Pimlico Plumbers' founder Charlie Mullins has suggested that the strength of the service sector has provided a boost for other areas of the economy after his company announced a surge in sales for the first quarter of 2013.

The Central London-based company has revealed that, between January and March 2013, it achieved sales of £4.78 million, an 11% year-on-year increase.

In March alone Pimlico Plumbers, which employs 230 people and operates a fleet of 150 vehicles, said it enjoyed sales of £1.62 million, an increase of 18.2% on the same period last year.

Mullins, who founded the company in 1979, predicts that this growth puts Pimlico Plumbers in a good position to break £19 million at the end of its financial year, which ends in June. The company is already £850,000 ahead of last year’s record £18 million turnover.

“While the service sector, of which we are a part, is outstripping construction and manufacturing it can also help these sectors make a return to prosperity," he said. "Pimlico Plumbers is uniquely situated within the economy to be a litmus test for which way growth is going and, the way the chemicals are combining in 2013, it's turned the paper green! As well providing our skills as a service, we also have a foot in construction and another in manufacturing.

"We're selling our skilled labour, but clearly we are selling in the plumbing and building market, so it follows that the recovery is not only in telecoms and insurance, but has moved like a benevolent virus to the zone where services can infect, construction. Once that transition has taken place, construction will demand more manufacturing, both as a direct requirement of building new houses, and also as employment rises and discretionary income returns to many UK households."