While Britain’s economic growth may be slowing, the leaders of this year’s Sunday Times 100 Tech companies are racing ahead.

The 100 featured companies on our inaugural ranking of Britain’s fastest-growing tech firms collectively generated revenues of £3.2 billion in their latest year of trading, an increase of £2.6 billion compared with what they achieved three years ago.

Even as Britain’s job market cools, the majority of the Sunday Times 100 Tech companies are hiring at pace. Among the 82 disclosing their plans, some 4,200 new jobs should be created in the next 12 months. Over the past three years the 100 companies created 11,200 new roles, taking their combined workforce to 20,700 people.

This ranking (Software/Hardware) may prove timely for the Labour government, which recently consulted on its ten-year industrial strategy. To succeed, such central planning needs building blocks — and in the world of tech this means agile, ambitious companies that are already achieving commercial scale and could become winners on the global stage.

Our researchers have scoured publicly available records and contacted hundreds of privately owned businesses to ask them to share their financial performance to create this unique ranking and showcase their success.

We have placed software companies (such as financial, insurance and AI services) and those selling their own hardware (such as batteries, electric-vehicle charging, robots and sensors) or other technology (such as life sciences) on separate lists to reflect the comparative ease of expanding asset-light ventures.

The Sunday Times 100 Tech: software

Our tables rank Britain’s private tech companies on the growth in their annual revenues, measured over three years. Select a company name to discover more – select a table on The Times website

The 50 software companies recorded an average yearly growth of 156 per cent, while their hardware/other peers clocked an impressive 87 per cent of growth.

Overseas corporate investors sensing opportunities with British technology include the US chip maker Nvidia, which has backed PolyAI (No 8, Software), the AI-powered voice-assistant specialist, as well as JX Advanced Metals and SoftBank, both from Japan. JX has a stake in the University of Oxford spin-out Alloyed (No 16, Hardware), a metals specialist, while SoftBank, which also owns the star British chip designer ARM, backs CMR Surgical (No 17, Hardware), the Cambridge-based medical robotics firm.