We’d like to extend our sincere thanks to all the teams who took part in this year’s itSMF UK Challenge Cup. It’s been a pleasure watching the heats unfold, and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the energy, enthusiasm, and competitive spirit on display. The feedback we’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re delighted that the event continues to be such a valued experience.
A special thank you goes to Henry Strouts and Jason McClay from SXP for providing the simulation platform and expertly facilitating the heats. Here’s what they had to say about this year’s competition:
“Once again, we have loved working with the itSMF UK to deliver this year’s Challenge Cup, which has been the closest run contest yet. This year we were delighted to use our new business simulation, ‘TransformSM’, that focuses on the implementation of high level ITSM strategies to improve IT and business performance.”
“Every team came to the heats with game faces on and competed fiercely, having fun while demonstrating their ability to analyse and interpret the data in front of them and collaborate to make the best possible IT Service Management decisions for their business in the simulation: driving innovation and growth, improving IT stability and availability, driving support costs down, and improving customer and employee experience. Ultimately, the winning team were deserved winners, performing most consistently across all the phases of the simulation – congratulations to them on an outstanding performance!”
Alongside the learning experience, there was of course a competitive element and we’re delighted to announce the organisation with the top score, and winner of the 2025 Challenge Cup, is:

Upon hearing the news, Team Captain Julia Veal commented, “We absolutely loved taking part in the 2025 Challenge Cup as it created an interesting knowledge challenge across the ITSM disciplines, sparked lots of debate and we had great fun during the event. We hope to come back next year and defend our title”.
Julia and the team will be presented with their trophy at the PSMA25 awards dinner on the 10 November. The team nominated the ‘Breast Cancer Now‘ to receive the £1,000 charity donation prize – a very worthy cause!
With such amazing feedback, watch this space for the 2026 announcement! If you can’t wait that long, and would like to have a dedicated delivery of the SXP simulation for your organisation, please contact us to discuss your requirements and pricing etc.
Tracking the performance of the top 3 teams – so close!

itSMF UK
itSMF UK is the country’s leading membership association for service management professionals – with members ranging from individual service management practitioners to large multi-national organisations.
We have spent the last three decades helping ITSM professionals both to be better and to do better. As the first of an international network of itSMF chapters, we continue to enrich the working lives of our members through our conference and events, professional guidance, focused content, annual awards, competency management, leadership council, member groups, and new communities of practice.
View our membership video or visit us at www.itsmf.co.uk