Video Q&A: Ben Davison, Axiologik, UK IT Industry Awards finalist

'The industry needs recognise that larger doesn't always mean safer'

Ben Davison, CIO & CTO, Axiologik, tells us about his company's work this year, which helped Axiologik reach the final stages of the UK IT Industry Awards.

The UK IT Industry Awards are the largest and most well-known event in the technology industry calendar. Owned and operated by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, and Computing, the awards enjoy an unrivalled level of professionalism and industry knowledge.

This year's winners will be announced at a live awards ceremony on Wednesday 12^th November in London.

Axiologik is a finalist in two categories: Services Company of the Year and Team of the Year.

We talked to founder and CIO Ben Davison to find out more.

Ben is a CIO, CTO and transformation leader by background. He specialises in delivery of large-scale, nationally significant digital transformation programmes and is an recognised industry-leader in establishment of high performance digital organisations.

Ben was instrumental to the NHS's digital response to COVID, having led many of the NHS's national systems during the pandemic. Using these experiences, he now advises organisations on how to deliver modern, user-centric systems at pace, often in challenging circumstances.

Outside work, Ben is a keen cyclist but mostly spends his time ferrying his two children to sports clubs.

Why do you think awards like the UK IT Industry Awards matter?

Awards like the UK IT Awards matter because they give a platform and a showcase to highlight the amazing work that newer, smaller, often more nimble organisations have done over the course of the last year.

They also help to stimulate innovation in the marketplace by giving external recognition to organisations and helping them into conversations that typically they wouldn't have been invited into beforehand.

I think lastly they also act as an important vehicle to celebrate the work that your organisation has done, but also to celebrate how the state of the industry is evolving and to give your organisation and everyone else's something to aspire to over the coming year.

What would winning this award mean to your company?

We're a small business that specialises in delivering those hard and complex digital transformation programmes. Those are the types of programmes that often go wrong, and we help to get them right first time.

We've delivered some amazing things in our eight years, like setting up a Covid vaccination service and delivering a cervical cancer screening service for the NHS. Often these programmes are relentless, they're hard work, they're kind of difficult to achieve. So, winning this award will give us some recognition and validation for the hard work that we do every day.

What would you say is your company's proudest achievement over the past year?

I think we have two: the first is helping to get live the cervical cancer screening service for the NHS, which is a large and complex programme that has a rather chequered past. We were asked to help turn that programme around, which we did and successfully brought live in 2025.

As a result of our hard work, leadership and the technical services we provide, up to 5,000 people every year now [will be able to access cervical cancer screening] I’m pleased to say, that's a result of the work that we've done and we're very proud of that impact.

The second thing is we're extremely proud to have been awarded B Corp certification in 2025. We sincerely believe in the power of technology to do good but also the importance of being good humans, and being awarded B Corp certification shows that we're on the right path.

What have been the biggest challenges of 2025 so far and how have you overcome them? How have your people helped with that?

I think we were fortunate enough to win a very large contract with a prestigious partner that we work with regularly, which meant that we needed to significantly scale up our workforce in a short period of time. We pride ourselves on the calibre of the people that we provide and that's what our partners rely upon us for.

Changing the size and shape of our workforce significantly in such a short period was quite a daunting task for us to achieve, and we're really proud of the fact, of how everybody mucked in to help in terms of identifying people, helping to interview, helping to onboard.

What seemed like something quite daunting actually became a bit of a non-event. I think even more impressive is the fact that we managed to maintain, and in some cases improve, the positive culture in the organisation.

How do you think the industry has changed over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

Government is now forcing larger providers to include small and medium-sized enterprises in their supply chains, which is a really positive development, but it's still hard for those smaller organisations to get that direct client relationship with the leadership in the size and scale that they're looking for.

It's a bit like a chicken and egg situation: you need the size and scale experience directly with clients and if you can’t get it, it's hard to find.

So in terms of how the industry needs to evolve, I think the industry needs to be more conducive to using smaller and medium-sized enterprises, and to come to the recognition that larger doesn't always mean safer.

What do you see as the main opportunities for the industry in the coming year? How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?

We think there are three macroeconomic trends taking place. First is the rapid deterioration of the cybersecurity position; the second is organisations needing to do more in a tightening economic landscape; and thirdly is organisations needing to bust through the AI hype and deliver some tangible return on investment.

All these things come down to things that we specialise in – structures, architecture, fundamentals, ways of working – and to capitalise on these we plan on bringing specific products to market over the next 12 months.

The UK IT Industry Awards will take place on 12^th November in London. Click here to view the shortlist and here to book your table.