Nordic region provides springboard for SilverBack’s international success

When it comes to the many successful Irish companies operating on hi-tech construction projects in the Nordic region, Dublin-based SilverBack stands out – unlike many of the other actors who started at home, the company was formed to address a need in the Nordic market and it is now using it as a springboard to expand. 

As a technical recruitment business, mobilising specialised white- and blue-collar teams to major green-transition and mission-critical construction projects, the company launched in 2012 with a specific focus on Norway, Sweden and Denmark. 

“I was working previously in the recruitment world with a Nordic focus and I got to know and like the way of doing business in the region,” founder Paddy Lyons says.  

“At that time in 2012, there was an opportunity to bring experienced, Irish construction workers to work in a region that placed value on that as an offering.”

The timing of that offering during the 2010s – bringing over skilled talent already experienced in working on complex projects – could not have been better. 

With its cool climate and access to reliable sources of energy, the Nordic region was emerging as a major hub for significant investments by the established tech giants and start-up green technology innovators, building data centres, battery gigafactories and other complex engineering projects of the kind that Irish firms already had vast experience in delivering or supporting. 

“The people we were recruiting and mobilising onto these sizeable projects brought their experiences of working to the highest European standards – in safety, technology, construction and engineering skills,” Paddy explains. 

The COVID-19 pandemic was an existential threat to SilverBack’s viability and forced a significant pivot which enabled the business to first survive and then thrive.

“We took a conscious decision to just focus on getting SilverBack embedded on the largest projects in the region and to expand our service offering to move up the value chain and to become part of our client’s strategic planning.” Paddy says. “We launched a white-collar professional and technical offering in August 2020 which has emerged as a key driver of our international growth. We solidified many relationships within the Irish data-centre ecosystem and, vitally importantly to our story, we became heavily embedded in the Northvolt battery Gigafactory project in Northern Sweden, opening our eyes to the many opportunities present in the green industrial transition taking place in the Nordic region.”

Unusually for the Irish hi-tech construction supply chain operating in the region, SilverBack has always been very active in supporting clients and projects outside of the core data-centre and pharma sectors. It is a region that has always had a very strong industrial heritage and that is now being bolstered by a plethora of major investments to build facilities that will decarbonise traditional industries. 

Lyons says: “Despite the well-publicised difficulties that Northvolt and the broader EV sector is currently going through, we see these new-industry projects as a key part of SilverBack’s future. Earlier this year we launched a new five-year strategic growth plan, and core to that is our ambition to mobilise scarce talent to build these new, green-technology industries. We are working hard to be recognised as the best technical recruiter for these projects – offering our suite of services to end-clients, engineering and general contractors and to the discipline contractors performing the work. It’s a competitive market, but we’re successfully competing with some of the largest international technical recruiters.”

This region offers enormous opportunities for the Irish hi-tech construction supply chain and SilverBack is always happy to help.

“We’re proud to count leading Nordic, international and Irish companies among our client-base, and have been able to support many of our compatriots as they come to the region for the first-time with our in-market knowledge of compliance and on-the-ground logistics. At a recent visit to Dublin by the Swedish electrical union to meet Irish contractors, it was very cool to be name checked by them as the Irish company operating in Sweden the longest and as the ‘people to ask’ on compliance matters. That recognition has been hard-won and we’re delighted to share that knowledge with others.”

SilverBack’s Scandinavian success eventually led them to look beyond the region, and the company ended up bringing the lessons learned there to projects around northern and central Europe, as well as back home to Ireland. 

“We've brought ourselves back into our own country through the relationships that we’ve build with our Irish clients in Sweden and Denmark,” Paddy chuckles.

SilverBack’s relationship with Enterprise Ireland stretches back to before the company was even founded, as Paddy and his colleagues tested their ideas with experts at EI. 

“They've always been excellent in terms of opening up networking opportunities, and their in-market advisors have always been really helpful,” Paddy says. “Just last year I completed their ‘Leadership For Growth’ program, which was an absolutely fantastic experience and I would say it was another real impetus towards further growth and further ambition. For me, the Enterprise Ireland relationship is really the kind where, if you put more into it, you’ll get more out of it.”

That program and the relationship with Enterprise Ireland is contributing to SilverBack’s continued success as they spread their wings further afield. 

“We're working hard to use that as the springboard into other regions. A key part of our future growth plans is really accelerating the work we're doing in other parts of Europe, the German market, back home in Ireland, in the UK and US and elsewhere,” Paddy explains. “Our work in the Nordics has now opened up for the first time opportunities for SilverBack to bring our service to the north American market, so we're exploring those opportunities as well – the Nordic region has given us a springboard which we we're doing our best to take advantage of.”