A firm of actuaries has been named as the fastest growing firm in the UK. Hazell Carr, based in Abingdon, has transformed the image of the actuary by allowing its 250 freelance staff to work from home and earn up to £350,000 a year.

The freelancers are kept in touch with developments via the web and updates are sent via e-mail.

The company has seen profits grow by 114 per cent each year since it started in 1997, from £1.5m to £14.5m in 2000.

It was named fastest-grower of the second annual Sunday Times PricewaterhouseCoopers Profit Track 100 league table at a celebration dinner at Richard Branson's home in Kidlington. The league ranks the UK's unquoted companies by profit growth.

Corporate development actuary Nigel Burton told the Oxford Mail : "The company allows actuaries to work from home, or sometimes from small offices they set up themselves, and pays them by results."

He said one worked from a Scottish island and others worked in South Africa. He added: "We employ people with qualifications as UK actuaries from the Institute of Actuaries in Oxford. The company was set up by directors Graham Hazell and David Carr. Since the late 1990s it has been looking into the mis-selling of pension plans, directed by the Financial Services Authority."

Software 2000, based at Oxford Science Park, is ranked at 21. It makes the software used by computer printers has received three Queen's Awards for exports.

The company, set up in 1989, is the world's largest independent developer of printer drivers for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh computers. Its partners include Canon, Epson, Sharp, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba.

More than 60 million units of the company's software are in use worldwide and more than 90 per cent of its £17m annual turnover is exported, mainly to the Far East and the US.

Staff numbers have risen from 70 a year ago to 110. The company recently moved into the Medawar building at Oxford Science Park.

The report, compiled by Oxford-based research company Fast Track, included such household names as Focus Do It All, at No 12, Russell & Bromley, at No 64 and Independent Radio News, in 77th place.