CEO Blog: Celebrating a Successful Year and Looking Forward to 2026

2025 has emphasised not only a maturing eoa, but the employee owned sector at large. In his final blog of the year, our Chief Executive James de le Vingne looks back at a watershed year and teases all the exciting things we’ve got planned for the next twelve months.

Image: James de le Vingne, CEO of the eoa

I’m enormously proud to be part of this sector. But when it came to writing this blog, I couldn’t believe just how much we’ve accomplished together over the last twelve months. Not to mention the major changes we’ve seen take place. 

Our collective response to the draft guidance – published in May after the 2024 Budget – and, more recently, the CGT changes (more on which below) has been swift, collaborative, and impactful. Despite these challenges, the EO sector has demonstrated its resilience and continues to grow. 

With the end of 2025 in sight, now’s the perfect time to take stock and look ahead at what’s certain to be another exciting and important year. 

Reduction of CGT Relief on EOTs

First up, there’s no getting around the reduction of Capital Gains Tax (CGT) relief on Employee Ownership Trusts (EOT) from 100% to 50% introduced in the Autumn Budget. 

Since the announcement – occurring during the final plenary session at the eoa Annual Conference, no less – we’ve been busy working alongside our members and Specialist Advisors, and consulting with government. 

It continues to be a live issue. We’re responding on behalf of our members and meeting with Government to get clarity and advocate on behalf of the sector. 

Make sure you’re active over on the eo Hub and follow the eoa on LinkedIn to stay in the loop with all the latest updates.

Launch of the UK EO Growth Strategy

Speaking of the conference, Day Two saw us introduce the UK Employee Ownership Growth Strategy.

You can explore the strategy by visiting our dedicated webpages, but the headline is that this is the eoa’s most ambitious strategic campaign yet. 

Currently supported by our Principal Partners John Lewis Partnership, Mott MacDonald, and Gripple, we’re aiming to grow the UK’s total number of EO businesses to 7,500 – with a stretch goal of 10,000 – over the next five years.

Early signs are that, even with reduced reliefs, EOTs remain attractive and this goal remains firming in our sights. 

In 2026, we’ll be focussing on convening our steering group to help define and scope priorities. You’ll have the chance to feed in with our member survey. So, keep your eyes peeled in January when we’ll share the survey with all our members. 

A Bumper Year in EO Policy

Unsurprisingly, it’s been a big year in the EO policy space, beginning in January with Government acting on EOT legislation following eoa advocacy. This was followed up in April with HMRC publishing its guidance on the legislative changes to EOTs. At the time, the eoa acknowledged undeniable progress, but flagged key ambiguities that gave us cause for concern. 

It kicked off what has been a dramatic year for the EOT as it entered its second decade.

In June, I represented  the eoa at an invitation-only reception for co-operatives and mutuals at No.10 Downing Street alongside a few individuals from eoa member businesses. Here, Government reaffirmed its manifesto commitment to double the size of the sector (which includes employee ownership). 

It can’t be overstated the importance of EO finally having this anchor in Government with the mutuals target. We’re also seeing a greater number of local commitments. All this has helped paved the way to our sector-wide Growth Strategy (as explored above).

The eoa also co-authored  the ‘People Powered Care’ white paper published by Care England exploring EO succession as a catalyst to help retain employees and capacity in the care sector. 

Bringing the eoa Community Together

We’ve had a tremendous run of eoa events over the last year. From inspiring ‘How to Become Employee Owned’ webinars to bringing the community together with our regional EO Exchanges.

We also had the privilege of welcoming highly respected EO academic Professor Joseph Blasi from the US to present this year’s Robert Oakeshott Lecture. Joseph called for a societal shift to put people at the heart of the economy. The fact I’m still hearing people talk about Jospeh’s rallying cry for more data and further evolution of the models we rely on months later shows how much it resonated. 

Elsewhere, employee owners up and down the country proudly shared their EO Smile as part of this year’s EO Day celebration. 

Then, of course, we had the eoa Annual Conference 2025. You can already read the takeaways we’ve collated, so I won’t repeat myself here. But it truly felt like a watershed moment and a timely reminder that we’re building the foundations for a better, kinder economy.

Celebrating 2025’s UK EO Award Winners

If you attended the conference, you’ll have seen this year’s UK EO Award winners crowned live in person. We’ll be continuing to celebrate our winners in the months to come as we gear up for the next evolution of the awards. 

