Pest Solutions is delighted to have been named as finalists in five categories at the 2026 National Pest Awards, with three of our incredible Pest Professionals also receiving individual recognition among the very best in the UK Pest Control industry.
The National Pest Awards is the showpiece event of the UK Pest Control industry calendar and this year we have been shortlisted for the “Large Company of the Year”, “Diversity & Inclusion” and “Innovation of the Year” awards, alongside Chloe Smith and Iain Mackinnon who are both finalists for “Pest Controller of the Year” and Max Hunter who has been shortlisted for “Young Pest Controller of the Year”.
Being named as finalists across such a wide range of categories is an incredible reflection of the hard work being done right across the Pest Solutions team and we are especially proud to see Chloe, Iain and Max receive the individual recognition they deserve for their continued commitment to being outstanding Pest Professionals.
The National Pest Awards 2026 will take place at Plaisterers’ Hall in London on Wednesday 9th September, bringing together Pest Professionals and businesses from all across the UK for a night of good food, music, catching up with industry friends and hopefully a few awards coming back to Scotland!
A massive congratulations to everyone shortlisted for this year’s National Pest Awards. The quality of the finalists across all of the categories is fantastic and simply being recognised amongst them is a great achievement in itself.
National Pest Awards 2026 – Large Company of the Year Finalist – Pest Solutions
Pest Solutions has once again been named as a finalist in the “Large Company of the Year” category, continuing our proud record of recognition at the National Pest Awards and giving our entire team another reason to be incredibly proud of what we have built together.
We were fortunate enough to win this award in 2024 before going on to be named overall “Pest Business of the Year”, so being shortlisted again means a great deal to us. A lot has changed as Pest Solutions has continued to grow, but our focus remains firmly on being a customer service company first and a Pest Control company second, investing in great people who take pride in doing excellent work for their customers.
Our “Attitude First” approach to recruitment and commitment to training for skills has played a huge part in our growth and we continue to invest heavily in the development of our people through our Graduate Scheme, Advanced Technician and Field Biologist pathways, mentoring, regular training and an internal culture that encourages everyone to keep learning.
This focus on our people has helped Pest Solutions continue to grow without sacrificing the service our customers receive, maintaining a customer retention rate of over 98%, an NPS score of 94 and thousands of 5-star customer reviews. We strongly believe that putting better Pest Professionals in front of our customers results in better Pest Control and customer service, not rocket science you would think!
We are also incredibly proud of the contribution so many of our team make outside their normal day-to-day work through research projects, BPCA committees and working groups, university partnerships, careers events and other initiatives aimed at supporting the future of the Professional Pest Control industry.
Competition for this award is, as always, incredibly strong and a huge Pest Solutions congratulations must go to fellow finalists Contego Environmental Services and Rentokil Pest Control. Both are fantastic businesses and it is a great honour for our team to be considered alongside them.
Large Company of the Year Finalists 2026:
- Contego Environmental Services
- Pest Solutions
- Rentokil Pest Control
National Pest Awards 2026 – Diversity & Inclusion Award Finalist – Pest Solutions
For the second year running Pest Solutions has also been named as a finalist for the “Diversity & Inclusion Award”, recognising the continued work being done to make Professional Pest Control a career that is attractive and accessible to the very best people from the whole of the employment market.
In an industry where female employment is estimated at around just 5.5-6%, over 52% of the Pest Solutions service team are female and over 50% of our management team. This is something we are extremely proud of, but it has never been about chasing a statistic or creating a box-ticking exercise.
We simply want to hire the best person for every position we have available, create a culture where good people can thrive and provide the training and development opportunities required to turn people with the right attitude into excellent Pest Professionals.
A big part of this has involved changing the way people see Pest Control as a career in the first place. Through careers events, work with schools, colleges, universities and Developing the Young Workforce, we have worked hard to get Professional Pest Control in front of people who may never previously have considered the industry as a career option.
Our Graduate Scheme has been hugely successful in attracting some fantastic people into the business, but equally important is ensuring that people who do not come through a graduate route have access to the same development pathways and opportunities. We are always on the look out for
There is still a huge amount of work for the whole industry to do in this area, so we are delighted to see Pest Minds CIC and Rentokil Pest Control recognised alongside us as finalists. Congratulations to both organisations and we look forward to seeing more and more of the Professional Pest Control industry working together to become more representative of the communities we serve.
Diversity & Inclusion Award Finalists 2026:
- Pest Minds CIC
- Pest Solutions
- Rentokil Pest Control
National Pest Awards 2026 – Innovation of the Year Finalist – Pest Solutions PATH
Possibly the most exciting new addition to our National Pest Awards nominations this year is seeing our PATH system shortlisted for the 2026 “Innovation of the Year” award.
