Telecommunications
2018: No.35= - £150m
2017: No.33 - £145m

Alan Jackson’s Intercity Technology has ambitious plans for growth. Established 33 years ago, the business is aiming for £100 million turnover this year.

Intercity is now run by Alan Jackson's 36 year-old son Andrew. He has taken Intercity on the acquisition trail, taking over Rutland-based Gage Networks in 2015 and Bolton-based Imerja in the same year.

The latter acquisition included two data centres, and both purchases brought in telecoms expertise in the public sector.

Although he has stepped down from the day-to-day running of the company Alan Jackson remains passionate about customer service, and he is proud of the fact that Intercity doesn’t use call centres. Customers get to speak to real people in the UK and have their own dedicated account manager. This personal service has stood Intercity in good stead and helped the company grow its value.

Alan Jackson
Alan Jackson

Alan Jackson set up his Birmingham-based telephone technology company as Intercity Mobile in 1985, just as the surge in demand for mobile communications was taking off. Now it is one of Europe’s leading providers of mobile, fixed line and cloud telephone services.

Intercity has well over 70,000 users and its parent company, Intercity Technology Holdings, is worth more than £90 million.

The company has expanded its portfolio beyond mobile communications to include fixed broadband telephone systems, Ethernet services, email hosting, bespoke communications systems and vehicle tracking.

Over the past 30 years Intercity has gone from strength to strength from its offices in Holloway Head, with Alan Jackson as non-executive chairman. The company also has offices in London, High Wycombe, Edinburgh, Manchester and Cardiff.

In 1994 the company secured its international credentials with the establishment of Intercity BV based in Amsterdam. It was the first UK company to be granted a licence for cellular services in The Netherlands. It also had the first Vodafone partnership agreement in the UK.

Intercity – which achieved Investors in People status in 2013 - is now the UK’s largest independent cellular telephone service provider and is well established as a communications systems provider in the corporate sector, employing almost 300 people in the UK and The Netherlands and supplying more than 4,000 businesses of all sizes.

Intercity Telecom provides installation, after sales support and everything in between, and is not tied to any particular manufacturer or network. Alan Jackson, aged 64, has kept pace with technology and introduced cloud technology in 2007 before most people had heard of it.

The company supports a number of charities including the Acorns Hospice and Birmingham Children’s Hospital.