Channel firms storm best workplace list

Sunday Times' Best Companies to Work For rankings recognise a number of familiar faces for their employee satisfaction

A variety of channel and technology firms are among the best employers to work for in the country, according to the Sunday Times' Best Companies rankings.

VAR Trustmarque has jumped up 12 places since last year, coming in on the small business league table at 54, just ahead of integrator CloudSense, which features for the first time and is ranked 55th.

Updata Infrastructure, which recently won a place on a lucrative telecoms framework, leapt from 71st place last year to 66th this year on the small company tracker, ahead of ACS Group which dropped from 42nd place in 2012 to 81st.

Cloud firm Rackspace rocketed up the mid-sized firm table, climbing from 96th place in 2012 to 6th this year, also bagging the award for "best for giving something back" in its category.

Redgate Software also shot up 12 places in the mid-market table, going from 29th place in 2012 to 17th this year. The firm was joined by Gamma and Adobe, which ranked 48th and 80th respectively.

The annual report ranks employees' feelings towards a range of aspects to do with working for their company, including senior management leadership, their individual managers, growth prospects, salaries and benefits.

The league tables are divided by company size in terms of employees, with small firms counting as those employing between 50 and 249 staff, mid-sized as those with 250 to 4,999 staff and big firms as those with more than 5,000 staff on the books.

Salesforce partner CloudSense claimed the accolade was a huge achievement of which it is very proud, and said its focus on staff has been of paramount importance since its establishment.

Reseller Trustmarque said it was proud its charity work was recognised, claiming that nearly all its staff ranked its charitable efforts as something which makes it a good place to work.

Some 14 of the VAR's staff slept rough outside York Minster last week as part of the Safe and Sound Homes charity's efforts to prevent youth homelessness.