ETIH Innovation Awards: EdTech Company of the Year (UK) shortlist reflects sector-wide impact
UK-based platforms show how edtech is responding to real pressures across schools, colleges, and training providers.
The ETIH Innovation Awards 2026 category spotlight series continues with EdTech Company of the Year (UK), following more than 140 entries submitted across this year’s awards and highlighting the depth of innovation across the UK market.
This category recognizes UK-based edtech companies demonstrating strong performance, product development, and measurable impact across education, with winners set to be announced on May 11.
Where UK edtech is tested against real sector demand
This category focuses on how companies are responding to the specific needs of the UK education system. Submissions include platforms supporting schools, further education, higher education, and workforce learning, often shaped by curriculum requirements, funding pressures, and policy changes.
Judges are assessing whether innovation translates into adoption. This includes how widely products are used across UK institutions, how effectively they integrate into existing workflows, and whether they deliver measurable improvements in learning, engagement, or efficiency.
There is also scrutiny on consistency and sustainability. Strong entries demonstrate not only growth but retention, alongside clear evidence that solutions continue to deliver value over time. At the same time, companies are expected to show how they adapt to the realities of the UK sector rather than relying on models that work elsewhere.
Finalists
Chalkie.ai is an AI platform that helps teachers create curriculum-aligned lessons resources in minutes instead of hours. Chalkie works worldwide and can align lessons to curriculums for America, Australia, UK, Ireland, Spain, Argentina and many more. In the first 12 months since launching, Chalkie has had over 500,000 teacher sign-ups, 40,000+ paying subscribers, 5 million+ lessons resources generated, getting $3.5M ARR in record time. Chalkie is addressing one of education’s biggest challenges: teacher burnout, while helping schools improve consistency, efficiency, and access to better teaching materials at scale. Teachers describe Chalkie as 'Magic' and 'life changing' because the of the quality of lesson resources it can produce.
Tom Reynolds, a post-BA-diagnosed dyslexic and ‘Great British Entrepreneur of the Year’ finalist, is a passionate advocate for equitable and inclusive education. With over 20 years’ teaching and school leadership experience, Tom founded EdenFiftyOne - an award-winning technology platform deconstructing literacy into 51 universal skills. As a UK Education Advisor and university teacher-training lecturer, Tom bridges the gap between classroom practice and digital innovation. Central to the EdenFiftyOne platform and to Tom’s mission is ‘EFO’: a pedagogical AI assistant designed to democratize literacy skills education, providing teachers, leaders, learners, and parents with a technology-driven solution to level the literacy playing field.
Learning by Questions (LbQ) empowers teachers to teach smarter, not harder. By combining automated marking, adaptive learning, retrieval practice, and real-time diagnostics, LbQ reduces workload, strengthens pedagogy, and supports teacher wellbeing. Its flagship subscription for KS2, Wayfinder, provides actionable insights, helping teachers quickly identify misconceptions, group pupils, and plan targeted interventions.
Across 1,500 schools, 260 trusts and several LAs, over 2,000 teachers engage with LbQ weekly, generating 8.5 million pieces of pupil feedback, with 94% renewal rate. Grounded in research and designed with educators, LbQ integrates into daily teaching, making evidence-informed pedagogy practical, sustainable, and empowering for every teacher.
Learning with Experts is an Oxford-based digital education company that has built a platform delivering completion rates above 80% in a sector where the average is 15 to 20%. Founded in 2015, it provides expert-led, cohort-based programmes across health, horticulture and professional development, alongside NHS preventative health programmes delivered to patients across the UK. More than 100,000 learners globally. NHS partnerships in Hertfordshire, Devon and beyond. Built by eleven people in Oxford.
Medly AI Ltd is a UK EdTech company founded by Dr Paul Jung and Dr Kavi Samra, two doctors from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who left medicine to democratise education. Three products serve the full learning journey: Medly Exams (secondary), Medly Open (university), and a Teacher Dashboard (educators). With 300,000 signups and 3x growth in six months, 74.1% of 2025 GCSE students improved by at least one grade. The company partners with UK schools, provides free access in deprived areas, runs free nationwide mock exams, and operates a bursary scheme for students who cannot afford a subscription.
Synap is an online learning and assessment platform, originally developed to help medical students prepare for exams through small, frequent, personalised practice. That concept has since expanded significantly, including through a collaboration with the University of Law that has transformed how law students prepare for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination. Synap embeds itself into students' daily learning through practice questions, spaced learning, and personalised feedback, sitting alongside formal diagnostics and mock exams. Behind the scenes, a powerful predictive model gives tutors early warnings of which students need support, enabling timely intervention throughout the course.
Explore the full shortlist
You can explore the full ETIH Innovation Awards 2026 shortlist to see the companies and platforms shaping this year’s awards. Winners will be announced on May 11.
