SALAMANDER, the rapidly-expanding award-winning business based at York Science Park, has been ranked 29th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards for the North and Midlands.

The technology and service business, which last year won the Queen's Award for Innovation, was given top ranking in what is regarded as the technology "Oscars" in an announcement at a gala dinner in Manchester.

It is The Salamander Organisation's reward for growth of 212 per cent over a five year period, boosted by lucrative Ministry of Defence (MoD) contracts.

The army has already chosen Salamander's software for its operational and business activities and now the MoD has extended the software's application to deliver benefits throughout the Whitehall department.

Defence officials were impressed with how, for instance, the software was able to spot wastage of having four parallel streams of work. It recommended what could be kept, dispensed with or merged to improve efficiency and save millions of pounds.

Salamander was among eight Yorkshire companies which achieved rankings in the event, which was sponsored by Pinsent Masons and supported by Barclays Bank.

They included three Wetherby companies, including Capture Projects (11th with growth of 690 per cent), Netconstruct (37th with growth of 122 per cent) and Esteem (42nd with growth of 101 per cent).

Rob Seldon, the Deloitte partner responsible for the Fast 50 programme in Yorkshire said: "These Yorkshire companies which have succeeded in reaching the Technology Fast 50 this year have performed extremely well in an increasingly tough environment.

"The decision to extend the regional Fast 50 awards to include the Midlands means that the competition between companies seeking to qualify has been even more intense than usual," he said.

Dr Dick Whittington, director of Salamander, said: "This is the first time we have attained the Fast 50 and comes hot on the heels of our winning the 2005 Technology Medal from the British Computer Society/Computer Weekly.

"It is further evidence of our successful growth and penetration through cleverness and agility into the kind of markets that were previously dominated by the large US players."

Updated: 10:57 Monday, November 14, 2005