Northern Ireland Builds Tech Credibility

Northern Ireland is making a name for itself as an emerging UK tech hub.

Invest Northern Ireland (NI), the regional economic development agency, is billing the region as the place for technology and financial services and is working to increase already healthy investment, and technology firms based locally are praising the skills available.

According to the latest figures from UK skills agency, e-Skills, Northern Ireland has around 15,000 employees working in the tech sector. Software giant SAP has its only UK research facility in the region while BT, Cisco, Citigroup and Nortel are other big players with a presence.
Bill Montgomery, director of international investment for Invest NI said: "I think we're better placed than a lot of regions."

In February, Northern Ireland made Gartner's top 30 locations for offshore services majoring in education, infrastructure, language, globalisation maturity and security and privacy, and recent Financial Times research found there are more software development centres in Northern Ireland than England. The region is also top in the UK for inward investment in financial services software development, attracting 35 per cent of all projects in the past five years.

And reflecting growing interest from India, Invest NI opened an office in Bangalore in February, adding to its bases in Brussels, Dublin and London. Indian companies First Source, HCL, Polaris and Tech Mahindra have all opened offices in Northern Ireland.

Invest NI emphasises the strengths of value for money, strong skills and a flexible workforce that cannot be matched elsewhere in the UK as reasons why companies should invest there rather than other UK tech hubs such as Reading or Cambridge. More here.