The importance of celebrating the UK’s fastest-growing firms

The UK Fast Growth Awards at ICC Wales in Newport showcased some of the UK’s fastest-growing firms

At a time when the Welsh economy continues to struggle with relatively low productivity, weak business investment and a longstanding prosperity gap with the rest of the UK, it is sometimes easy to overlook the extraordinary achievements of those businesses which, despite the challenges they face, continue to create employment, generate wealth and expand into new markets.

Earlier this month, we celebrated some of those remarkable companies at the UK Fast Growth Awards at ICC Wales in Newport, where 350 of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses from seven nations and regions were recognised.

While such occasions are an opportunity to celebrate entrepreneurial achievement, they should also prompt us to ask a more fundamental question about the future of the Welsh economy, which is why we have not been more successful in creating the conditions that would enable many more of our businesses to follow the same path.

The figures from this year’s UK Fast Growth Index are remarkable by any measure. Between 2023 and 2025, the 350 companies increased their combined turnover from £4.3bn to £10.2bn, generating an additional £5.9bn in annual sales in just two years, with an average growth rate of 138%.

This was achieved during a period characterised by higher borrowing costs, rising employment costs, persistent inflation and considerable economic uncertainty, yet these businesses have demonstrated that rapid expansion remains possible even in challenging circumstances.

More importantly for Wales, the 50 Welsh companies featured in the index increased their combined turnover from £324m to £756m over the same period, representing growth of more than 133%. These extraordinary achievements show that Wales already has the entrepreneurs, businesses and commercial capabilities needed to compete successfully with other parts of the UK.

Having established the original Wales Fast Growth 50 28 years ago, I have spent much of my academic and professional career examining the characteristics of businesses that achieve exceptional growth and the contribution they make to economic development.

One of the most striking findings is that high-growth entrepreneurship is not confined to particular industries, technologies, or locations, with successful firms emerging from manufacturing, construction, food production, professional services, retail and numerous other sectors.

Indeed, this year’s UK Index includes a company that helped clean the Mona Lisa, a confectioner whose Brazil nuts are coated in more than 2,000 layers of chocolate and a games manufacturer whose products have been watched more than a billion times on TikTok. Such diversity challenges the assumption that economic transformation must depend primarily on attracting large inward investors or supporting a relatively narrow group of technology businesses, when the evidence demonstrates that considerable growth potential already exists within our established business population.

For Wales, this should represent an important lesson, as successive Welsh governments have introduced numerous strategies, programmes and institutions intended to support entrepreneurship, encourage investment and strengthen the private sector, yet the fundamental challenge of creating a more dynamic and productive business economy remains unresolved.

Indeed, successful economic development policy should ultimately be judged by the additional economic activity it generates, not simply by the resources devoted to delivering it.

The experience of the Fast Growth Index companies suggests that one of the greatest opportunities to transform the Welsh economy may lie in identifying businesses with the potential to expand rapidly and systematically addressing the barriers preventing them from doing so. That would require a much greater focus on business performance and long-term economic outcomes rather than the administrative outputs of individual programmes.

Of course, access to appropriate finance remains important, particularly for businesses seeking to invest in new technologies, expand production or enter international markets, but the experiences of successful growth businesses demonstrate that access to skilled employees, the quality of infrastructure, the speed of planning decisions, the effectiveness of innovation support and the ability to reach new customers can be equally important in determining whether a promising business fulfils its potential.

These are issues that extend far beyond the responsibilities of those organisations traditionally charged with delivering business support and require a much more coordinated approach to economic development across the whole of government.

This suggests that the most important change to economic policy in Wales would be to put the needs of Welsh businesses at the heart of every major economic decision the Welsh Government makes.

Whether considering investment in education and skills, improving transport infrastructure, reforming planning procedures, developing procurement policies or supporting research and innovation, the fundamental question should be whether those decisions make it easier for Welsh businesses to invest, expand and compete.

There is also a wider issue of how we recognise entrepreneurial achievement in Wales, where debates about government intervention and public investment sometimes overshadow the contribution of successful business founders.

Behind every Welsh company featured in this year’s index are individuals who identified commercial opportunities, accepted considerable personal risks and demonstrated the determination required to build successful enterprises, often creating substantial economic opportunities within their local communities.

We should not only celebrate their achievements at awards ceremonies but should also let them inform how we design economic policy, especially if we genuinely want to encourage more people to start businesses that can grow beyond local markets.

The additional £432m in annual turnover generated by the 50 Welsh businesses in this year’s Fast Growth Index demonstrates what can be achieved by a relatively small number of ambitious companies and raises the question of what might happen if we could substantially increase the number of firms achieving similar growth over the next decade.

Rather than continually searching for new initiatives or institutions to address our economic difficulties, perhaps we should spend more time understanding why these Welsh businesses have succeeded and what must change to enable many more to follow their example.

And while their achievements deserve recognition, their greatest contribution may ultimately be in showing us that the foundations of a stronger Welsh economy already exist, if only we had the ambition to place business growth at the heart of everything we do.