Russell Attwood Builds Successful £24m Tech Firm

By the Editorial Team · Sunday, August 9, 2026

Russell Attwood, a Bristol-born entrepreneur, founded Route 101, a cloud-based customer service technology firm that secured major UK government contracts and reported £23.7 million in revenue last year. The company, benefiting from increased demand during the pandemic, expects to nearly double its turnover by 2027 while integrating AI to enhance rather than replace human agents.

Russell Attwood, a Bristol-born entrepreneur, has built a successful technology firm valued at £24 million, drawing on early experiences that shaped his business acumen. After leaving school at 16, Attwood worked selling luxury cars near Cardiff, where interactions with affluent clients inspired him to pursue entrepreneurship.

Attwood established Call Centre Technology (CCT) in 1997, a company focused on providing technology solutions to call centers. After securing initial funding through an angel investor—following a personal financial sacrifice including selling his car and maxing out credit cards—he grew CCT to nearly 180 employees and a turnover approaching £20 million by 2007. The 2008 financial crisis forced Attwood to restructure, including reducing staff by a third, before recovering the business to healthier sales and profits by 2010. In 2011, he sold CCT to outsourcing firm Capita for £15 million and briefly remained as head of IT sales before leaving the company.

Following a family trip along the US West Coast, Attwood identified an opportunity to launch Route 101 in 2013, named after a highway they traveled. The company offers cloud-based customer service and contact center management solutions by reselling and managing software from providers like Amazon Web Services and Zendesk. Route 101 has grown to employ nearly 200 people and recorded revenues of £23.7 million and a pre-tax profit of £3.7 million last year.

The firm has established significant contracts with the UK government, including a £265 million, five-year deal with the Department for Work & Pensions to modernize its contact centers and a £500 million collaboration with software company NiCE and consultancy Capgemini to upgrade customer service at HM Revenue & Customs.

Attwood attributes part of Route 101’s success to the surge in demand for remote customer service technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the firm’s role in supporting the NHS test-and-trace system.

Looking ahead, Route 101 anticipates turnover of approximately £45 million this year and projects growth to £70 million by 2027. Attwood views emerging artificial intelligence technologies as complementary to human agents in customer service rather than as replacements, emphasizing AI’s role in enhancing the capabilities of staff.

Born in 1970, Attwood attended a fee-paying school in Bristol. Personal challenges, including the death of his mother from cancer when he was 15 and the collapse of his father’s haulage business, led to early independence and shaped his entrepreneurial drive. Attwood briefly pursued further education before entering sales, ultimately building his career through strategic risk-taking and resilience.

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