An award-winning chief executive has ascribed her success in the "hardest" of jobs to her team.

Lin Homer, chief executive of the UK Border Agency (UKBA), thanked her staff for all their work when she was named Public Servant of the Year on Wednesday night.

She was one of 12 winners at the Dods & Scottish Widows Women in Public Life Awards ceremony held in central London on Wednesday night.

"It is the team that has won this, but I am more than happy to have my hands on it for now," she said after she was presented the award by cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell.

"There are no successes without everyone in your organisation putting in as much effort as you do, so I am really grateful to them for helping me win the award," she added.

The former local authority chief executive was nominated for the award because of her "exceptional leadership abilities". She has led the government’s immigration body since 2005, first as a directorate within the Home Office, then as the Border and Immigration Agency and now UKBA.

"It’s a challenging and demanding area to work in and it only works if you pull together," she said. "It's been one of the hardest jobs I've ever had and in a sense one of the most exciting. We have been able to make a difference in an area that is really important to the public and that gives you a sense of achievement that lots of jobs wouldn’t match."

Homer revealed that it was her birthday and that she had spent the afternoon with Home Office permanent secretary Sir David Normington being grilled by the public accounts select committee. Winning the award had therefore brought a “a really nice balance to the day”, she said.

“As a public servant you think the reward is doing the job, so to get recognised like this is a bit of icing on the cake,” she said.

Homer, who beat Vanessa Nichols, head of the Home Office's crime directorate, and Angela Hope, a nurse and charity founder, in the shortlist for the prize, also praised the awards for showing the great opportunities the public sector provided for women to realise their talents.

Winners in the other categories included Dawn Butler, MP of the the Year, and the vice chancellor of the Open University, Professor Brenda Gourley, who was named International Public Servant of the Year for her work in opening up the university's courses to international students.