Here are the first finalists for the 2026 GamesIndustry.biz Best Places To Work Awards UK

GamesIndustry.biz has revealed the first UK finalists for the 2026 Best Places To Work special awards, and the shortlist is heavily concentrated among studios with established people, culture, and development programs. NaturalMotion Games leads the field with five nominations, Rocksteady Studios has four, and Jagex, Playground Games, and Rare each have three.

The special awards sit alongside the overall Best Places To Work categories for small, medium, and large companies, so this is less about a single headline winner and more about which studios are building repeatable practices around workplace culture. The categories cover areas developers will recognize immediately: CSR, diversity, education, environmental work, health and wellbeing, and training and development.

This year also brings back the HR Hero Award, which spotlights an individual who goes beyond day-to-day people ops to improve team support and workplace culture. Finalists include representatives from Frontier Developments, IO Interactive, HundredStar Games, Jagex, Playground Games, and Playstack.

The winners will be announced at The Royal Institution in London on October 1, 2026, following the GamesIndustry.biz HR Summit earlier that day. The summit agenda leans into current studio pain points too, with sessions on trade unions, neurodivergent staff support, and the practical HR fallout from AI-generated casework.