Secrets from the Best Places To Work Awards winners 2018

A message from our sponsor

We're so excited and honoured to have the opportunity to support the Best Places to Work Awards in 2018, recognising some of the best employers in games. The awards give companies the opportunity to really demonstrate what they stand for, the values they hold, and the view from their teams on what it's like to work there.

Our place in the industry is about growth and helping to build teams. We love to share our clients' ambitions to build a workplace as an environment that attracts, inspires and retains people. These awards really showcase the innovations and strengths across the industry. The event was a spectacular celebration of achievements in the industry and it was a truly uplifting afternoon to be part of.

We were proud to talk about the G into Gaming (GiG) initiative, focusing on the attraction and retention of females in games, and we look forward to working closely with you all on this in the future.

Liz Prince, Business Manager, Amiqus

The Best Places To Work Awards started over 18 months ago. Back then it was just an idea for an online-only feature, and it has ballooned into a standalone awards ceremony in Central London.

It was a joy to see so many brilliant companies coming together and discussing ways to make the games industry a better place - because that is the point of these awards.

Of course, we're here to celebrate excellence in the workplace, too. The games industry comes under fire at times, and legitimately, for its poor diversity, crunch, lack of job security and so on. But it's also a brilliant, exciting, inspiring place to work, and we want to recognise that and hail the companies that get it right.

But perhaps more importantly, these awards are about education.

Everyone who takes part - whether they received a badge or not - can receive employee feedback so they can implement changes. As for those who don't take part, we'll be running features like this, where the winners share their secrets to a successful working environment.

Ultimately, we hope the Best Places To Work Awards will make the UK games industry a better place to be.

During the judging of these awards, we spoke to just shy of 2,500 games industry employees. Almost 90% of staff say that the games industry gives them a sense of purpose, over 92% are happy working in the games industry, and a whopping 97% of staff say they like the people they work with.

It wasn't perfect, of course: 40% are dissatisfied with the gender diversity of games, and 19% think their companies are not doing enough to fix it. 25% say staffing levels are not adequate, and half of respondents feel that training could be improved at their company.

These are all areas we can work on, and we'll be discussing through Gamesindustry.biz in the months ahead.

In the meantime, check out our interviews with the 19 winners of this years awards.

How the best places were judged

Every company that entered the awards was sent two sets of surveys. The first was an employer survey, which looked at benefits, pay, holiday, diversity, growth, stability and more.

The second survey was for employees, and featured statements that staff had to agree or disagree with. These included views on their management, culture, technical support and workload.

The employer survey accounted for 25% of the final score, with the employee responses accounting for the rest.

All 19 of our winning companies received an overall score of 85% or higher.