UK technology consultancy Detica has increased sales for the year ending March 31 by 54 per cent to £156m.

Profits are up by 50 per cent to £16.1m and organic growth rose 28 per cent despite a number of merger and acquisition-related changes to the business over the past year.

Detica has recently expanded its focus from UK national security and public sector to areas such as financial services. It signed a contract last year with the Financial Services Authority to provide a system to monitor unusual market trades.

Each of the core UK business units grew strongly, says Detica’s chief executive Dr Tom Black, and it has made progress in the US Government market.

‘We are optimistic about our future performance in the UK, where we expect to continue to grow well ahead of the underlying market,’ he said. ‘We also expect to see our US revenues grow strongly as we build on the platform we have acquired during the past year.’

The firm also saw significant growth in its US operation: sales grew to £14m and staff numbers rose from 11 to 300.

Detica has been one of the most consistent IT companies in the UK in terms of profit growth over the past decade, says Ovum analyst Phil Codling.

‘It is showing no sign of losing its touch,’ he said.

‘The merger and acquisition related changes have made Detica a more balanced operation.

'Whereas once it was highly dependent on the UK defence sector, it earned £68.5m (or 44 per cent) of its revenue in the commercial sector.'

Detica is benefiting from increased spending on IT projects in the finance and telecoms industry, just as conditions in the public sector begin to look tougher, says Codling.