Two companies, financial technology firm Options and multinational product development corporation Leardon Solutions, are creating a total of 41 jobs as the result of establishing new centres in Belfast.
Options has offices in London, New York, Chicago, Hong Kong and Singapore, and will now establish a new centre in Belfast, creating 31 high-quality IT jobs.
The company provides cloud-based IT infrastructure products to the global financial services industry and currently employs 100 people across its global offices. Of the 31 jobs announced, 12 are already in place at the new premises on Botanic Avenue.
“The burgeoning financial-technology sector here, coupled with a dynamic, motivated and highly educated workforce, makes Belfast a perfect fit for Options,” said chief operating officer Danny Moore.
The Belfast office represents an investment of stg£2.9m, supported by Invest NI through a grant of stg£249,000.
“Options is the latest globally trading company to choose Northern Ireland as an investment location. Its investment will generate around stg£1.1m annually in salaries in wages,” said Invest NI executive director of international business Barry McBride.
US trade mission success
Northern Ireland’s Enterprise, Trade and Investment Minister Arlene Foster announced 10 more jobs for Belfast while in San Diego, California, during a US trade mission. Based in San Diego, Leardon Solutions has selected the Northern Ireland capital as the location for its new product development and design centre and will begin recruiting in August with the aim of filling all posts by March 2017.
Positions available at Leardon Solutions in Belfast will cover programme management, development engineering, and manufacturing and supply chain engineering, and will offer average salaries of stg£29,000 per annum.
“We looked at a number of locations for our European centre and were attracted to Northern Ireland because of the pool of experienced technical, design and engineering skills, the support available and the chance to work closely with local universities,” said Mike Hoggatt, CEO.
“Recent figures released in the EY Attractiveness Survey 2014 show that Northern Ireland was the best performing region in the UK last year for inward investment. On a per capita basis, we secured almost 40pc more new inward investment jobs than the next best region, and three times as many as London,” said Foster.
“Like many other US investors, Leardon Solutions will find Northern Ireland to be a cost-competitive and business-friendly environment, where it can access excellent government support.”
