From left: Brian Pollock, Version 1; Sam Cassidy, Newcastle Gateshead initiative; Louise Lahiff, Version 1 and Nick Forbes, Newcastle City Council. Image: Version 1
The company has secured a £1m investment to expand its new hub to the Newcastle region.
Irish-founded IT services company Version 1 is opening a new tech hub in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK, which will provide up to 200 new jobs in the area over the next two years.
Version 1 received an investment of £1m from Newcastle’s North of Tyne Combined Authority Inward Investment Fund. The fund is designed to attract strategic investments to the city, which is fast becoming a tech hub for companies.
The Dublin-founded tech company already employs more than 2,000 staff in the UK, Ireland, Spain and India.
It has a particularly strong market for its cloud, digital, data and managed services products in the UK. Its staff work both at Version 1’s London office as well as in regional areas across the UK.
Louise Lahiff, Version 1’s director of strategy, planning and people, said the company selected Newcastle for its new hub because of the area’s “flourishing tech scene” and status as “one of the fastest growing tech clusters in the UK”.
Lahiff added that there would be “unparalleled opportunities for career development, mentoring and upskilling” at the new hub.
The leader of Newcastle City Council, Nick Forbes, said his city was fast becoming “a natural home for digital and tech companies”.
Ongoing growth
Version 1 has been going from strength to strength in recent years. In June 2021, the Irish company announced 180 jobs in Northern Ireland and acquired Belfast-based digital services specialist Neueda, which marked its 12th acquisition to date.
Previous acquisitions for the company include several UK companies such as Beoley Mill Software, Tieto Corporation and Rocela Group. It also acquired Dublin tech firm Presidion in 2018.
In 2019, the company opened a Munster headquarters in Cork in 2019, creating 40 specialist IT jobs for the region.
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