London’s ScreenCloud Expands To Ulster With 54 Jobs In New Hub

September 18, 2020 by Dave Haynes

Business was a little scruffy when I spoke a few months ago with Mark McDermott of ScreenCloud, with lockdowns leading to cancelled or suspended SaaS subscriptions from customers, but the London-based CMS software company is now in a position to hire more than 50 people in a new office in Belfast.

The company is planning to hire for 54 jobs in engineering, product development, marketing and sales at what it calls its new Northern Ireland hub.  Nearly half of the jobs are already in place and the rest will be rolled out by 2022, the company says.

“There is a real vibrancy to the sector here,” says McDermott in PR. “Since our company formed in 2015, we have been able to successfully develop and commercialize our product for global markets.”

The jobs are supported by £150,000 from Invest NI, which has rationalized that by saying the new jobs will contribute over £2m in additional annual salaries to the Northern Ireland economy.

Belfast and the immediate area have, presumably, much lower costs of living realities than London, so McDermott can draw from an entirely different pool of people who don’t need to earn London wages just to pay rent.

The city’s a bit on the damp and gloomy side, at times, but a great place. Been there a couple of times.

In the podcast I did with Mark, he said the company was shifting from SMB to enterprise accounts – which provide scale and are also less affected, generally, by downturns like the one we’re all in. Some big companies like airlines are obviously in a world of pain, but many others are working their way through this with far less hurt.