Five of Fourteen: Wales Cleans Up at the VOX Awards, and 5FM’s Voice Wins in Johannesburg

It’s been a big week for voiceover trophies. In Britain, the VOX Awards named their 2026 winners and Welsh voices took five of the fourteen awards on offer. In South Africa, the second South African Voiceover Awards crowned the voice of youth radio station 5FM for the best commercial performance on radio. This piece is for working voiceover artists who want to know who won, what they won it for, and what their winning work says about where the jobs are.

Here’s the short version. The winners’ work runs from video games and audiobooks to football presentations, live award shows and radio imaging. Almost none of it is the classic “big announcer voice” people picture when they hear the word voiceover. Below are the details, and our read on what you can take from them.

Wales takes five

The VOX Awards, now in their 32nd year, recognise performances across the professional voiceover industry. Nation.Cymru reported on 15 October that four performers with Welsh roots or homes took six awards between them, and three Welsh voice actors alone collected five of the fourteen.

The biggest winner was Phil Rowe, a voice actor, writer and audio producer from Ystalyfera in the Swansea Valley. He won three: Male Voiceover Performance of the Year, Best Human Performance in a Corporate Production, and the Judges’ Choice Award. The male performance award was for his body of work over the previous twelve months, which took in video games, corporate videos, a podcast and audio drama.

“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 said. Two of his awards came from the same project, a concept presentation for the FA Cymru Premier, made with the Cardiff firm CREO. “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,” he said.

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.

Nikki Mills, Phil Rowe and Jess Nesling at the 2026 VOX Awards. Image: Jo Robbens Photography, courtesy of VOX Events Ltd

A first audiobook, and a live show

Bridgend’s Nikki Mills won Best Audiobook Performance for The Caldey Island Murders, the first in a Pembrokeshire murder mystery series by Steve and Margarita Morris, who write together as MS Morris. Here’s the detail every aspiring narrator should underline: 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.”

The fourth winner with South Wales connections was Emily Jardine, who took Best Human Performance in Live Events for the Siena Awards 2025, produced by Francesco Marino. She’s worked for fifteen years with brands including L’Oréal, Bentley and Starbucks, and recently moved to Bridgend, where she had a recording studio built beside her house. She’s named it Elizabooth. “The directors gave me so much creative freedom with the tone too, and I poured my heart and soul into the performance,” she said.

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Every category says “human”

Look down the list of 2026 categories on the VOX Events site and one word keeps turning up. Best Human Performance in an Audio Only Broadcast. Best Human Performance in Gaming. Best Human Performance in an Audiobook. Best Human Performance in Animation. It’s a small piece of wording that says a lot about the year voiceover is having.

The other category winners make a useful map of where the work is. Anthony Hewson won for audio only broadcast with “Be the mate who listens”. Isabella Inchbald won gaming for Dying Light: The Beast. Helen Mackay won audio drama for This Thing of Darkness series 4, from BBC Audio Scotland. Sam Hughes won animation for “This is ARC Raiders”. Ian Brannan won the in store and IVR category with an ASDA in store spot for Yorkshire Tea, and Nathaniel Priestley won e-learning and medical narration. Matthew Barnard was named Producer of the Year.

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In store radio, phone systems, corporate presentations, e-learning and live events don’t make headlines. They do pay a lot of voiceover artists’ bills, and it’s good to see them sitting right next to games and audio drama on the same awards night.

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Meanwhile in Johannesburg

The second South African Voiceover Awards were held on 10 October at the Indaba Hotel in Fourways, Johannesburg, and winners have been sharing their news ever since. The awards were founded by Sinemivuyo “Sine” Mpulu, a voiceover artist, MC and content creator. This year they added sign language categories, and they planned a posthumous honour for the late actor Meme Ditshego in the Radio Drama Performer (Legacy) category.

Media Update reported on 16 October that Brionne Olsen, the station voice of 5FM, won Best Commercial Voiceover Performance for radio. Olsen is 5FM’s radio imaging specialist, which means he shapes how the whole station sounds between the songs: concept, script, sound design, recording, mixing and mastering. He joined 5FM in 2011 after working as a station producer and sound engineer, and he also makes imaging for stations in the United States through Benztown Branding.

His 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,” he said.

Brionne Olsen with his award. Image: 5FM

What the winners have in common

Read the winning entries side by side and a few things stand out. None of them is about having the deepest voice in the room. They’re about range, and about doing a specific job very well.

Accent and place are an asset, not something to hide. Nesling won with Welsh accent work in a game. Mills won narrating a mystery set in Pembrokeshire, where she’s from. If you have a real regional accent, our guide to learning accents from the vowels up works just as well in reverse: know your own accent well enough to switch it on and off at will.

Your first job in a genre can be your best. Mills had never narrated a full length book before. If audiobooks are on your list, our working guide to audiobook narration covers what a first book really involves.

Collaboration wins. Rowe credited a local creative agency. Jardine credited her directors. Olsen’s job is half voice and half production. The voiceover artists who get remembered tend to be the ones who make the whole team look good, not just their own takes.

And the unglamorous work counts. Corporate, in store, e-learning and live events all had winners. If that’s most of your diary, you’re in good company. Our look at what a radio ad award means for voiceover artists makes a similar point about thirty second spots.

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Our take

Awards are a small world, and nobody books a voiceover artist because of a certificate on the wall. But this week’s winners are a good snapshot of the real voiceover business in 2026. It’s regional, it’s varied, and a lot of it happens in home studios with names like Elizabooth. It’s also proudly human, right down to the category names.

Congratulations to every winner in Britain and South Africa. If you’ve been sitting on a piece of work you’re proud of, keep an eye out for next year’s entry dates. Even if you don’t win, it’s a good excuse to look back at your year and see how much ground you’ve covered.

Sources: “Welsh voice actors sweep the board at prestigious awards”, Nation.Cymru, 15 October 2026; “VOX Awards 2026”, VOX Events; “5FM’s Brionne Olsen Wins Best Commercial Voiceover Performance”, Media Update, 16 October 2026; “Meme Ditshego to be honoured posthumously at SA Voiceover Awards”, TimesLIVE, 3 September 2026; “The 2nd Annual South African Voiceover Awards 2026”, APVA.