The South West’s vibrant food, drink, and hospitality sector is celebrating a significant achievement, with two of its prominent players, Butcombe Group and Hall & Woodhouse, earning prestigious recognition as “The Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2025. This dual accolade underscores a regional commitment to fostering exceptional workplace cultures and prioritising employee well-being, setting a high benchmark for the industry.
For Butcombe Group, a market-leading business with over 120 pubs and inns and employing over 1,800 people across the South West and Channel Islands, this marks their debut on the esteemed list. Their recognition celebrates outstanding workplace culture, employee satisfaction, and forward-thinking leadership within the hospitality sector. To qualify, Butcombe excelled across six key areas: how they reward and recognise their team, instilling pride, information sharing, empowering teams, team member wellbeing, and job satisfaction.
Butcombe Group People Director, Cat Moseley, expressed the company’s delight, stating: “We’re thrilled to be recognised as one of the top workplaces in hospitality. At Butcombe, we’ve always known that great beer and food, and fantastic pubs start with brilliant people. This award reflects the passion and commitment of our entire team, and our continued efforts to create a supportive and positive culture. It’s fantastic to see their hard work acknowledged. By staying closely connected with our teams and listening to their feedback, we’ve been able to make meaningful improvements across the business that help us build our culture and to recognise and reward our brilliant teams.” The company’s strategy has consistently focused on its people, investing in diverse training and development programmes, from wine champions to apprenticeships, and their own internal learning management system.
Meanwhile, Hall & Woodhouse, the family-owned brewer and pub company with approximately 150 pubs across the south and their brewery in Blandford, Dorset, has achieved this national recognition for the second consecutive year. Featuring on The Sunday Times Best Places to Work in the ‘big companies’ list, their continued success is a testament to their deep-rooted values. The results for these awards are compiled through comprehensive team member surveys, measuring critical aspects such as employee experience, reward and recognition, job satisfaction, and wellbeing.
Dean Livesey, Director of Great Place to Work at Hall & Woodhouse, highlighted the significance of this repeated success: “We are thrilled to feature on The Sunday Times Best Places to Work list for the second year running. Being a values-led business, our team is central to everything we do. This award confirms our team feel valued and a part of the Hall & Woodhouse family, something we continuously strive for. We have built on the foundations we laid out in the previous year to become an even better employer, and I’m delighted to have achieved this goal. It is imperative to us as a business that Hall & Woodhouse remains a great place to work for generations to come.”
The importance of these accolades was further elaborated by Zoe Thomas, editor of The Sunday Times Best Places to Work, who commented: “The Sunday Times Best Places to Work list is the UK’s biggest survey of employee engagement, compiled in partnership with workplace expert WorkL. Spanning a raft of sectors and located throughout the UK, the organisations in this year’s list range from innovative start-ups with a handful of employees to big multinational corporations staffed by thousands. These organisations know that happy employees are the superpower helping them thrive.”
The dual recognition of Butcombe Group and Hall & Woodhouse not only brings significant prestige to these individual companies but also elevates the reputation of the South West as a region committed to ethical and supportive employment practices within the food, drink, and hospitality industries. In a sector where staff retention and satisfaction are paramount, these awards serve as a powerful indicator of sustainable growth and a positive working environment, inspiring other businesses in the region to follow suit.
