How many people win awards each year? How likely am I to win? Which Honour is most awarded? Are OBEs awarded more than MBEs? We’ll try and answer these commonly asked questions on the statistics and data of the Queen’s Honours system – and more.
Here at Bayleaf Honours, we don’t like to do guesswork. We only use facts, whether that is in preparing your nomination or in publishing statistics. Unless otherwise stated, all the statistics and data stated below are for the period 2015-2019 and are taken from the Government Report on the Operation of the Honours System for that period (the 4th such report.)
Between 2015 and 2019, just under 10 thousand honours were granted (9,929 to be exact). That is five years or ten Honours Lists (Queen’s Birthday and New Year’s) so around 1000 honours per list or 2000 per year.
It varies a little bit – there are no quotas, but the thresholds and criteria for each Honour are such that the numbers are pretty consistent every year.
In each Honours list of approximately 1000 people (remember, two lists per year), there are
270 British Empire Medals (27%)
400 MBEs (40%)
200 OBEs (20%)
90 CBEs (9%)
40 Knight/Dame-hoods or above (4%)
Maybe surprisingly, pretty close to representative of society at large. 49% of recipients were women between 2015 and 2019. (It is worth stating that at the more senior Honours levels, the percentage of female recipients decreases.)
This is an area we are passionate about, and the answer is clearly “No”. Whether it be racial, disability or LGBT+, the percentage of recipients over the period lags the estimates of society as a whole – with 8.6%, 3% and 6.4% respectively. (This is one reason why we work hard to expand our client base to include these groups. Establishment of high-profile recipients from minority groups can only be good for developing role models for upcoming generations.)
Yes – the Government is actively targeting recipients who have contributed to their community or engaged in voluntary work. Through the period, 72% of recipients were recognised for community / voluntary work (although that figure jumps to 87% at OBE / BEM ranks – meaning that more senior Honours are given for other activity).
The system is certainly more transparent than ever before. 84% of the awarded Honours come through the Prime Minister’s Office (the remaining 16% go to Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence – sometimes for hardship postings or senior ranks where Honours have traditionally been granted “automatically”).
The Cabinet Office receives 3500 applications/nominations from the public each year (around 1/3 of them online – our preferred route.) The remainder of the recipients come from internal recommendations – from government departments, civil service, emergency services, non-governmental organisations, charity, sport, entertainment or public figures.
OK – so the maths is simple. There are 2000 recipients a year and 3500 nominations per year, so it’s a 57% success rate, right? Wrong! Most of those recipients have been selected by government or civil service departments and they didn’t “apply”, they just won.
In truth, we don’t know. The Government don’t publish statistics on this. Some of our competitors claim that the average is 10% – meaning that of 3500 public applicants, 350 are successful, or 17.5% of the total number of recipients are from the public.
That sounds reasonable, but we prefer to know. We have filed a Freedom of Information request to ask for that data to be made public and of course, we will post it here if we get it.
We don’t like to talk in percentage chances to our clients. It’s a bit misleading to say that our success rate applies to you. Your successful award is more dependent on your accomplishments than it is on our work.
What you should always bear in mind is that more applications are unsuccessful (a LOT more) than are successful – so if you want to do everything you can to tilt the chances in your favour, we are here to help and advise. You can also use our Self-Assessment tool to quickly see if you might be eligible for an Honour.
Bayleaf Honours is a commercial entity with no connection to the British Government, the Cabinet Office or the Honours Committees. No ability to influence the process in a client's favour through lobbying or access is claimed or implied.
Trading as Bayleaf Solutions Ltd., UK Company Number 11876561. Registered Office : International House, 61 Mosley Street, Manchester. M2 3HZ
All content Copyright Bayleaf 2020.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.