As a writer with the Eastern Daily Press, Mark Nicholls picked up various awards for his feature and news reporting, including from assignments as a war/defence correspondent reporting from locations such as Kuwait and covering the Iraq War of 2003, Afghanistan, eastern Turkey and the Persian Gulf. His work as a health journalist has also been widely recognised with extensive success in the Medical Journalists’ Association/Norwich Union health journalism awards, which he won in 2004, 2005 and 2008 and acted as a judge in 2006 and 2007, when he was chair of the judging panel. He was named ECNG Feature Writer of the Year in 2000, Archant (owners of the EDP) Journalist of the Year in 2003 and Eastern Region Print Journalist of the Year in 2005 in the EDF Energy Journalism Awards. His feature on Time Zones published in the HRG magazine On Business was recognised as Travel Trade Feature of the Year in the 2012 British Travel Press Awards.