Resellers storm league table of fastest-growing firms

Real Business Hot 100 rankings dominated by IT services, with ANS Group, Kelway, Softcat and Gaia among those popping up

A wave of channel firms has been tipped for big things after being ranked among the fastest-growing private companies in the UK.

When broken down by market, IT services was the largest segment of the Real Business Hot 100 rankings, including several resellers and cloud providers who were name checked.

Manchester-based ANS Group was 14th on the list, with Kelway and UKFast also featuring in the top 50, placing 22nd and 45th respectively.

Appsense, Gaia Technologies, Exponential-e and Softcat featured lower down the rankings. The data is compiled using company information from corporate services and business information firm Jordans. The project is also backed by the Independent.

Real Business claimed that IT services also dominated its profit margin rankings along with the financial services market.

In the report, it said: "IT services is a long-term boom sector, but it is also hyper-competitive. What our Hot 100 IT companies do is endlessly strive to stay relevant in a changing market.

"As businesses grow, it is all too easy to become detached from your marketplace and your own people. It's notable how many of our 100 talk about keeping the customer as the focus in their business."