We’re finalists for six awards at the Notty’s 2026

Some lovely news to share: Hiyield has made the finalists for the Notty’s 2026 in six categories. Six! Last year we came away with Perfect Professionals and finalist spots in Customer Crusaders and Best in Business, so seeing our name pop up this many times in 2026 has the whole team grinning.

Here’s where you’ll find us:

• Best in Business
• Customer Crusaders
• Marketing Maestro (Lyssa-Fêe Crump, our Head of Marketing)
• Sustainability Superstars
• Techspert
• Fearless Leader (Matt Ville, our Founder and CEO)

Why the Notty’s matter to us

Awards aren’t the reason we do what we do. Our clients are purpose-driven organisations working to make the world a better place, and helping them do that is the bit we care about most. But writing an entry makes you stop, look back over the year and really notice what the team has pulled off. That’s a pretty lovely thing to do together.

The Notty’s are also a celebration of business across the South West, and we love being part of that. The room is full of people building brilliant things, and every year we leave with new friends, new ideas and a bit more pride in our corner of the world.

A little bit about each category

Best in Business

This one lands in the same month we turned eight, which feels like a rather nice birthday present. We’re B Corp certified, 80% employee-owned and still as curious as the day we started.

Customer Crusaders

This category is all about the people we work with. Our clients rate us 9/10 on NPS, 93.25% of our revenue comes from clients who come back for more, and 90% of our retainers renew. Some of our partnerships go back years, and this year we’ve loved launching work like the On Your Side Toolkit with Chasing the Stigma. We’ll take all that as a big thumbs up.

Marketing Maestro

Alongside our design and development work, we now offer digital marketing for our clients, from marketing strategies that cover the full marketing mix through to SEO, AI visibility (GEO), PPC, content marketing and email marketing. It means the products we create keep getting found long after launch, and it’s been brilliant seeing that work make a real difference for the purpose-driven organisations we partner with.

Sustainability Superstars

It’s our first time as finalists in this category, and it means a lot. This year we focused on real, measured reductions, cutting our emissions by 17.4% in 2024-25, on top of a 28% drop the year before. We’ve moved our banking to Tide (no fossil-fuel lending), switched our pensions to a sustainable plan, migrated 50 client sites to renewable hosting and signed up to Design Declares and Clean Creatives.

Techspert

This one celebrates the engineering our team does every day, from complex client platforms to Glyph, an internal tool built by Alfie (who’s just finished his apprenticeship) that tracks our AI use and turns it into live carbon figures. Very clever, and very Hiyield. It’s been a big year for our developers, who were also named Best Development Agency at the National Digital Awards 2026.

Fearless Leader

Matt founded Hiyield eight years ago and has led it with honesty and a steady hand through a tough year for the industry. He’s built a business where the team owns 80% of the company and has a real say in big decisions. He’s also CTO in residence at Canopy Community, sharing what he’s learned with startups across the UK, and was named Business Leader of the Year at the Cornwall Rewind Radio Business Awards.

Well done to everyone shortlisted

A huge well done to every other finalist. The South West’s business community is full of brilliant people doing great work, and seeing so many of them on the list makes us proud to be in such good company. Whoever takes home the trophies, it’s going to be a cracking night.

See you on 19th November, and good luck to every single finalist 🎉