PATH, our Personalised AI Training Hub, is a bespoke AI-powered training and knowledge system developed by the Pest Solutions team to help us create high quality, engaging and continually updateable training content for our Pest Professionals and customers.
The most obvious output from PATH is the training videos presented by incredibly realistic AI versions of members of our own team, but the flashy stuff you see on screen is really just the tip of the iceberg. Behind it sits our own AI model, knowledge base, training framework and review process which allows our technical experts to build, review, improve and update training much faster than would previously have been possible.
PATH is already integrated into our Pest Solutions Academy and technician knowledge systems, helping us make more high-quality training available to our team whilst supporting Pest Professionals out in the field. We are also developing how this technology can provide greater value to our customers through training resources, technical recommendations and other parts of our service.
At Pest Solutions we are big advocates for innovation and AI, but only when it actually makes things better. We are particularly passionate about technology that augments and enhances the expert Pest Professional rather than trying to replace them or undermine the value of their skills.
Our view is that technology should give a great Pest Professional an even better toolkit to solve difficult problems, protect public health and provide more value to customers. PATH is our attempt to put that principle into practice and we are delighted that the National Pest Awards judges have recognised the work that has gone into developing it.
A massive congratulations to fellow finalists Contego Environmental Services and Lancashire Bird Control. There are some really interesting innovations happening across Pest Control at the moment and it is great to see businesses continuing to challenge how things have always been done.
Innovation of the Year Finalists 2026:
- Contego Environmental Services
- Lancashire Bird Control
- Pest Solutions
National Pest Awards 2026 – Pest Controller of the Year Finalist – Chloe Smith
A massive Pest Solutions congratulations to our very own Chloe Smith who has been named as one of the final three for the 2026 “Pest Controller of the Year” award.
Chloe joined Pest Solutions through our Graduate Scheme in 2021 with no previous Pest Control experience and has developed into one of the best Pest Professionals in our business. With a degree in Psychology and a Masters in Environmental Health Science, Chloe had an excellent foundation when she joined us, but the development in her technical ability, confidence and experience over the last five years has been incredible to watch.
She currently works as an Advanced Technician and Field Biologist across some of the most challenging areas of Glasgow, dealing with everything from stubborn behavioural resistance in urban House Mice and Environmental Health closures to Housing Association work and high-care food manufacturing sites.
Chloe consistently manages to combine an incredible level of productivity with excellent quality and customer service. Since joining Pest Solutions she has individually received hundreds of 5-star customer reviews, which tells you a lot about the impression she leaves on the people she helps.
A significant amount of Chloe’s work involves helping people who can be experiencing real fear, anxiety or embarrassment because of pest activity in their homes and her background in Psychology and Environmental Health gives her a fantastic ability to understand the person as well as the pest problem.
She has actually become something of a minor celebrity in areas of Glasgow, particularly Dennistoun, with customers and local residents regularly stopping her in the street for a chat or to ask for Pest Control advice. If that isn’t customer engagement we don’t know what is!
Chloe also contributes well beyond her normal role, getting involved in industry research, careers initiatives and development projects and currently leading a Pest Solutions Graduate Research Project into “The Impact of Awaab’s Law on Residential Public Health Pest Control”.
Having previously been shortlisted for “Young Pest Controller of the Year” in both 2022 and 2024, this nomination represents another big step forwards in Chloe’s career and one that we think is thoroughly deserved.
National Pest Awards 2026 – Pest Controller of the Year Finalist – Iain Mackinnon
Joining Chloe in the final three for “Pest Controller of the Year” is the wonderful Iain Mackinnon, meaning an incredible two of this year’s three finalists come from the Pest Solutions service team.
Iain joined Pest Solutions in 2022 as an experienced Pest Controller after beginning his career elsewhere in the industry, having originally made the move into Pest Control following several years working in the music industry.
Since joining our team he has completely thrown himself into the training and development opportunities available, becoming a Certificated Advanced Technician and now working towards becoming a Certificated Field Biologist.
Iain is one of those people who genuinely loves solving difficult pest problems. He approaches challenging situations with curiosity rather than frustration and has developed into one of our go-to Pest Professionals for complicated high-care environments and technical issues.
One recent example involved an extremely challenging poultry feed mill with longstanding Rat, Mouse and Stored Product Insect issues. Rather than simply accepting that pest activity was inevitable because of the nature and condition of the site, Iain invested a huge amount of effort into understanding the problem, gathering data, adapting his treatment plans and working closely with the customer to drive the improvements required to bring the infestation under control.
During the process Iain developed his own method of presenting pest activity trends to make the huge amount of data being gathered easier for the customer to understand. The approach proved so useful that elements are now being incorporated into the continued development of Pest Solutions reporting systems.
