CyberFirst Awards 2025 – A Night to Remember!

We kicked off CYBERUK25 in style with a fantastic evening at the CyberFirst Awards 2025, held this year in Manchester. It was a brilliant night of celebration, connection, and recognition for the amazing work happening across the UK in cyber education and industry.

A huge congratulations to Nik Kelsey, Ben McIvor, and Jon Holden on your well-deserved awards - you’ve made the North East incredibly proud. Special shout-out to James Duncan and the team at Microsoft for their outstanding contribution, and to Jon Holden again for his continued commitment to CyberFirst in the North East through his work with Atom bank.

There was also a proud teacher moment when Nik Kelsey and Ben McIvor ran into a former student—now thriving in the CyberFirst Bursary Programme - a real reminder of why we do what we do.

To top it all off, Kings Priory were honoured to receive the Most Innovative/Novel Supporter Award for our work on Operation Enigma - a true highlight of the evening!

Thank you to everyone we connected with on the night, and here’s to more exciting opportunities and collaboration throughout CYBERUK25. Although our focus is always on impact rather than recognition the team and are incredibly grateful to receive the award from the National Cyber Security Centre.

It feels particularly important being so close to the 80th anniversary of VE Day to say we truly hope our work with Enigma honours the memory of all those who served our country and its allies during World War 2, whether within intelligence or the armed and civilian forces.