FE First Awards 2025

Bluestorm are a full-service marketing agency, specialising in supporting colleges across the UK in every facet of their marketing. From expertly web development that engages and informs prospective students to dynamic student recruitment strategies, targeted keep-warm initiatives, eye-catching prospectus designs, and beyond, we’re dedicated to enhancing your institution’s presence.

Forward & Thinking are an experienced team of education marketing and media experts, working with over 50 higher and further education clients across the UK. Forward & Thinking understand the education landscape and pressures faced, particularly around funding, allocation of resources and recruitment targets, we work hard to ease these burdens by offering exceptional multi-channel campaigns that deliver results by expertly planning media that engage and convert audiences.

A well established web design, development, and marketing agency with a strong specialisation in the FE sector.

We’re a well-known name in college marketing, and we’re not scared to shout about it. Why? Because we design and build first-class college websites and apps.
Our team of seasoned account directors, designers and highly skilled web developers consistently go over and above what’s expected in the further education sector, delivering websites that push boundaries and achieve goals. We’ve built large scale powerful college websites with seamless integrations to MIS systems.

We are marketing experts with significant experience in the FE sector. We understand this sector from the inside out having worked for many years in roles from Marketing Management to Executive Team level. Using our combined knowledge of the FE sector along with our marketing expertise, we have worked with a number of colleges and learning providers to drive their marketing strategies forwards with clear focus and impact.

Pathways is a suite of career tools that help students see the link between your courses and careers. It brings high quality careers information into your website and shows prospective students and their parents possible career options after studying on your courses.
Pathways is an affordable solution, set up is easy, it requires no extra work from your IT team and helps fulfil Gatsby Benchmarks and Ofsted’s careers criteria.

A multi award-winning digital marketing agency with over 20 years in education marketing. We work collaboratively with each client, delivering award-winning digital strategy, brand development, websites, SEO and marketing campaigns that deliver commercial results.
Our Mission: to partner with ambitious education organisations that want to grow and use digital as a tool to maximise their return on their investment, and in doing so make a real positive impact to students lives. Our team of 28 are a powerful mix of strategist, creatives developers, data analysts, marketing consultants, and project managers bringing together the right skills, experience to deliver digital solutions that drive commercial results.

SDS are offline marketing specialists, working with clients to build lasting customer relationships and help engage new audiences.
Our customer acquisition campaign planning and delivery covers a range of print marketing channels – direct mail, door drops and inserts.
Our SMART data and targeting allows you to reach more of your ideal students with fewer items – better for your budget and for the environment.
Whatever your target audience, we can help deliver your brand directly into their hands and homes.

At Circyl we specialise in driving business excellence through expertly crafted Business Applications and Data & Analytics solutions. Our dedicated team of digital transformation consultants collaborates seamlessly with clients across diverse sectors to elevate productivity, efficiency, and long-term success. Our mission is to empower clients to strategically leverage technology for enhanced business performance. Through a meticulous, data-driven approach, we instil a culture of efficiency and collaboration. Our consultancy is distinguished by innovation, transparency, and a commitment to building enduring strategic partnerships. Join us on a journey where every investment yields tangible, positive business value, forging a path to sustained success.

Serpass Digital is a dedicated independent digital marketing agency focused on delivering measurable results. We strive to demystify digital marketing, offering full transparency into our methods and achievements. By prioritizing clarity and delivering tangible results, we foster trust and enhance value for our clients.

FE Marketing works with FE college marketing teams to help them identify which of their marketing activities are generating online applications, event registrations and course enquiries so they can do more of what is working and less of what is not.
The company was founded by Simon Connor in 2006 to help FE college marketing teams to gain greater insights 
from their website traffic and digital campaigns.
Since then we have helped over 150 FE college marketing teams to effectively evaluate their digital strategies and make data-driven marketing decisions to help achieve their student recruitment objectives.

Public Sector Media are a marketing and media agency who specialise in the education sector. We offer a one stop shop for every media format from out of home, audio streaming, digital and everything in between. We do this by ensuring we create powerful marketing campaigns across meaningful media formats. We offer new and unique formats to engage specific target audiences e.g. course specific recruitment to over-arching brand campaigns. We ensure your campaigns connect with the right people at the right time and deliver engagement and direct response.  

Transform how you manage student relationships with our intuitive, cost-effective CRM designed specifically for educational providers.
Whether you’re a small, medium, or specialist institution, our SaaS solution creates a single source of truth, streamlines communication, enhances engagement, simplifies data management and centralises all your marketing and recruitment needs—without the complexity (price and consultant need) of an enterprise system!
With quick implementation (<28 Days) and ongoing product updates, our CRM helps you hit the ground running with simple, easy-to-use, sector-specific technology loved by our partners & users.
Reach out to us to see how we can support your institution’s goals with a tool built specifically for your needs.

Next-Gen Media is fixing the communication problem within colleges. 
Their mission is to revolutionise the way in which education providers engage with their students by supplying, managing and maintaining commercial-grade digital screens for Colleges, entirely free of charge.
This is unique because the dual-purpose element means all of their partners can upload their own FE related content onto their screens through an easy-to-use content management portal. Their model is then supported by suitable advertisers who purchase the media space to share their exclusive student-focused discounts, well-being messages and employment opportunities with your students.