SilverSky’s Belfast Team helps the company meet global demand for straightforward, accessible and affordable cyber security solutions.

Modern companies face common barriers to cyber security effectiveness – sophisticated threats, a growing security skills gap and the accelerating costs and complexity of choosing, deploying and managing multiple security point solutions in-house. SilverSky addresses these challenges with a managed service model that makes enterprise-grade cyber security simple, affordable and accessible for companies of all sizes.

In January 2022, SilverSky announced it had acquired Cygilant, a leading cybersecurity-as-a-service provider.  The addition of Cygilant's UK-based delivery centre in Northern Ireland complemented SilverSky’s footprint in Asia and North America, while expanding SilverSky's access to European markets. 

The company’s first European Security Operations Centre (SOC) was established in Northern Ireland in May 2020. After considering a number of locations, the company selected Belfast as its European hub, opening its doors with 25 employees during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Invest NI worked with the company to help secure the investment for Northern Ireland. It facilitated multiple visits by the company to meet with a range of stakeholders, including existing investors, the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) and universities. Invest NI also helped the company secure its new property and has offered £455,000 of support for the creation of the new jobs.

SilverSky’s Belfast SOC supports over 200 customers, with a specific focus on clients in the finance, education and healthcare sectors. The Belfast team monitors customer networks for potential breaches and threats, and then works with each client’s internal IT team to repair any issues before they become problems.

CME Group’s Belfast team drives the technology to support its global success.

Chicago based CME Group is the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace. The company enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimise portfolios, and analyse data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities.

CME group established its presence in Northern Ireland in 2012 with the opening of its Technology and Support Services Centre in Belfast with 50 employees. Since then,
it has grown to include 325 employees, assuring the firm’s place in the region’s vibrant financial services sector.

Technology drives everything at CME Group. Its team of technologists is relentlessly focused on developing the world’s most advanced electronic trading and risk management systems to help clients manage their business risks. The company also invests heavily in cyber security – both people and controls – designed to safeguard its systems, information and markets. CME Group’s Belfast team is a key driver of the company’s technology capabilities, supporting technology infrastructure and services, accounting, finance, online marketing, human resources and legal functions. The office also hosts a robust internship program for up to 40 interns each year, helping attract the best and brightest from the local community.

In 1997 buying and selling online was an uncertain thing to do. 

Hiroshi “Mickey” Mikitani saw the possibilities for creating an online marketplace where people could confidently buy goods from anywhere in the world direct from their home. The Rakuten Marketplace revolutionised the way Japan’s merchants and consumers interacted with each other and formed the template for a new style of business that has swept the world.

Rakuten is now one of the world’s leading internet services companies, with a transformative presence in e-commerce, digital content and fintech. Mickey is still at the helm—hands on, approachable, and always eager to listen to new ideas.

Rakuten has offices and talent all over the globe from Tokyo to Tel Aviv and Bangalore to Belfast. In 2016 Rakuten established the Rakuten Blockchain Lab in Northern Ireland with the goal of enabling distributed ledger technology and cryptocurrencies for the many Rakuten companies.

In addition to the experienced blockchain engineers, Rakuten found Northern Ireland an attractive location because of the region’s advanced technological innovation, particularly in cyber security, at Queen’s University’s Centre for Secure IT (CSIT) and the great software engineering talent emerging from the universities each year.

The initial hiring commitment by the Rakuten Blockchain Lab was for twenty software engineers, but the team is set to grow further as the demand for blockchain technology increases inside Rakuten and with its partners.

The Rakuten Blockchain Lab has already delivered multiple projects including a cryptocurrency exchange service called Rakuten Wallet.

Each month in the Bazaarvoice network, more than a billion consumers create, view and share authentic user-generated content including reviews, questions and answers and social photos across more than 6,200 global brand and retailer websites.

From search and discovery to purchase and advocacy, Bazaarvoice’s solutions help brands and retailers reach in-market shoppers, personalise their experiences, and give them the confidence to buy. On busy shopping days, like Black Friday, its network is one of the busiest in the world.

In 2017, as part of its growth strategy, the company wanted to rebalance engineering, client services and sales activity between the US and Europe, to take advantage of new talent pools and to drive customer growth in Europe. Galway and Belfast were seen as attractive options but Belfast quickly emerged as the preferred European location for the new operation because of:

• A strong supply of suitable graduates with excellent technical and professional qualifications
• Skills in the ICT sector, particularly in software development
• Government programmes designed to promote and grow the local ICT sector
• Northern Ireland was a more cost-effective option

Early in 2020 Bazaarvoice Belfast had 50 employees when it announced plans to create another 50 new jobs over the rest of the year, assuring the firm’s place in the vibrant Northern Ireland technology cluster. 

