2026 JUDGES

Neil has 20 years experience in reward across a range of sectors including retail, financial services and tech. He is currently Head of Reward at Wickes plc having joined Wickes in 2021, and is responsible for the full reward agenda. In recent years Neil has specialised in executive remuneration in listed companies. He has led a number of award-winning benefits teams, and is a regular conference speaker, award judge and contributor to industry press. Neil has a particular passion for financial wellbeing, particularly in relation to pension awareness.

Neil McCawley was VP of Group Reward at RS Group from January 2024 until the end of June 2025, where he was responsible for all aspects of Reward. Before that he spent 9 years as VP Total Reward for Ferguson plc primarily looking after Executive Compensation for Ferguson plc, and for his final 12 months he worked in both the US and UK covering the US Head of Reward role in addition to his own. Prior to that he was Head of Reward for Wolseley UK having joined them in 2007, where he looked after all aspects of reward and benefits for them. Before joining Wolseley, he spent three years at One Stop Stores looking after reward and benefits, having joined them after leaving Barclays Bank plc where he spent 21 years carrying out a variety of roles, his last one there was as Senior HR project manager.