It’s never easy selecting winners and it’s only got harder year on year. My fellow judges and I really had our work cut out for us this time around, and there were some truly difficult decisions to make.

But I’m absolutely thrilled the winners have all been revealed and presented with awards in recognition of their effective employee ownership practices, Great EO impacts, and their tangible contributions to the sector. 

The awards will continue to play an important role in celebrating EO excellence . Nominations for the 2026 awards opens in Q1, so keep your eyes peeled! 

Welcoming New EOBs to the Sector

Although the rate of EO transitions has experienced a slowdown compared to 2024, figures are still ahead of forecasts. 

As of writing, we estimate 400 businesses will have transitioned to EO in 2025. That includes major retailer The Entertainer in a move that helps preserve British high streets. 

We were also thrilled to see Be Caring, the UK’s largest EO social care provider, join The Entertainer in becoming an eoa Trustee member, while Paradigm Norton Financial Planning became our first Specialist Advisor from the finance world.

A Growing eoa Membership

It’s not only sector growth afoot. We’ve seen a similar rise in eoa members. In fact, hundreds of new members joined the eoa over the last twelve months. It’s a broad cross-section of businesses that range from those with a handful of staff to high street heavy hitters like the aforementioned Entertainer.

The beating heart of this community is without doubt the eo Hub. It’s where thousands of employee owners, EO advisors, those exploring EO, and those with decades of sector experience under their belt come together and anchor the important conversations all year round. 

Whether you want to share a resource, offer insight, or ask a burning EO question, the eo Hub is the place to be. The fact there’s no other resource like this anywhere else on the web is only the cherry on the cake.

Evolving the eoa

The eoa has undergone a major evolution over the last few years. It began last year with the launch of our new brand, website, and improved eo Hub. That continued into 2025 with a restructure and a newly focussed vision and mission. 

Those changes brought us two new directors in the form of Wendy Carter, Director of Partnerships & Growth, and John Beattie, who became Director of Membership and Operations, as well as welcoming new team members while existing staff  took on new roles internally. Head over to our staff page to see what makes us smile!

John also took over as co-chair of the eoa Membership Council (EMC) alongside GLIDE’s Michael Hodgson. 

Since then, we’ve welcomed a variety of new EMC members to strengthen connections across our community and support more businesses to thrive on their EO journeys.

The eoa Board has also evolved, and updated articles will be coming to members at our AGM taking place in May.

It’s all resulted in a reinvigorated, more focussed eoa that can better serve the sector. It also ensured we had everything we need in place to begin work on the UK EO Growth Strategy.

Growth Across Great Britain & Beyond

Lastly, we’ve experienced tremendous EO growth across the UK. We’ve seen the launch of Employee Ownership Ireland (EOI), dedicated to growing the nascent Northern Irish EO sector. 

Wales, meanwhile, celebrated a key milestone after hitting 100 EO businesses. And Scotland this year launched the EDG , while the eoa joined the Inclusive and Democratic Business Models Alliance in Scotland to share evidence and intelligence, champion pluralism, and collaborate on practical actions that grow impact across Scotland. 

We’re also a founding member of the International EO Federation and are supporting work to introduce EOT legislation in the Republic of Ireland alongside our International Ambassador Graeme Nuttall and Alan Coleman, CEO of Ireland’s first ever EOT, Wolfgang Digital.

What’s Coming in 2026

We’ll be building on all this momentum for what’s shaping up to be the biggest year in employee ownership. 

For the eoa, this includes further policy work. We’ll also be exploring capital instruments and new EO models to ensure greater flexibility and long-term sustainability. 

Moreover, we’ll be developing the Independent Trustee role. That’s to say nothing of our new eo Learn curriculum, providing even more courses tailored exclusively to the sector, and our revised events programme. 

So, whether it’s eo LIVE! bringing the UK EO Awards together with EO Day for a fantastic in-person event, a regional live event taking place in October, or a host of targeted online discussions based around key EO communities and themes, there’s plenty to look forward to. Just head over to our events page to find out more.

I’ve already mentioned the Growth Strategy several times already. But I believe that we’ll look back at the next five years as when employee ownership truly became mainstream. We’re all making history and working towards a future we can own together.

It’s been such a bumper year in EO that I was never going to fit it all in one blog post. But you can reach out to me in the eo Hub, on LinkedIn, drop me an email, or come have a chat at one of our upcoming events. Until then, have a wonderful festive period.