Awards

The Heritage Crafts awards

Nominations are now open with a closing date of 1 July 2025

Heritage Crafts set up the prestigious Heritage Crafts Awards in 2012. We are indebted to our partner organisations for providing funding to allow us to present a unique suite of awards and bursaries specifically for traditional crafts. We are so grateful for this generous support.

The Heritage Crafts Awards celebrate and highlight the traditional living crafts made in the UK that contribute to our national heritage, such as silversmithing, leatherworking, dressmaking and tailoring, upholstery, weaving, embroidery and similar other crafts where there is a significant degree of hand skill at the point of manufacture.

2025 Awards

Click on the relevant awards below to find out more and to nominate yourself or someone else.

Please note that all awards nominations (apart from the Patron’s Award) now use the same application form, so you can nominate yourself or someone else for multiple awards in one go, rather than completing separate forms.

To help plan your nomination in advance of submitting (unfortunately you cannot save a draft form and return to it), you can download a list of all award questions here.

Nominate yourself or someone else

Lifetime Achievement Award

Lifetime Achievement Award

£1,000
Community Catalyst of the Year Award

Community Catalyst of the Year Award

£1,000
Trainee of the Year Award

Trainee of the Year Award

£1,000
Scotland Maker of the Year Award

Scotland Maker of the Year Award

£1,000
Northern Ireland Maker of the Year Award

Northern Ireland Maker of the Year Award

£1,000
England Maker of the Year Award

England Maker of the Year Award

£1,000
Wales Maker of the Year Award

Wales Maker of the Year Award

£1,000
Trainer of the Year Award

Trainer of the Year Award

£1,000
Maker of the Year Award

Maker of the Year Award

£1,000 per UK nation
Environmental Sustainability Award

Environmental Sustainability Award

£1,000
Patron’s Award for Endangered Crafts

Patron’s Award for Endangered Crafts

£3,000
Precious Metalworker of the Year Award

Precious Metalworker of the Year Award

£2,000
Fashion and Textile Maker of the Year Award

Fashion and Textile Maker of the Year Award

£2,000
Emerging Metalworker of the Year Award

Emerging Metalworker of the Year Award

£1,000
Emerging Leatherworker of the Year Award

Emerging Leatherworker of the Year Award

£1,000
Emerging Upholsterer of the Year Award

Emerging Upholsterer of the Year Award

£1,000
Emerging Weaver of the Year Award

Emerging Weaver of the Year Award

£1,000
Emerging Embroiderer of the Year Award

Emerging Embroiderer of the Year Award

£1,000

Message from HM The King

“As President of the Heritage Crafts Association, I am delighted to endorse this new awards scheme which supports and rewards excellence in the heritage craft sector.

Crafts are such a vital part of our British heritage and I have always been passionately concerned to promote the best aspects of our country’s traditions ― and, equally importantly, to enable these highly specialised skills to be transferred from one generation to the next.

These new awards for heritage craft celebrate excellence across the sector in a variety of ways. They reward those who give so much by volunteering to support the many different crafts, those who pass on their skills, those who wish to improve their craft skills and those who continue to produce great British craft.”

Previous award winners

NICK GILL – TYPECASTER AND LETTERPRESS PRINTER

Lucy Barlow – hat maker

Sally Morrison – watch dial enameller

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The BBC reports that Moorcroft Pottery, which stopped trading at the end of April after more than 100 years in business, has been returned to family ownership.

The company has been bought by Will Moorcroft, whose grandfather William Moorcroft built the factory on Sandbach Road in Cobridge in 1913, with support from London department store Liberty. 

Mr Moorcroft said he would like to see “as many of the staff as we can bring back” but that he was unable to guarantee all 57 workers would be able to return. He added that they were considering moving production away from the site in Burslem, moving the firm solely to the original factory on Sandbach Road.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0jxzn8en8o.amp
Congratulations to former Heritage Crafts Patron, Dame Emma Bridgwater! 👏

#Repost @emma_bridgewater with @use.repost
・・・
We’re so proud to share that our Founder, Emma Bridgewater, is to be appointed a Dame for her services to Ceramics. A truly fitting recognition of her vision, immense creativity and years spent championing British pottery. What an honour, and so well deserved. A huge congratulations, Dame Emma! 
 
“I’m honoured and very happy about the award; what a marvellous accolade this is - for the people, and the pottery traditions of Stoke-on-Trent! I feel clear that whilst I receive it, they won it, and they so richly deserve such recognition! 

My forty years in the Potteries has been a marvellous and unlikely adventure - I feel privileged indeed to have learned about ceramics from the long suffering, resilient and excellent people of Stoke. The abandonment of our manufacturing power feels to me like a gigantic wasted opportunity whilst the unresolved trauma created in the populations of our post industrial cities stands as a running challenge to us all.” 

— Emma
#matchMAKER opportunity!

Sewing apprentice (2 places) 

Deadline: 14 July 2025

Senator International in Altham are recruiting for a Sewing Apprentice. The successful candidate will work towards completing a Level 2 Sewing Machinist apprenticeship over the duration of 18 months.

Visit #matchMAKER via the linktr.ee in our bio to find out more.

#matchMAKER is the online platform for work-based training and entry-level employment opportunities hosted by @heritagecrafts and supported by @soanebritain.
#matchMAKER opportunity!

Furniture Making Operative Apprentice 

Deadline: 16 June 2025

This is a fantastic opportunity to join the team at Collin’s Bespoke, a quality cabinetry making company, which includes designing kitchens and other interiors. Learning valuable skills from specialised craftsmen to lead on to a successful career in the carpentry industry.

For nearly 30 years, Nick Collins has been designing and making bespoke cabinetry. Collins Bespoke was borne from Nick’s passion for bespoke interiors, and is where his craftsmanship has been nurtured, refined and shared. The Collins Bespoke team is an array of skilled crafts-people, mostly trained in-house: from designing, planning and templating; to finishing, assembling and installing.

Visit #matchMAKER via the linktr.ee in our bio to find out more.

#matchMAKER is the online platform for work-based training and entry-level employment opportunities hosted by @heritagecrafts and supported by @soanebritain.
Crafts Festival Talk with Elizabeth Jarvis and Daniel Carpenter. #endangeredcrafts