Derbyshire King’s Awards for Enterprise Breakfast Event

The event brought together King’s Award recipients, aspiring applicants, members of the Derbyshire King’s Awards Panel, and His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Derbyshire, Elizabeth Fothergill CBE, to celebrate business excellence and encourage more organisations to consider applying for this prestigious national honour.

As part of the winners’ panel, Luke and Alison shared Acres Engineering’s King’s Award journey, discussing why we applied, what the process involved, and the impact the award has had on our business, our people, and our wider community.

One of the key messages from the event was that too many exceptional businesses rule themselves out before they even begin an application.

When we first considered applying, we asked ourselves the same question many businesses ask: “Is this really for a company like ours?”

The reality is that the King’s Awards recognise organisations of all sizes that are creating meaningful impact through innovation, international trade, sustainable development, or promoting opportunity through social mobility.

For Acres Engineering, our award recognised years of commitment to apprenticeships, workforce development, social mobility, and creating opportunities for people who may never have considered a career in engineering.

Winning a King’s Award is one of the highest honours a UK business can receive. Beyond the recognition itself, it provides independent national validation of the work being carried out by our team every day. Whilst customers value quality, service and performance, being recognised by the Nation is something truly special.

We are incredibly proud that Acres Engineering became only the second Derbyshire business to receive a King’s Award in the Promoting Opportunity category. The achievement belongs to every apprentice, employee, mentor, customer, supplier, school, and community partner who has been part of our journey.

Congratulations also to our fellow Derbyshire King’s Award recipients, Kranlee Logistics Limited, Phoenix Sealing Limited, and West Special Fasteners Limited. Derbyshire continues to demonstrate that it is home to some of the UK’s most innovative, resilient, and successful businesses, and it was a privilege to share the platform with such outstanding organisations.

Thank you to Marvin Cooke, the University of Derby, the Derbyshire King’s Awards Panel, and everyone who attended. We were delighted to see so many businesses interested in applying, and we would encourage any organisation making a genuine difference to tell its story.

If your business is considering a future King’s Award application, we would be happy to share our experience and support you wherever we can.

Founded in 1947, Acres Engineering is a Derbyshire-based manufacturer specialising in bespoke production support equipment, fabricated assemblies, stillages, trolleys, test rigs, lifting equipment, and turnkey engineering solutions. We support customers across aerospace, automotive, defence, energy, rail, logistics, and advanced manufacturing, combining in-house design, laser cutting, fabrication, machining, powder coating, assembly, and installation capabilities to deliver complete engineered solutions.

If your organisation is looking for a responsive engineering partner to help solve manufacturing challenges, improve productivity, develop bespoke equipment, or support new projects, we would be delighted to start a conversation.

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Acres have a range of standard products but also support clients with custom machinery and medium-high volume products such as trolleys, stillages etc. 

We have manufactured lots of different tables / workstations / workbenches for various industries.

We also manufacture access platforms, jigs and fixtures and many other types of production support solutions / products. 

Talk to us today about your requirements: Sales@Acres.Engineering / 01332695240 / Contact Us Form

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Want to know more about Acres Engineering?

We are based in the UK from our Headquarters in Derbyshire, England and have a European office in Malaga, Spain within the EU.

Find out more about where we have been and what we have been up to by checking out our latest blog posts.

Take a look at how we support of the Armed Forces, STEM/Schools and Charities. 

As a world leader in our field, we offer a range of information guides sharing best practice with our clients.

We make it easy to engage with us, we are approved on: EcoVadis (external) / JOSCAR (external) / AVETTA (external) / COUPA (external) / SAP ARIBA (external) / DEEPSTREAM (external) ….you can download our BSI / Insurance certificates here.