ACE names 2026 Consultancy and Engineering Awards shortlist ahead of December ceremony

The Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) has published the shortlist for its relaunched Consultancy and Engineering Awards 2026, with winners to be announced at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, London, on 1 December.

The shortlist, released on 9 October, ranges from consultancies with fewer than 10 staff to Ramboll, Stantec, WSP and Mott MacDonald. Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence will give the keynote address on the night, ACE said.

ACE reset the programme in a release dated 6 March 2026, setting an entry deadline of 22 May and announcing 16 award categories plus a new Kingdom Brunel Award. At the time, Milda Manomaityte, CEO of ACE, said: "This is the start of a new and exciting chapter for our awards."

The March release said the shortlist would be announced on 7 September. It was published on 9 October. Matchtech has since joined as headline sponsor, alongside category sponsors Autodesk, Griffiths & Armour and Projectworks; the relaunch release had named only Autodesk and Project Works.

Business awards

Consultancy of the Year is split into four size bands. ACE's judges consider size, market conditions and challenge, with a focus on progress, leadership, innovation and value, according to the association's awards page.

Consultancy of the Year band	Shortlisted firms
Fewer than 10 employees	4
Fewer than 50 employees	7
Fewer than 250 employees	4
250 or more employees	6

Bear Engineering Solutions, Bell Munro Consulting, Pindoria Associates and Wynns make up the sub-10 category. The fewer than 50 category, sponsored by Projectworks, lists Accelar, Allora Infrastructure, Baynham Meikle Partnership, Beattie Flanigan, BSE|3D, CSP London and Farrow Walsh.

Atelier Ten, DSSR, Harley Haddow and Sutcliffe are shortlisted in the fewer than 250 band. The 250-plus category, sponsored by Griffiths & Armour, pits Curtins, Ramboll, Stantec, Tetra Tech, Tony Gee and Partners and Troup Bywaters + Anders against each other.

Projects and collaboration

WSP holds three of the nine places on the Best Collaborative Award shortlist, for the National Highways 2030 Water Quality Programme, Milton Road in Cambridge and the A14 Orwell Bridge westbound joint replacement project team.

Three schemes are in the running for Water Project of the Year: Stantec's Dearne Reach Integrated Constructed Wetland, Ramboll's Marl Beck project and WSP's Coggeshall, Feering and Kelvedon Flood Alleviation Scheme.

The Building and Infrastructure Innovation Award, sponsored by Autodesk, has nine entries, among them Stantec's debris flow modelling pilot with Network Rail and Alan Baxter's Spencer Building at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Individuals

Mott MacDonald has seven individual nominations across the three people categories: two for Future Leader of the Year, two for Apprentice of the Year and three for the Nina Cameron Graham Award.

Twelve people are shortlisted for Future Leader of the Year, including two each from Mott MacDonald, BSE|3D and Beattie Flanigan. Nine apprentices are up for Apprentice of the Year, among them Kate Connery of Troup Bywaters + Anders. Ewan Thomson of Tony Gee & Partners won the apprentice award at the 2024 ceremony, according to ACE.

The new Nina Cameron Graham Award, for women shaping engineering consultancy, has 13 nominees from firms including WSP, Mott MacDonald, Ramboll, Amey, AECOM, Stantec, Beattie Flanigan, Tetra Tech, AtkinsRéalis and Buro Happold. ACE said the award is named after the first woman in Britain to earn an engineering degree; the association's page on the award gives her dates as 11 March 1891 to 24 March 1974.

The Kingdom Brunel Award will go to the most outstanding nomination of the year, chosen by ACE's judging panel, and a Lifetime Impact Award will also be presented on the night. Entries came from both ACE members and non-members, the association said.

Manomaityte said: "Congratulations to all our shortlisted companies and individuals. We look forward to celebrating your successes and announcing the winners at what promises to be a truly special and inspiring evening."

Background

ACE says the awards are now in their fourth decade. The 2024 awards ceremony was held at the same hotel on Thursday 30 January 2025.

The association describes itself as representing around 400 businesses in consultancy and engineering, whose members employ more than 60,000 people in the UK and 250,000 worldwide and contribute more than £15bn to the UK economy. Professor Denise Bower OBE is ACE chair.

The ceremony runs from 18.30 to 22.00 on Tuesday 1 December 2026. Early bird ticket discounts end on 1 November.