If your business has been experiencing remarkable turnover growth, you’re in the right place to explore your eligibility for the Fast Growth 50 Awards. However, even if your business’s growth story is not primarily based on turnover, we have awards tailored to celebrate your unique journey.
Discover Eligibility
Fast growth firms – which are normally defined as achieving 20% growth per annum – make up less than 1% of the UK business population but represent 50% of the total SME turnover output.
Since 1999, the Fast Growth 50 has been working with the top performing fast growth Welsh firms, recognising their achievements, and helping them to make a difference to the Welsh economy.
As of 2023, the Fast Growth 50 Index will go national and we will publish a detailed list of the 50 fastest growing firms in seven nations and regions of the UK.
It will build on the proven methodology used by the Wales Fast Growth 50 since 1999 which has identified 701 firms that have created 55,000 jobs and £30 billion of additional turnover.
It is estimated that the 350 high growth firms identified through the 2023 Fast Growth 50 will have increased their sales by £5 billion per annum and generated 20,000 new jobs every year.
We are supporting the Government’s levelling-up agenda by identifying the fastest growing 50 firms in seven nations and regions of the UK: East of England and Midlands, London, North of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, South of England, and Wales.
The UK Fast growth 50 Index is an initiative that has been running in Wales for 25 years and is now expanding across the UK in partnership with UBS, one of the largest financial institutions in the world.
The programme is organised by Ideas Forums, the same entity behind the Great British Entrepreneur Awards which is often referred to as the ‘Grammys of Entrepreneurship’.
A passionate advocate for start-up and scale-up businesses, Professor Dylan Jones-Evans was appointed as the first professor of entrepreneurship in Wales in 1996 and has held senior posts in several universities.
He has published over 100 academic articles within refereed journals, academic books and conference proceedings, focusing on technology entrepreneurship, university-industry relationships and finance for small firms.
Along with Professor Sara Carter, he is author of the best-selling textbook ‘Enterprise and Small Business’. He has also developed over £50 million of research and development projects that have focused on enterprise, innovation and regional development.
He is an investor in several businesses and is currently is chairman of Town Square – a fast growing business. He has also served as a board member at Finance Wales, Prime Cymru, Welsh ICE, Port Talbot Enterprise Zone, the Institute of Welsh Affairs and the IOD.
He has worked as a consultant for the OECD, EU and other economic development bodies globally and was Vice President for the European Council of Small Business. He has been special adviser to the House Of Commons Select Committee on Welsh Affairs and served on the Business Advisory Panel for Wales Office.
He was also responsible for the creation of a new Development Bank for Wales for the Welsh Government and was a member of the BeTheSpark panel guiding entrepreneurship policy in Wales in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He is currently a member of the judging panel for the King’s Award for Enterprise focusing on innovation, is a regular commentator for the BBC on economics and business and writes a weekly business column in the Western Mail and the Daily Post.
