Business services

Northern Ireland has a growing Business Services sector which currently employs approximately 14,000, with this figure set to rise to 16,000 by 2010.  Among a complement of 40 centres with more than 50 employees are investors such as Caterpillar, Regus, Capita and HCL.  

Key characteristics of the sector in Northern Ireland are the availability to offer higher-level skills and knowledge transfer – evidenced in operations such as Funds Administration, Private Banking, Legal & Compliance and Finance & Accounting.

Talented workforce

International Business Services firms are attracted to the region primarily because of its pool of well-educated people with a professional attitude and strong work ethic. In addition, Northern Ireland’s people are also highly loyal ensuring low labour turnover rates.  Consistent focus on business, financial and technical disciplines is a key feature of the region's universities and further education colleges.

Northern Ireland has a large pool of people with language skills available to work, including university graduates and foreign nationals. Several multilingual centres now operating in Northern Ireland include; Stream, GEM and Teletech, servicing customers throughout Scandinavia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Advanced infrastructure

Northern Ireland offers a resilient digital network, providing high speed voice and data connections throughout the world.  The region was the first in Europe to have 100 per cent access to broadband. Shortly it will offer Europe’s fastest direct telecoms connection to North America, unaffected by disruptions to telecoms in centres like London and Dublin and delivering broadband products at prices 20 per cent less than Dublin, Manchester and Glasgow.  

Proven to work

The Business Services sector is well established and continued reinvestment by companies including Teleperformance, Firstsource and Caterpillar is testament to Northern Ireland's compelling near-shore proposition for international firms seeking an optimum mix of high quality labour in a low risk, cost-effective location. Outsourcing for US companiessuch as Liberty Mutual, Allstate and more recently Citi, has given Northern Ireland vast and proven experience and led to reinvestment by over 80% of our investors.

Download a guide to the Business Services sector in Northern Ireland (PDF)