A woman and a man stand socially distanced in a gallery space containing many paintings and two sculptures on pedestals.
Accenture Labs MD Medb Corcoran and Accenture Ireland MD Alastair Blair at the Crawford Gallery, Cork. Image: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision

Accenture announces 500 new jobs in Ireland, focusing on Cork

23 Jun 2021

Accenture will establish a new Munster regional hub and is also creating roles across the country.

Accenture Ireland will create 500 jobs in Ireland over next three years. Described as “high-value jobs”, some of these roles will be added to existing Accenture sites while the majority will come from the establishment of a new Munster regional hub.

Roles will be based in Cork and the wider Munster region. These jobs will support Accenture’s work in the life sciences sector, which has a particularly strong presence along Ireland’s west coast.

This new Munster hub will also build on Accenture’s acquisition of Enterprise System Partners (ESP) in 2019. Headquartered in Cork, ESP provides consulting and manufacturing services for the life sciences industry.

Work at the Munster hub will involve collaborating closely with Accenture’s Dublin laboratory facility, supporting the digitisation of supply chains in life sciences, as well as services for the food and agriculture sectors. The hub will also work closely with technology start-up and research systems in the Munster region.

“Over the last 50 years, we have seen tremendous change and growth, and these new roles are a great indicator of the direction of change in Ireland,” said Accenture Ireland MD Alastair Blair.

“We are committed to continuing to invest in our people who deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day. We are also committed to building Ireland’s talent base to meet the demands of the increasingly important life sciences industry.”

Dublin jobs

Accenture’s professional services team across Ireland now numbers more than 5,000 people. The jobs being created at the company over the next few years span areas including digital supply chain, cloud and AI.

In Dublin, Accenture Labs will expand its team with a key focus on quantum computing. This site is looking for people with skills in quantum chemistry, quantum engineering and quantum information science to work across all industries but with a particular focus on life sciences and health.

New roles will also be created at The Dock, Accenture’s R&D innovation centre in the Dublin docklands. At The Dock, a variety of skills are sought including visual, interactive and product designers, entrepreneurs and technical architects.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin, TD, said this investment from Accenture will increase Ireland’s skills and capacity in the life sciences industry.

“Accenture continues to make significant investments and is committed to creating consistently high-value jobs, particularly in Munster. This country has the resilience, talent and agility to build on our reputation as an attractive location for innovative, digitally enabled manufacturing,” he added.

The investment from Accenture was supported by the Government through IDA Ireland.

IDA CEO Martin Shanahan said the jobs boost will have a “considerable beneficial impact on Cork and the wider Munster region”, aligning with the agency’s mandate for regional job creation.

“The need for companies to innovate and keep pace with technology change, enhancing their digital and competitive capability, is all important and Accenture’s support of the life sciences sector in this regard is timely and welcome,” he said.

Elaine Burke
By Elaine Burke

Elaine Burke was editor of Silicon Republic until 2023, and is now the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. Elaine joined Silicon Republic in 2011 as a journalist covering gadgets, new media and tech jobs. She later served as managing editor before stepping up as editor in 2019. She comes from a background in publishing and is known for being particularly pernickety when it comes to spelling and grammar – earning her the nickname, Critical Red Pen.

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