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The jobs boost was confirmed at the official opening of its Phase 3 expansion at Strabane Business Park. KES moved into the Invest NI owned park in 2019. The company initially specialised in the design and manufacture of high-performance, energy-efficient modular buildings, and now also delivers products for global data centre providers. Conor McCrossan, Managing Director of KES Group, said: “We’re delighted to open the third phase of our state-of-the art facilities today, which will increase our manufacturing capacity and enhance our competitive advantage, enabling us to fulfil more orders and grow our exports. “Invest NI’s support has transformed our business. Since we bought and began to develop land here, we have evolved from a construction company to a technology provider. "From building E-Houses for the data centre market, we are expanding our product offerings to include electrical switchgear and full integrated packages. Invest NI helped us take control of our supply chain, and our 40 new electrical engineers combined with new cutting-edge automation will increase our productivity and enable us to build on our success.” KES has introduced world leading automated technology to manufacture electrical switchgear products. It has also invested significantly in upstream integration, embedding vertical manufacturing processes. The 40 new jobs, some of which are already in place, have average salaries of over £48,000. George McKinney, Interim Chief Development Officer at Invest NI, said: “KES Group is creating one of the most modern and advanced offsite construction facilities in the UK and Ireland. We have worked with the company for ten years, supporting it to build its first facility at Strabane Business Park in 2019. “Over this time, we’ve offered KES over £1m to develop its facility, create new jobs, improve productivity and build supply chain resilience. I’m delighted to recognise KES’ significant transformation, and its creation of 40 highly skilled roles which will add almost £2m in annual salaries to the North West economy.” Phase 4, the final phase, is due to be completed in 2027. This will create facilities to service increasing demand from the data centre market, driven by AI, cloud services and digital transformation. Once complete, the company will have a 13-acre footprint on the site and occupy almost 60% of Strabane Business Park.
