Victoria Beckham has been named Britain’s most successful entrepreneur.

The 40-year-old singer-turned-fashion designer has topped a list of over 100 business people after seeing her fashion empire’s turnover rise from £1 million to a staggering £30 million in just five years, with her staff growing from three employees to 100.

Andrew Saunders of Management Today magazine, who compiled the list based on the last five years, told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: “She’s got a real business, some design talent and some business nous. She gets a lot of stick for being a celeb fashionista but I don’t think that’s fair.

“She has built something real out of her own celebrity which is quite a contemporary story. She deserves to be celebrated.”

Victoria – who has children Brooklyn, 15, Romeo, 12, Cruz, nine, and Harper, three, with husband David Beckham – launched her eponymous label in 2008 and opened her first stand-alone boutique in London last month.

According to Management Today, she now has a personal fortune of a staggering £210 million, which also helped push her towards the top spot.

The magazine considered factors such as number of jobs created, overall estimated wealth and sales figures over a five-year period in compiling the list.

Amit & Meeta Patel, founders of pharmaceutical group Auden Mckenzie, and Mahmud Kamani of Boohoo.com took second and third place in the list.