 entries were received in 2024.

This year, we’re honouring 20 categories that showcase the diverse applications of data and AI across three key areas: Culture and Skills, Innovation and People and Teams.

Entries are open! Submit your entry here.

The Categories

Innovation

Who it’s for: Teams or organisations that demonstrate excellence in managing data quality, security, compliance, and ethical AI usage to drive innovation and operational effectiveness.

How to win it: Provide clear evidence of how your data governance framework supports and enhances AI initiatives. Highlight innovations in data policies, governance models, and AI strategies, showcasing outcomes like improved data accuracy, ethical AI, and risk mitigation.

Who it’s for: Any organisation that is demonstrating and/or championing a responsible approach to the use of AI in a programme.

How to win it: This award will go to a specific individual, business or programme that can clearly demonstrate they have the principles of Responsible AI in a way that is building trust and scaling AI with confidence.

Who it’s for: Beyond profit, having a social purpose or aiming to apply AI or data resources to the benefit of everyone is what makes for a hero organisation.

How to win it: Solving critical challenges faced by society through the use of AI is one of the biggest and most difficult use cases, typically for government and public sector organisations, but equally for any organisation with a broad social purpose. Legacy processes, problematic data, difficult environments for delivering outcomes – all of these are obstacles that the winning entry for this award will be able to demonstrate that it has overcome. This award is open to any data or AI programme across all types of organisation.

Who it’s for: An application of artificial intelligence, machine learning or automation to introduce a new approach or service.

How to win it: Provide the judges with an insight into how a business problem or opportunity was identified and subsequently resolved through the use of AI, ML or automation. The impact needs to be fresh and transformative, even if the target was a BAU process.

Who it’s for: Any organisation that has achieved significant outcomes or culture change through deploying data or AI.

How to win it: Provide evidence of how data or AI have been used to transform the organisation, the way it operates, how a service is delivered or how customers are engaged. This may be through becoming digital-first or by putting a data asset at the heart of operations.

Who it’s for: Any organisation which can show it has achieved significant uplift against a target metric or progress towards a specific goal through the application of data or AI.

How to win it: From whatever your starting point, show us how you deployed a data set or AI/ML model to shift your organisation’s performance up to an entirely new and improved level. The winning entry is likely to be able to evidence its before and after states.

People and Teams

Who it’s for: High-performing squads of data and AI practitioners working internally at client/brand organisations.

How to win it: A team is more than the individuals it is made up of – it is a multiplier of their efforts through the collaboration, cohesion and productivity that results from working as an ensemble. Describe how this group of data and AI aces are driving results and transforming how your organisation absorbs and acts on their output.

Who it’s for: A client/brand-side data and AI department where employee satisfaction and skills levels are off the chart!

How to win it: Colleagues who are engaged and satisfied are more productive and have longer tenures. Achieving this ideal goes far beyond pay and package – it involves fine-tuning working practices, internal culture, external engagement and leadership to build cohesion and value. Tell the judges the story of how you have put all of these elements in place and how you are measuring their impact.

Who it’s for: Data and AI departments in enabler organisations (ie, solutions providers, consultancies, agencies, etc) who love to deliver for their clients.

How to win it: Colleagues who are engaged and satisfied are more productive and have longer tenures. Achieving this ideal goes far beyond pay and package – it involves fine-tuning working practices, internal culture, external engagement and leadership to build cohesion and value. Tell the judges the story of how you have put all of these elements in place and how you are measuring their impact.

Who it’s for: Brand promises now include data use, AI-driven customer experiences, decision-making, and employee support, recognising full integration of data and AI.

How to win it: The winner of this award will be able to demonstrate the significant enhancements that data and AI have made either to the customer experience, to its executive and colleague performance or to both. Proof of the shift from the before to the as-now state will be particularly compelling.

Who it’s for: A data and AI leader with impact, influence and engagement across their organisation.

How to win it: To be an award-winning data and AI leader, you need to provide vision and support to your department as well as delivering value to your organisation. The judges will be looking for evidence of strong strategic thinking as well as tactical delivery that builds belief among teams and stakeholders.

Who it’s for: Young professionals who are part of an internal data team within a client or brand organisation.

How to win it: The judges are looking for an individual in the early stages of their career who has either just entered the data industry and is already making a significant impact or somebody who has undertaken a data or AI apprenticeship at Level 4 in order to transfer into the data department or to upskill themselves. Provide insights into what makes them stand out from their peer group.

Culture and Skills

Who it’s for: The EU AI Act emphasises AI literacy across organisations. This award recognises brands fostering AI understanding at all business levels ahead of the February 2025 requirement and beyond.

How to win it: The European legislation does not prescribe what AI literacy should look like. So the DataIQ judging panel will be eager to see how brands have interpreted this requirement and translated it into an AI literacy programme. In particular, they will want to see evidence that understanding, comprehension and adoption of AI has been positively impacted as a result.

Who it’s for: Brands operating across EMEA face complex cultural, ethical, and legal challenges in data use and AI. This award celebrates those that have excelled in cross-regional collaboration to deliver data-driven or AI-powered services.

How to win it: The judges are looking for evidence of how data and AI teams have built collaborative working practices that are harmonised across EMEA, ensuring that services are built once, deployed to many. Evidence of support from risk and compliance will be compelling, alongside multi-country adoption.

Who it’s for: Any programme that is focused on building data skills and a data-first mindset.

How to win it: All organisations need to ensure that employees right across the enterprise have an understanding and appreciation of how data can support their processes. Data skills need to be developed and refreshed, even within the data department itself. The judges will be looking for evidence of how skills are being supported as part of an integrated approach to learning and development.

Who it’s for: Effective examples of how data insights have been communicated through story-telling or visualisation.

How to win it: Supply a case study which demonstrates how the insights from analytics were developed and communicated to the stakeholder, whether through high impact visualisation or story-telling. The winner will be able to show how the approach made a significant difference as a consequence of strong communication techniques.

Who it’s for: Any data and AI team or project that won the hearts and minds of its sponsor or stakeholder.

How to win it: The judges will be looking for collaborative working between the data and AI function and its stakeholders which iteratively improved the quality of insights, recommendations and ways of working. They will be keen to see input from stakeholders attesting to the willingness of the function to listen and take on board changing needs.

Who it’s for: A cultural change that was driven by data and has significantly increased its adoption by stakeholders and data consumers.

How to win it: Judges will be looking for how your organisation introduced a fresh set of working practices oriented around data in order to bring about evidence-based decision-making, process design or outcome measurement. Demonstrate that you have changed specific behaviours and put data at the heart of your working practices.

Recognition

Who it’s for: An individual who has dedicated their career to advancing data and analytics and has made a significant impact on the people who work with them.


How to win it: Provide a strong rationale as to why this person should join a hall of fame that includes the founders of dunnhumby, a founder of the Open Data Institute, a former Information Commissioner and many more.

The Grand Prix is awarded to the entry with the highest overall score.

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