As 2025 draws to a close, we’ve been reflecting on what has been one of the most exciting, challenging and rewarding years in BlakYaks’ journey so far.

This year has reminded us why we do what we do. It’s been about moving together with purpose, building things that matter, and creating real impact for organisations we’re genuinely proud to support.

And above all else, one thing stands out: our community - our customers, our partners, and the incredible Yak herd that continues to raise the bar every single day.

Here is a summary of some of our 2025 highlights.

Joining forces with Proact Group

March marked a major milestone: our acquisition by Proact Group, a leading European hybrid cloud and data specialist.

This partnership has already opened new opportunities - expanding our reach, strengthening our Azure capabilities, and giving our team a larger platform to grow. And throughout it all, we’ve kept what makes BlakYaks, BlakYaks.

*Left to right: Stuart Anderson (CTO, BlakYaks), Magnus Lönn (CEO and President, Proact IT Group), Dirk Anderson (CEO, BlakYaks) and Jamie Ford (Business Unit Director UK, Proact IT UK)*

Accelerator Packs: from an idea to a movement

If 2024 was the launchpad, then 2025 was the year our Azure Accelerator Packs truly took off.

More organisations than ever embraced our code-driven approach to Azure engineering, with our Accelerator Packs now representing a significant and rapidly growing share of our overall pipeline, including 60% of all brand-new client engagements this year.

Customers who adopted multiple Packs enjoyed even greater results:

90% acceleration in platform delivery
Stronger governance and compliance by design
Reduced operational overheads
Production-ready results in weeks, not months

What’s next for Accelerator Packs?

We already have several new Accelerator Packs in the roadmap, shaped directly by what we’re seeing customers ask for most - big thanks to our ALIAS community for their input. Azure Virtual Desktop and Databricks are high on that list, alongside other emerging platform and data use cases where speed, repeatability and confidence matter just as much. As demand continues to evolve, so will our Packs – always grounded in real-world delivery, and always focused on helping our customers move faster with less risk.

Celebrating industry recognition

One of our highlights this year was our Azure Accelerator Packs being recognised as ‘Cloud Technology of the Year’ at the 2025 UK IT Industry Awards - one of the UK’s most established and respected technology awards programmes, organised by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, and Computing.

This recognition belongs to our brilliant team, whose commitment to engineering excellence shines through in everything they do, and to our customers, who back us to challenge the norm and deliver better.

Watch our interview with Computing below, where Dirk and Stuart reflect on what the win means for the team.

A year of team growth

Behind every line of code is a dedicated Yak - and this year, our team continued to embody everything we’re proud of.

Some highlights:

We’re very proud of our long-standing partnership with Great Place to Work, and in 2025 we were recognised once again as one of the UK’s Best Workplaces, Best Workplaces for Development, and Best Workplaces in Tech - based entirely on anonymous employee feedback. A reflection of the trust, clarity and care experienced by our team across the organisation.

Many Yaks achieved new Azure certifications, promotions, and role progressions, supported by focused development pathways and time protected for learning and innovation.

Our Yakademy programme continued to grow, supporting early-in-career engineers as they developed into confident Azure consultants through hands-on delivery, structured learning and dedicated mentorship.

This year across the company we saw teams step up, support one another, and continue to make BlakYaks a workplace defined by trust, transparency and genuine connection.

Customer stories we’re truly proud of

Nothing makes us happier than seeing organisations succeed - and this year delivered some great outcomes.

One major UK enterprise modernised its entire cloud estate by adopting our Azure Landing Zone, DevOps and AI Foundations Accelerator Packs, enabling rapid, secure Azure adoption across multiple business units.

A large SaaS provider transformed its platform with an enterprise-grade AKS environment built from our pre-engineered ECP Accelerator Pack, delivering global scale, stronger resilience and the confidence to accelerate product innovation.

Another financial services organisation achieved some remarkable results using our AI Foundations Pack: 90% automation of complex, unstructured customer queries, almost doubling its original goal and unlocking new opportunities for AI-driven operations.

And in one of the year’s most ambitious container-first programmes, we partnered with a leading UK investment and insurance firm to engineer a secure, fully governed enterprise container platform that now underpins their cloud transformation strategy.

These stories reflect who we are: collaborative, engineering-led, and relentlessly focused on delivering meaningful outcomes for our customers.

Looking ahead to 2026

As we look to 2026, we’re excited to build on this year’s achievements. Our Accelerator Packs portfolio will continue to grow with new solutions - each designed to help organisations move faster with greater confidence and control. We’ll keep investing in our UK-based engineering team, strengthening the expertise and collaboration our customers value so highly.

We’re also expanding our ALIAS and customer events, creating more opportunities to learn together, share challenges and shape our R&D roadmap with real-world insight. And with the backing of Proact, we’re gearing up to support Azure modernisation on a much bigger scale.

Above all, 2026 will be a year defined by our commitment to innovation, governance and engineering excellence - continuing to deliver the secure, automated and reliable cloud foundations our customers rely on.

A heartfelt thank you

To our Customers: thank you for your trust, your openness, and your willingness to innovate with us.
To our Partners: thank you for your collaboration and belief in our approach.
To the BlakYaks team: you are the engine behind everything we’ve achieved this year.

We’re proud of what we built together - and even more excited about what’s coming next year!

Here’s to a brilliant 2026.

The Yaks 🧡