Bazaarvoice’s Belfast office is now set to become the company’s first international R&D hub and will include software engineering and design, user experience, business development, as well as research and development.

Version 1 is an Irish company specialising in International Management Consulting, Software Asset Management, Software Development, Cloud Computing, and Outsourcing.

It has progressed through organic growth and strategic acquisition to become a trusted technology partner to major domestic and international customers across all industry sectors. It has over 1,300 staff based in Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Manchester, Edinburgh, Kent and Birmingham.

Version 1 opened its first office in Belfast in 2012 with four staff and has grown rapidly. Since then, it has built up a team of over 150 staff and is aiming to grow to 200 by the end of 2021.

The Northern Ireland Team delivers a wide range of technology and services for customers both locally and across the UK and Ireland. The technology skillsets span all of their key strategic growth areas – Enterprise Resource Planning, Digital Services and Enterprise Cloud.  The Belfast team also work closely with Technology Partners including Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.

In 2020, Version 1 announced the establishment of a Digital Development Hub in Belfast and the creation of 70 specialist IT jobs. The team also works closely with local schools, universities and other agencies in establishing routes for under-represented groups and non-IT people to start a career in IT throughout Northern Ireland.

Version 1 is planning to expand rapidly using the Assured Skills Programme in Northern Ireland with the aim to hire 120 people. Assured Skills is a pre-employment training programme that will offer Version 1 a pipeline of skilled resources over the coming years.

Founded in Australia in 2017, The Lightyear Corporation offers cloud-based procurement and invoice processing automation software to large SMEs and mid-market companies across the world. Its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product increases workplace efficiencies and team collaboration through data extraction and customisable workflows for businesses.

In 2018 Lightyear selected Northern Ireland as the location for its global headquarters, locating inside Belfast’s largest tech hub community. Factors that influenced the company's decision to choose Northern Ireland included the region's credentials as a leading innovation hub for fintech and support from Invest NI.

In May 2024, Lightyear was acquired by The Access Group. The Access Group is a leading provider of business management software to mid-market organisations in the UK, Ireland, USA and Asia Pacific. The Access ERP division serves small growing and medium to large businesses, with tailored solutions in a range of industry verticals, including Construction, Supply Chain, Waste Management, Professional Services and Facilities Management. Their ERP software enables customers to streamline operations, allowing data to be shared seamlessly across different business operating systems.

This acquisition is a strategic move that will allow Lightyear to innovate faster with more resources and expertise and continue to deliver the same high service levels whilst scaling their global footprint.

Since its original investment, the company has continued to work with Invest NI’s teams in Northern Ireland and Australia to explore new industries and potential export markets for its services. Invest NI has offered trade assistance and support towards job creation, R&D and technical product support to develop its software product.

The skillsets of the Belfast team include fintech, software and dev-ops. It is an agile team that is focused on creating solutions for businesses and accountants.

In 2020 Lightyear announced that it was investing over £1million in its business and doubling the size of its Northern Ireland workforce, adding twelve new jobs.

Fortune 500 company considered 15 locations, then found talent in Northern Ireland.

In October 2019, Aflac opened a Global IT and Cyber Security Innovation Centre in Northern Ireland, committing to create 150 IT and cyber security jobs over five years. The purpose of the Belfast centre is to provide technical expertise and operational support to complement existing technical operations, helping support customers and global market growth.

Investing in advanced technologies is at the heart of Aflac’s strategy for delivering exceptional customer service, and the company found Northern Ireland particularly attractive due to its expertise in mobile and cloud development and intelligent surveillance technology. Its executive leadership were also pleased the new centre would provide an additional time zone in the UK – ideally situated between customers in the US and Asia – to enable expanded threat monitoring and response.

Aflac conducted extensive research to identify a location that would support its business strategy. It considered 15 locations in the US and internationally over more than a year.

Why Northern Ireland?

• The existing cluster of insurance companies, such as Allstate and Liberty Mutual
• Availability of insuretech talent
• Accessibility to the US and other global markets
• English-speaking workforce
• Cultural alignment
• The warm welcome

For Aflac, given the global competition for tech talent, access to the right talent and skills was critical.

Invest NI provided just over £1 million in financial support for job creation, and connected the company to Assured Skills, Northern Ireland’s 100% free, customised training and recruitment programme, available to investors to ensure they have access to a workforce trained for their specific needs.

Northern Ireland’s digital infrastructure helped the company recruit and on-board remotely—leadership called Belfast “resilient, reinventive and adaptable” and maintained the company’s commitment to growing the team there.