That interest in using data to produce better Pest Control outcomes has also resulted in Iain being selected to lead one of our company Graduate Projects on “Data Driven Pest Control – Driving Better Outcomes”.
Iain was previously shortlisted for “Pest Controller of the Year” in 2024 and has only continued to improve since then. He is an outstanding Pest Professional, fantastic with customers, incredibly supportive of his colleagues and someone we trust completely to represent Pest Solutions.
With Chloe and Iain making up two thirds of the final shortlist we might find it slightly difficult to decide who to cheer loudest for on the night!
A huge congratulations to Karolien Van der Vorm of 360 Wildlife Control who completes this year’s final three. To be shortlisted in such a competitive individual category is an incredible achievement and we wish Karolien the very best of luck alongside Chloe and Iain.
Pest Controller of the Year Finalists 2026:
- Chloe Smith, Pest Solutions
- Iain Mackinnon, Pest Solutions
- Karolien Van der Vorm, 360 Wildlife Control
National Pest Awards 2026 – Young Pest Controller of the Year Finalist – Max Hunter
Our final National Pest Awards finalist for 2026 is our fantastic Graduate Advanced Technician Max Hunter, who has been shortlisted for “Young Pest Controller of the Year” after just over two years working in Professional Pest Control, and continues a rich history of award success for our graduate scheme participants.
Max studied Zoology at the University of Glasgow before going on to work in laboratory animal care and welfare. Although this gave him valuable experience and was directly related to his degree, he did not feel that his career was progressing in the direction he wanted and was looking for something that would allow him to work more with people and spend less time stuck inside a laboratory.
After seeing former university classmate Gemma Sutherland enjoying a pretty decent start to her own career in Pest Control, including winning “Young Pest Controller of the Year” and then “Pest Controller of the Year” in back-to-back years, Max began looking at Professional Pest Control completely differently.
Thankfully for us, we happened to be recruiting for our Graduate Scheme at the time and Max decided to give it a go Since joining Pest Solutions he has soaked up knowledge like a sponge, progressing rapidly through his initial training and recently achieving distinction-level marks in three of the five sections of his Certificated Advanced Technician assessment.
His Zoology and animal welfare background gives Max an interesting perspective on Professional Pest Control and he is particularly passionate about the role skilled Pest Professionals play in achieving the best possible animal welfare outcomes whilst carrying out our essential work protecting public health. That passion has led Max to take the lead on one of our current Graduate Projects, “Professional Pest Management – Reclaiming the Agenda on Good Animal Welfare Outcomes”, looking at how our industry can better communicate the important role Pest Professionals play within the animal welfare debate.
Max won “Young Technician of the Year” at our own Pest Solutions awards in 2025 and has continued to impress customers, colleagues and many of the people involved in his training. To see him now shortlisted at the National Pest Awards after such a short time in the industry is fantastic recognition of the progress he has made.
A huge congratulations to Beth Pemberton-Hill of Cleankill Pest Control and Shane North of Eradikil Pest Control who join Max in the final three. Attracting and developing the next generation of talented Pest Professionals is hugely important to the future of our industry and it is fantastic to see three young people receiving recognition for the impact they are already making.
Young Pest Controller of the Year Finalists 2026:
- Beth Pemberton-Hill, Cleankill Pest Control
- Max Hunter, Pest Solutions
- Shane North, Eradikil Pest Control
Good Luck to All the Finalists!
A massive good luck to every business, team and Pest Professional shortlisted for the National Pest Awards 2026. It is a fantastic achievement just to make the final and we are really looking forward to celebrating with so many friends and colleagues from across the industry. Whatever happens when the winners are announced, it should be a brilliant night recognising some of the very best people in Professional Pest Control. See you all tonight!!
Pest Solutions National Pest Awards Success
The National Pest Awards has been very kind to Pest Solutions over the years and we are incredibly proud that members of our team or the business itself have now been recognised among the finalists and winners year after year.
Every one of those awards has been special, but what means the most to us is the consistency with which different members of our team and different parts of the business continue to be recognised.
We might be slightly biased, but we think we have some incredible people here at Pest Solutions and having Chloe, Iain and Max individually shortlisted alongside three company finalist nominations is another great reflection of the culture they have all helped us build.
Whatever happens on the night, we are delighted just to be involved and look forward to catching up with friends and fellow Pest Professionals from right across the industry.
Congratulations again to every business and individual shortlisted for the National Pest Awards 2026 and we will see you all in London!!
Fancy a Career With an Award Winning Pest Control Company?
If you are looking for a fun and rewarding career where no two days are quite the same, perhaps you could be the next award winning Pest Professional to join the Pest Solutions team.
We are always interested in meeting great people who want to learn, develop and become the very best they can be, so keep an eye out for the latest Pest Solutions vacancies and opportunities to join our growing team.
