SAP eyes UK expansion with €250m investment in new offices and cloud service

Investment will include a new 'customer experience centre' based in London

German software giant SAP is to invest €250m into its UK operations over the next five years, which will include two new offices in London and Manchester as well as the launch of its UK Data Cloud service.

SAP UK Data Cloud will be a "highly secure UK-based cloud offering", SAP claims, and will provide cloud solutions and services delivered using hyperscaler infrastructure at UK data centres.

One of the company's two new offices will be based in the Scalpel in London, which SAP dubs as a "customer experience centre" that will provide "state-of-the-art facilities" for customers and partners to pursue co-innovation opportunities.

The other will be based near Manchester, which it claims will allow the business "to work and engage more closely with companies across the country".

Scott Russell, executive board member for customer success at SAP said: "The UK is a critically strategic market for SAP, and with its highly successful vaccine rollout it has an increasingly positive outlook for the years ahead.

"We are incredibly excited about this commitment, which will bring new services to market for our customers, greater support for social enterprises, as well as an even better working environment for our colleagues and new talent."

SAP added that, by 2026, it hopes to have supported a further 250 interns in the UK by scaling up its apprenticeship programme to "further grow the number of trained and skilled people across the IT industry".

The company recently announced its Q2 results, with revenue falling by one per cent and operating profit dropping by two per cent for IFRS and 23 per cent for non-IFRS, despite cloud revenue increasing by 11 per cent.