50. Chess

Revenue: £84.4m (-17%)

Staff: 374

The chairman of this Cheshire-based comms and IT provider declared himself "delighted" with its performance in its year to 30 April 2021 as a refocus on higher-margin activities fuelled higher profits. The period saw Chess axe its distribution agreement with O2 and offload its investment in Shaftesbury Systems. The Microsoft, EE, Sophos and Lenovo partner has rejoined the M&A trail since year end, however, acquiring penetration testing outfit Armadillo Security in August 2021 and cloud-based telecoms solutions provider TTNC in in February 2022.