PRG Recruitment has seen profits nearly double and unveiled plans to expand internationally as investments made to bolster the infrastructure of the business began to pay off.

The company, founded by chief executive Steve McCutcheon in 2002, lifted profits to more than £400,000 in the year ended December 31, up from just under £250,000 the year prior.

The rise in profits came as the company invested heavily in establishing a new office in Glasgow, spent £300,000-plus on updating its IT infrastructure and double its headcount to nearly 70 staff.

Glasgow-based PRG also focused resources on improving internal systems and processes last year, paving the way for it to apply for IIP (Investors in People) and ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) accreditation this year.

Such investments are designed to ensure the growth currently being experienced by the business can be maintained without sacrificing service quality.

Mr McCutcheon, who predicts staff numbers to grow to 100 this calendar year, said: "I think we had a really good year. It was gratifying to see some of our investments over the past couple of years beginning to pay off.

"I don't think we have arrived, but I think we made really good solid progress across a lot of areas, and it sets us up really well for this year."

PRG said turnover had jumped by 75 per cent to £10 million, with most of the new business generated by temporary placements, where margins are lower compared with permanent roles.

Mr McCutcheon said the growth had come in a record year for the UK recruitment industry. It saw turnover grow by 24 per cent to £27 billion, leading Mr McCutcheon to conclude that firm's achieving growth of that scale were only managing to stand still.

And he expressed confidence that there is more growth to come from PRG, in particular as recent recruits begin to deliver more, predicting that PRG will be a £50m turnover business by 2020.

Mr McCutcheon, who has targeted lifting revenue to £25m this year, said: "Last year was a remarkable year for us, but I don't think it was a one-off.

"A lot of investment has been done now - certainly in technology and physical facilities - but we still expect to keep growing staff numbers, our revenues and profits, and we still expect to move into new practice areas and locations."

PRG, which has had offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh since 2002, plans to open a permanent base in Aberdeen this year. It expects to follow that with an office in Bristol in 2016, Dubai a year later and Houston, USA, in 2017.

The overseas expansion is designed to build on the company's expertise in aligning staff with roles in not just the oil and gas sectors, but in financial and professional services.

It is already active in both Dubai and Houston - two global hubs for the energy and financial services sectors - having moved into practice areas such as oil and gas and IT in 2013. The initial focus of PRG was in financial and professional services, but now operates across 12 different sectors.

Asked how concerned he was about oil prices, which have recently recovered to around $50 a barrel, Mr McCutcheon admitted the recent job losses in the sector was concerning.

And he said he was unsure the cuts had come in an end in the North Sea.

However, he highlighted that while investment in North Sea extraction projects may tail off, companies will continue to invest in hiring staff to work on asset integrity projects.

In addition, he expects there will continue to be scope to recruit technical staff in regions elsewhere in the world where the investment needed for oil extraction projects is not so high.

Mr McCutcheon said: "Although we have people in Glasgow and Edinburgh and now Aberdeen recruiting in the oil and gas sector, most of that is not in the North Sea.

"But Aberdeen remains a global hub for oil and gas - number two outside Houston - so a lot of the hiring activity in the world emanates from Aberdeen. It is still an attractive investment for us as a location."