UK's top 100 resellers grow revenues 7% to £17.9bn

Growth slows but profits rise for 100 firms featuring in Top VARs 2021

The UK's top 100 resellers and MSPs saw their growth slow in their latest financial years as Covid bit, according to CRN Top VARs 2021.

This special, ten-year anniversary edition of Top VARs includes extra analysis on how Covid has impacted the industry, and also looks back at how the skyline has changed since the report was launched in 2011.

Read the Top VARs 2021 PDF here, or view the Top VARs 2021 hub here. Alternatively, the individual profiles can be read here.

The numbers are in

Compiling the rankings involved poring over more than 100 sets of annual accounts, most of which covered periods that coincided with at least the first national lockdown.

The top 100's collective top line rose by seven per cent to hit £17.1bn, down on the 8.5 per cent and 13 per cent growth recorded by their top 100 counterparts in 2020 and 2019, respectively.

An unusually high number (33, versus 24 in Top VARs 2020 and 20 in Top VARs 2019) saw revenues roll back on the previous year as customers closed offices and put IT projects on hold.

On the other hand, many posted record profits as lower travel and event costs fed into their bottom lines, with profit margins across the 100 marginally up and 55 of the 91 eligible firms seeing net profits rise year on year.