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Extraordinary people honoured

Anyone can be nominated for an honour but only exceptional people receive one. People from across the United Kingdom receive honours in recognition of outstanding achievement and service to society, including supporting Big Society projects.

People who received awards this year include fire station watch managers, a wine waiter, a cake and pastry maker, a school lunchtime supervisor and an optometrist.

Those honoured this year include people working in a wide variety of fields including academic research, relish making, environmental protection and care for the elderly.

A total of 965 people have been recommended to the Queen for an award. 74 per cent of these have received honours for doing outstanding work in their communities, making a real difference to people across the UK. Follow the link below for full details of those honoured.

• Queen's Birthday Honours List 2011 - full details

Download the full Honours Lists

Find out who has been honoured by downloading the lists below.

• Download the diplomatic service, overseas, military, police and fire lists (PDF, 107K)

• Help with PDF files

Famous people honoured

Well-known people have also received honours including:

• actors Colin Firth who received a CBE, Bernard Cribbens and Tim Brooke-Taylor, who were both awarded OBEs
• BBC Women’s Hour presenter Jennifer Murray received a DBE and singer and song writer Bryan Ferry, a CBE
• Celia Birtwell, the fashion designer and artist Gillian Ayres
• heptathlon athlete Jessica Ennis and Alastair Cook, the youngest English cricketer to reach 5,000 test runs, who both received MBEs

The honours system – what it is and how it works

Honours lists are published twice a year in mid-June at the time of the Queen’s official birthday and at New Year.

The lists contain people from a wide variety of backgrounds. If you want to find out how to nominate someone for an honour and how the honours system works, follow the links below.

• Nominating someone for an honour (government, citizens and rights section)

• The honours process explained (government, citizens and rights section)

If you want to know who was nominated for an honour in previous years, see ‘Honours lists’.

• Honours lists (government, citizens and rights section)

If you are interested in case studies of previous winners, follow the link below.

• Case studies of people awarded honours (government, citizens and rights section)

Further information

• Honours, awards and medals (government, citizens and rights section)