The client feedback you’re proud of. The student who found their confidence with your support. The idea you worked hard to turn into something useful. When you’re busy getting on with the job, it’s easy to move straight to the next thing without recognising what you’ve achieved.
Entering the FHT Excellence Awards gives you a reason to pause and take stock – and an opportunity for your work to receive wider recognition.
With the entry deadline extended for 2026, there’s still time to put yourself forward. Whether you work in sports, beauty or complementary therapy, teach, study or support your community, here’s what entering could mean for you.
The FHT Excellence Awards celebrate the achievements of our members across therapy practice, education and community work. If you’re an FHT Member, this is your opportunity to share what you’ve achieved and put yourself forward in a category that reflects your contribution.
Complementary Therapist of the Year
Much of your work happens in the privacy of the treatment room. An entry gives you space to explain the care, professional judgement and commitment behind it: how you adapt to individual needs, develop your skills and respond to feedback.
Being shortlisted or winning can help prospective clients understand what makes your practice distinctive. It also gives you a professional achievement to share on your website, in your communications and with organisations you would like to work with.
Beauty Therapist of the Year
Your clients experience the attention you put into consultations, treatments and aftercare. This is an opportunity to show the wider profession that same commitment.
For therapists working independently, in salons or in spas, recognition can help distinguish your approach in a competitive market. It can also give you a valuable story to share with clients and employers about the standards you bring to your work.
Sports Therapist of the Year
From supporting recreational exercisers to working with competitive athletes, your contribution involves careful assessment, communication and personalised support.
Entering gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your approach through specific examples. Finalist or winner recognition could strengthen your professional profile when introducing yourself to clubs, gyms, employers or potential collaborators, as well as helping clients learn more about your expertise.
Innovation Award
Have you developed a different way of delivering a service, supporting learning or addressing a problem in practice?
Preparing an entry helps you explain the need you identified, what you changed and the evidence that it made a difference. Recognition could bring your work to the attention of potential collaborators and encourage others to learn from it. It’s a chance to give a useful idea an audience beyond the people already familiar with it.
Tutor of the Year
The impact of good teaching continues long after a lesson ends. It can be seen in a student’s confidence, their professional judgement and the care they go on to provide.
An entry allows you to bring together examples of that impact. Being shortlisted or winning can strengthen your teaching profile and help prospective learners understand your approach. It’s also an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the students you have supported.
Student of the Year
You don’t need a long career behind you to have something worth recognising. Your commitment to learning, response to feedback and developing professionalism all deserve attention.
Preparing an entry can help you recognise how far you’ve come and identify examples to discuss in future applications or interviews. Finalist or winner status is an achievement you can include on your CV and professional profile as you take your next steps.
FHT LSG Coordinator of the Year
Organising meetings, finding speakers and helping therapists connect takes time and persistence. Much of that effort happens behind the scenes.
This category offers an opportunity to explain what your group makes possible. Recognition can raise awareness of the group, help potential attendees see its value and acknowledge the work involved in creating a welcoming professional community.
FHT Ambassador of the Year
Helping students and training providers understand the profession can have a lasting influence on the choices people make.
Entering gives you space to reflect on the conversations, relationships and activities you have developed as an ambassador. Recognition can draw attention to that contribution and provide a useful starting point for building further connections with educators and future therapists.
Volunteer Service Award
When you give your time and skills to others, seeking recognition may be the last thing on your mind. Yet sharing your contribution can also help the cause or community you support.
An entry provides an opportunity to explain the need, your involvement and what it has helped achieve. Being shortlisted or winning could raise awareness of the work and encourage others to contribute their own time or expertise.
FHT Fellow Lifetime Achievement Award
A career’s contribution is rarely captured by a job title or a list of qualifications. It includes the people you have supported, the knowledge you have shared and the standards you have upheld.
This award offers eligible Fellows an opportunity to reflect on that wider contribution. Recognition can help preserve and share the lessons of a career, while giving colleagues and the next generation of therapists the chance to learn from it.
There’s value in preparing your entry, too
Whatever the outcome, bringing together feedback, achievements and examples can help you describe your work more clearly and recognise strengths you might otherwise overlook.
Start with the category criteria. Choose relevant examples, explain your contribution and show what changed as a result. Specific details will tell your story more effectively than broad statements about being passionate or dedicated.
If the video element has made you hesitate, begin by jotting down the key points you want to share. Practise explaining them aloud, then follow the recording and submission guidance on the awards page.
You’ve already put the work into your practice, studies or community. Give yourself the chance to have that work recognised.
Explore the categories, check the entry guidance and enter the FHT Excellence Awards.
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