The specialist in temporary staff for the construction, industrial and commercial sectors recorded turnover of £23m for 2007-08 and executives believe it can continue to achieve modest growth.

Thorn Baker, which also places permanent staff, has offices in Leeds and Sheffield and seven other UK cities. It plans to open one more in Newcastle in next year and one in Scotland in 2010.

Paul Jackman, a director of the firm, based in Nottingham, said its burgeoning construction sector work – rising from £14m in 2006-07 to £17m in 2007-08 – was the main reason for its success.

The number of temporary workers it supplied also rose, from an average of 1,100 a week to 1,300 a week over the same period and the number of permanent placements filled went up by 30 per cent.

Growth was helped by the opening of new offices in Bristol in summer 2006 and in Sheffield in March last year, as well as the addition of an industrial arm at the Leeds branch.

Premises have been secured for a London office as Thorn Baker aims to find new business mainly inside the M25 ring.

It will focus on large contracts and it could mean supplying labour to work on Olympic construction projects.

Construction workers from across Britain are expected to flock to the South East before the 2012 London Games and the Crossrail development could mean high demand for the firm's services inside the M25 area.

The firm's success follows a £100,000 investment in software.

Mr Jackman added: "As directors and senior managers we are ambitious. We are not demand driven but to succeed we have to arrive in a new location and offer a better service than our competitors."

The firm said the effects of the credit crunch and the housing slowdown would have an impact.

This could mean a shift to clients taking on more temporary workers at the expense of permanent staff, or even the other way around, but Mr Jackman said day to day business has not suffered.

A few of its clients have noticed less work coming through; a company that specialises in the refurbishment of hotels has found schemes put on hold.

But despite concern over the economy as a whole Thorn Baker is still confident of slim growth.

Some of its retail clients are upbeat as shop refurbishments have increased as the battle to attract shoppers intensifies.

Mr Jackman added: "We concentrate on being the best in the fields in which we operate. Our strength is the variety of around 800 quality clients who use our services year after year, whilst many others use our services more on an ad-hoc basis."