Business growth can come from any quarter. Sectors, regions and nations across the UK are all home to dynamic businesses that generate jobs, tax revenues and prosperity. Finding the fastest-growing is hard. Companies House helps — but with more than five million active companies in the UK, we are still talking about needles in a haystack.

Nevertheless, we’ve worked with The Sunday Times for the third year in a row to help its team to identify the 100 fastest-growing companies in the UK. Companies were able to self-nominate, with many of those featured supplying sales figures for their latest year of trading that are not in the public domain. Beauhurst’s data platform also shed light on the private company universe.

The criteria to make it on to the ranking are straightforward. Companies need more than £5 million in sales in their latest year of trading and at least £250,000 worth of sales four years ago. They must have at least five employees and, crucially, be profitable.

• Explore the full list of companies on this year’s Sunday Times 100 — plus interviews, company profiles and more

This last criterion has resulted in the exclusion of many fast-growing, but loss-making, technology businesses. They will feature in the forthcoming Sunday Times 100 Tech.

The Sunday Times 100 companies are ranked on their compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over a three-year period. Those owned by private equity were eligible, but companies that were part of larger corporate groups were not. Because of the difficulties in measuring and comparing growth in some sectors, financial management firms, property firms and partnerships were also not eligible.

Taken together, our 100 companies are a powerful bunch. Collectively, they generated sales of £2.9 billion in the past year, up by £2.6 billion compared with three years ago. They employ 13,670 people, of which 10,000 were roles created in the past three years, and they plan to create 3,800 jobs in the coming years. The oldest company on the list, Wilson Power Solutions (No 99), was founded in 1946, but most of the companies were only started in the past decade.

Our observation window for calculating growth rates includes years of distress and turbulence caused by the Covid lockdowns. Some companies experienced strong sales growth rates but from a base that was artificially lowered by reduced trading activity as a result of the lockdowns.

The purpose of the Sunday Times 100 ranking is to showcase growth, so we excluded nine companies that recovered strongly. They showed such remarkable resilience in bouncing back that we have called them out separately as Recovery Heroes.

Given all the data that we have at Beauhurst on private companies, a few key findings stand out about this year’s ranking. While it’s no surprise that London dominates, England is over-represented on this year’s list. There are no companies from Scotland or Wales, and only one from Northern Ireland. The business population of Northern Ireland makes up 1.65 per cent of the UK’s active companies, so one company is about right. However, Wales and Scotland make up 3.19 per cent and 5.42 per cent respectively — their absence from the ranking this year is stark.

The road to growth and profitability is rarely linear. About 40 of the companies on the ranking have used equity investment to fuel their growth — they have raised more than £1 billion in external finance. Two funds have the distinction of backing two different companies on the ranking: JamJar Investments, the venture capital fund started by the founders of Innocent Drinks, has backed Yoto (No 19) and Wild Cosmetics (No 23); BGF, an investment fund set up by the government in 2011 to help address the growth capital funding gap in the UK, using monies from the main banks, has backed Scrumbles (No 45) and Akula (No 85).

Most of the companies on our main ranking are featured for the first time, showing how hard and evanescent growth can be. It’s therefore worth a special mention that 26 companies from last year’s Sunday Times 100 feature again this year. Three of our eight “Ones to Watch” have graduated on to the main ranking: Rheal (No 3), Wild Cosmetics (No 23) and Moasure (No 40).

Just four companies from the inaugural Sunday Times 100 have appeared on all three rankings: the events producer Creation (No 17); renewable energy consultancy Eden Sustainable (No 36); sports marketing agency Two Circles (No 86); and sportswear and fashion brands AYBL Group (No 100).

Henry Whorwood is managing director of Research & Consultancy at Beauhurst; Ying van de Walle is an independent researcher

Sources included Beauhurst’s proprietary database of growth companies; research by Times Enterprise Network journalists and self-nominations from the companies. Where accounts are not available at Companies House we use draft accounts provided by the companies. Because most small companies file abbreviated accounts, public data on growth companies is incomplete.

The featured companies are not endorsed or recommended by the sponsors, Beauhurst or The Sunday Times; nor are they necessarily the best-run companies. Who should be on the 2025 list? Nominations for next year are welcome at thetimes.com/ST100