Evergreen Life, a digital health services company based in Manchester, is Britain’s, and the North West’s, fastest growing tech firm, according to the inaugural Sunday Times 100 Tech.
The league table ranks Britain’s fastest growing private technology companies, shining a spotlight on the entrepreneurs and teams driving their success.
It is a sister league table to The Sunday Times 100, a ranking of Britain’s fastest growing private companies.
The rankings are published online today at thetimes.com/100tech and will also be available as a supplement in the print edition of The Sunday Times this Sunday, January 19.
Evergreen Life sales grew an average of 554% a year over the past three years to £36.1m in 2024, during which period it grew its headcount from 50 to 500 staff.
The company plans to create 100 more jobs in the next 12 months.
The second fastest growing tech company in the region, and third in the UK, is green energy specialist, Urban Chain.
The Manchester-based business saw its sales soar by 334.39% to £25m over the past three years.
Six of the 100 companies on the list are based in the North West, including Blackpool-based banking fintech firm Tandem, Lancaster-headquartered supply chain sensor company System Loco, Oldham-based Innovation Technology, which supplies cash handling equipment, and Rochdale’s Wireless CCTV, a leader in mobile video surveillance.
To qualify, companies must be independent, privately owned, and headquartered in the UK.
For the purposes of this ranking, a technology business is defined as one that either sells its own proprietary technology or has developed proprietary technology that is essential to delivering its products or services.
The research for The Sunday Times 100 Tech found that collectively the 100 companies on the national list generated sales of £3.2bn, up by £2.6bn in the past three years.
In total these companies employ 20,700 people, having created 11,200 jobs in the past three years. 82 companies on the list disclosed that they plan to make additional hires in the next 12 months, with 4,200 jobs planned in total.
Out of the 100 companies featured in the ranking more than half (56) are based in London, with the rest spread throughout the country. This includes 16 in the South East, six in the North West, six in the South West of England, four in the Midlands, three in Scotland, two in Northern Ireland and one in Wales.
Nearly a fifth (17) of the businesses are founded or led by women.
This includes the number one companies in the software and hardware categories. Caroline Shaw is the CEO of Evergreen Life and Dame Dawn Childs is the CEO of Pure Data Centres.
Three fifths (61) of the companies were founded in the last decade – in 2015 or after.
The oldest company on the list is Oldham-based Innovative Technology, which is number 38 in the hardware category. It has been making devices that can discern between real and counterfeit bank notes since 1992. Founder David Bellis remains chairman at the age of 86.
The majority (90+) of the companies have received external investment, raising a combined total of £10bn (£5.5bn for the software list, and £4.5bn for the hardware list).
The combined total is partly skewed by some companies that raised large amounts, including CMR Surgical, Zopa, Zilch Technology, and Cera.
Three fifths (60) of the companies trade internationally.
Jim Armitage, business editor of The Sunday Times, said: “The Government has pledged to kick-start economic growth in 2025.
“The Sunday Times 100 Tech shows that Britain’s technology entrepreneurs are already making progress, creating high value jobs and delivering cutting edge goods and services.
“These businesses are proof that Britain remains a powerhouse for innovation. The rapid development of AI represents one of the biggest economic opportunities since the internet.
“We have seen the Government embrace AI this week, but we still need the right support structures put in place to help the entrepreneurs who are harnessing AI to thrive.”
