Wales Wins Five of 14 VOX Awards, and South Africa Crowns Its Voices
Welsh voice actors took five of the fourteen 2026 VOX Awards, with Phil Rowe winning three on his own. In Johannesburg, the second South African Voiceover Awards crowned 5FM’s station voice and a Disney animation lead. Here’s every winner, and what their work says about where voice over jobs are.
It’s been a big week for voice over trophies. The VOX Awards, now in their 32nd year, recognise performances across the professional voice over industry in Britain. Nation.Cymru reported on 15 October that four performers with Welsh roots or homes took six awards between them. In South Africa, the second South African Voiceover Awards were held on 10 October at the Indaba Hotel in Johannesburg, and the winners have been sharing their news all week.
Most of these awards weren’t won for blockbuster trailers. They were won for in-store radio, phone systems, e-learning, corporate presentations, a live awards show, a first audiobook and station imaging. That’s the everyday work that pays most voice actors’ bills.
Every 2026 VOX Awards winner
Here’s the full list from VOX Events, category by category.
- Male Voiceover Performance of the Year: Phil Rowe
- Female Voiceover Performance of the Year: Jess Nesling
- Judges’ Choice Award: Phil Rowe, for “FA Cymru Premier: Concept Presentation”, produced by CREO
- Best Human Performance in a Corporate Production: Phil Rowe, for the same FA Cymru Premier presentation
- Best Human Performance in an Audiobook: Nikki Mills, for “The Caldey Island Murders: A Pembrokeshire Murder Mystery”, produced by Muhammad Nauman
- Best Human Performance in Live Events: Emily Jardine, for the Siena Awards 2025, produced by Francesco Marino
- Best Human Performance in an Audio Only Broadcast: Anthony Hewson, for “Be the mate who listens”, produced by On The Sly
- Best Human Performance on a Visual Broadcast: a tie between Alexandra Boulton, for Smart “Reconnect”, produced by Gideon Merz, and Jenny Mac, for a Lancashire Farm Dairies TV ad, produced by Lesley Dean
- Best Human Performance in Gaming: Isabella Inchbald, for “Dying Light: The Beast”, produced by Techland and Side
- Best Human Performance on IVR/In-Store: Ian Brannan, for an ASDA in-store spot for Yorkshire Tea, produced by Toby Huggins at Imagesound
- Best Human Performance on E-Learning/Medical Narration: Nathaniel Priestley, for the Ivoclar English version, produced by Loïc Thaler
- Best Human Performance in an Audio Drama or Podcast: Helen Mackay, for “This Thing of Darkness” series 4, produced by Kirsty Williams at BBC Audio Scotland
- Best Human Performance in Animation: Sam Hughes, for “This is ARC Raiders”, produced by Player One Stories
- Sayer Producer of the Year: Matthew Barnard
Look at the wording. Almost every category says “Best Human Performance”. In a year when synthetic voices are pitched to every client with a script, the industry’s own awards are making a point of who did the work.
Phil Rowe’s three-award night
Phil Rowe is a voice actor, writer and audio producer from Ystalyfera in the Swansea Valley. His Male Voiceover Performance of the Year award covered a year of work across video games, corporate videos, a podcast and audio drama. Two more came from one project, a concept presentation for the FA Cymru Premier made with the Cardiff agency CREO.
VoiceEditSuiteNewAuto Clean Up now learns how you breathe.Learns from numbers, never your audio. Never used to train AI.See how it works“I wouldn’t have dared to dream that I’d walk away from the VOX Awards with three awards, including Male Voiceover Performance of the Year and the Judges’ Choice Award. It’s still sinking in!” Rowe told Nation.Cymru.
He put the corporate win down to the team. “I think it demonstrates just what we can achieve when talented creatives come together, and how much potential there is to build a strong, successful creative industry right here on our own doorstep.”
