July 13, 2026

Octopus Energy Wins Gold for Best Employee Centric Company at UKEXA 2026

By Becky Norman

Octopus Energy picked up two medals at the UK Employee Experience Awards 2026, taking gold for Best Employee Centric Company and silver for Best Place to Work at the ceremony held at Park Plaza Riverbank, London, on 9 July.

Speaking to CXM on the night, Callum McMillan, Account Manager, and Dharmesh Odedra, Regional Finance Manager, pointed to a consistent thread running through both wins: the belief that employee experience and customer experience cannot be separated. “It’s always about that employee experience and what we can do to enhance it to then better our customers’ goals,” said McMillan, reflecting on five years with the company.

Odedra framed it as a loop rather than a linear cause and effect. Keep employees happy, and they make customers happy; happy customers, in turn, reinforce a positive culture internally. It is a simple model, but one that a growing body of research backs up – organisations that invest seriously in employee experience tend to see it reflected in customer satisfaction and retention.

Watch the full interview with Octopus Energy.

For EX and CX leaders watching from outside Octopus Energy, the win is a reminder that the two disciplines are rarely competing priorities. The strongest cultures tend to be the ones that stop treating them as separate scorecards altogether.