Steven Jackson OBE

Steven Jackson has spent his whole working life in British industry. It began in 1979 in his father’s scrap yard in Preston, and he has kept a connection to the metals trade ever since. In 1989 he started trading personalised number plates, which set him on more than thirty years in the motor business.

He tends to move early. In 1995 he launched one of the country’s first internet providers, and in 1996 he set up Domains.co.uk and incorporated New Reg Limited, the company that still sits at the heart of the group today.

Away from motoring he founded the Recycling Lives charity in 2006 and built it as a social business: a commercial operation with social impact at its core, working alongside an independent charity and funding its work directly. Several social enterprises owned by the charity trade not for profit in support of its aims. The charity grew into a large national operation and earned four Queen’s Awards for Enterprise over the following decade. In 2026, at the board’s request, he led its rebrand, and it continues its work today as Onward Lives.

He has also seen life inside a public-facing organisation, serving as a director and then chief executive of Preston North End Football Club between 2002 and 2006.

His work has been widely recognised. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2013 for services to employment and the community in Lancashire. He was named EY UK Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019 and represented the United Kingdom at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year awards in 2020. In 2026 Car.co.uk, part of the group, received a King’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category.

These days he builds. He works hands on across the group’s websites and leads the development of Garage.co.uk, bringing the same attention to detail to software that he has brought to everything else. The standards behind fuel.co.uk come from that same approach: fast, accurate and free of clutter.