Kainos, one of Northern Ireland’s largest companies, increased its employee headcount last year as bookings and contracted order backlogs at the technology services group jumped significantly. In full-year results on Monday, the Belfast-headquartered company, which provides digital support services to large commercial and public sector organisations like the UK’s National Health Service, said its revenues jumped by 17 per cent in the 12 months to the end of March to more than £421 million.After tax, the FTSE 250-listed group, which was established in 1986 as a spin-out from Queen’s University Belfast, reported profits of £42.5 million, up from £35.6 million in 2023. Speaking to The Irish Times, Kainos chief executive Brendan Mooney said he was particularly pleased with the group’s sales performance. At the end of March, Kainos had a contracted backlog of orders worth £433.9 million, up 18 per cent from last year, “a really solid number”, Mooney said.“Backlog for us is brilliant because it allows us to plan how we run our digital business,” he said. Mooney said that despite the ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, Kainos is well-positioned for growth throughout the rest of 2026. Against this backdrop, Kainos increased its employee headcount by more than 20 per cent to 3,475 in its 2026 financial year after shedding jobs in the previous year. Mooney said the turnaround was related to an improvement in the company’s performance and sales in the second half of the year. He said that even though Kainos is increasingly employing artificial intelligence tools in its services, “we still need people to be at the heart of what we do and design and build for clients”. Kainos also added some 120 employees from the Canadian firm Davis Pier, which it acquired during the year. The acquisition added £4.6 million to the group’s revenues in the six months since the deal was finalised in September 2025. “Davis Pier is a high-growth Canadian consultancy that specialises in addressing complex challenges for public sector and community organisations across Canada,” Kainos said in the results, which were filed with the London Stock Exchange on Monday. “We knew the business well, having partnered with Davis Pier since 2022.”Kainos said it continues to see strong growth potential in the Canadian market, “which needs to invest in digital government, where it currently ranks 47th globally versus seventh for the UK”.