Jess Nesling, who has roots in Swansea, won Female Voiceover Performance of the Year. Her entry included Welsh-accent character work as Voada in the video game Anno 117: Pax Romana. “I’ve never been in this for the awards, but it’s wonderful to have work I’m so passionate about recognised by people in the voice industry whom I admire and respect,” she said.
A first audiobook, and a winner
Bridgend’s Nikki Mills won Best Audiobook Performance for The Caldey Island Murders, the first book in a Pembrokeshire murder mystery series by Steve and Margarita Morris, who write as MS Morris. It was her first full-length audiobook.
“Though I work extensively across other genres of voice acting, this was my first full-length audiobook,” Mills said. “It just felt completely right that my first foray into such a challenging genre should be set in my homeland.”
That’s worth underlining for anyone who thinks narration is a closed shop. A voice actor with a strong range in other genres took on her first long-form book and won the category.
A live show, and a studio called Elizabooth
The fourth winner with South Wales links was Emily Jardine, who won Best Human Performance in Live Events for the Siena Awards 2025. She has spent fifteen years voicing for brands including Bentley, L’Oréal, Starbucks and McDonald’s, and recently moved to Bridgend.
“The directors gave me so much creative freedom with the tone too, and I poured my heart and soul into the performance,” Jardine said. She also has a purpose-built recording studio beside her house, “affectionately named Elizabooth!”
Meanwhile in Johannesburg
The South African Voiceover Awards were founded by Sinemivuyo “Sine” Mpulu and are run by The Voiceover Factory. This year’s event, the second, took place on 10 October.
5FM announced on 16 October that Brionne Olsen, the youth station’s voice and radio imaging specialist, won Best Commercial Voiceover Performance for radio. Olsen joined 5FM in 2011 and also produces imaging for stations in the United States through Benztown Branding.
Image: 5FM
The win came at a hard time. “Winning Best Commercial Voiceover Performance for Radio means so much to me, and receiving the award was an incredibly emotional moment, especially after losing my mom just four months ago. I dedicated the award to her, knowing how much it would have meant to share that moment with her,” Olsen said in the station’s announcement.
5FM’s business manager, Masi Mdingane, called him “a true soundsmith”.
Television presenter Candice Modiselle won Best Animation Voiceover Performance for voicing Alani in the Disney series Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, Bona reported. “While this work was released two years ago, it’s not lost on me what an honour it was to voice Alani,” she wrote.
Before the night, TimesLIVE reported that the late actor Meme Ditshego would receive a special posthumous recognition in a Radio Drama Performer (Legacy) category, and that the awards include sign language categories. “This year we’re going to be learning sign language live on stage,” Mpulu told the paper. A full list of 2026 winners hadn’t been published at the time of writing.
What the winners’ work tells working voice actors
Line up this week’s winners and the pattern is clear. An in-store spot for a tea brand. A medical e-learning narration. A corporate presentation for a football league. A live awards show. A radio station’s imaging. A first audiobook. These are the jobs most working voice actors book every month, and they’re the jobs the judges chose to celebrate.
There’s a second lesson in where the winners are. Ystalyfera, Bridgend, Swansea and Johannesburg aren’t media capitals. Home studios and good direction mean award-level work now comes from wherever the talent lives.
Congratulations to every winner. If you won and we’ve missed a detail, the Voice Over Herald newsroom would like to hear from you.
Sources: VOX Events, “VOX Awards 2026”; Nation.Cymru, “Welsh voice actors sweep the board at prestigious awards”, 15 October 2026; media update, “5FM’s Brionne Olsen Wins Best Commercial Voiceover Performance at the 2026 South African Voiceover Awards”, 16 October 2026; Bona, “Candice Modiselle wins big at South African Voiceover Awards”; TimesLIVE, “Meme Ditshego to be honoured posthumously at SA Voiceover Awards”, 3 September 2026. Images: Jo Robbens Photography, courtesy of VOX Events Ltd; 5FM; Nilfanion, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Lee este artículo en español: Gales gana cinco de los 14 VOX Awards y Sudáfrica premia a sus voces
Know something about this story, or spotted an error? Tell the newsroom.