This month it’s BlakYaks’ fifth anniversary.

Five years ago, BlakYaks was founded on a simple belief: enterprise Azure platforms should be built and managed with code to maximise business value while delivering secure, resilient and scalable services.

That principle still guides us today and has enabled us to grow, scale and partner with leading organisations, supporting some of the most complex Azure environments.

From a 12-person team to a recognised Azure engineering leader

In the early days, BlakYaks was a small, highly focused team working out of a single office. Five years on, our growth has been reflected in our footprint - with multiple office moves to support demand and a growing team.

From the beginning, our focus has been clear:

Operate in a way that is flexible, agile and easy to work with
Apply engineering discipline to cloud infrastructure
Deliver predictable, repeatable outcomes for customers

That approach has enabled us to deliver tens of successful projects, designing, building and operating platforms that are not only technically advanced, but operationally sustainable and scalable.

In 2026, our focus continues to be helping organisations solve the most common enterprise challenges:

Legacy platforms slowing down delivery
Increasing operational complexity as environments scale
Security, governance and compliance pressures
The need to adopt AI and cloud-native technologies safely

And we help solve them through our engineered, code-driven Azure solutions.

Joining Proact

One of the most significant milestones in our journey came in March 2025, when BlakYaks became part of Proact IT Group AB, meaningfully strengthening our position and future direction.

From day one, Proact has backed the BlakYaks vision - strengthening our brand, supporting our operating model, and accelerating the strategy that got us here.

As part of Proact, we are building on that momentum: accelerating growth, expanding our capabilities and creating new opportunities for our team which we’re very excited about.

Today, being part of Proact allows us to:

Extend our reach beyond the UK into a broader European customer base
Combine deep Azure engineering expertise with wider hybrid cloud and data capabilities
Deliver larger, more complex programmes with greater scale and confidence
Continue investing in our Accelerator Packs and engineering-led approach

It has given us a stronger platform to grow - without compromising the engineering-first culture and delivery model that define BlakYaks.

And as we look ahead, that combination puts us in a much stronger position to support organisations as their cloud environments continue to evolve in complexity and scale.

A new approach to accelerating enterprise Azure delivery

One of the biggest shifts in our journey has been the launch and expansion of our Azure Accelerator Packs.

We recognised early on that most enterprise Azure platforms share common architectural patterns - yet organisations were repeatedly designing and building them from scratch.

So we changed the model.

Our Accelerator Packs productise these foundations into reusable, fully automated, enterprise-grade solutions - enabling organisations to deploy secure Azure platforms in weeks, rather than months.

The suite of Accelerator Packs includes:

Azure Landing Zones for secure, governed platform foundations. Read more here.
DevOps & Infrastructure as Code for fully automated delivery. Read more here.
Enterprise Container Platforms (AKS/ARO) for cloud-native workloads. Read more here.
AI Foundations for secure, scalable Azure OpenAI adoption. Read more here.
Enterprise Azure Virtual Desktop that modernise legacy VDI and support secure hybrid working. Read more here.
Now in development: Azure DataBricks for modern data platforms

Each solution is built entirely with Infrastructure as Code, embedding governance, security and operational standards directly into the platform from day one.

The result is a fundamentally different approach to cloud delivery with faster time to value, reduced risk/rework, and consistent environments and platforms that scale without introducing friction

Growth and recognition

Over the past five years, this approach has driven strong growth across the business.

We’ve:

Delivered complex enterprise platforms across regulated industries
Expanded our Specialist Operations service (SpecOps) to support customers post-deployment
Built strong partnerships with customers and Microsoft
Been recognised in multiple Great Place to Work lists

And in November 2025, we were proud to win Cloud Technology of the Year at the UK IT Industry Awards for our Accelerator Packs - recognising both technical innovation and real-world impact.

The part that matters most: people and culture

The quality of what we build is a direct reflection of the people behind it, and that’s something we’ve been intentional about from day one.

Over the last five years, we’ve built a culture centered around engineering excellence and continuous improvement - welcoming new Yaks into the herd and seeing individuals grow into leaders as the organisation has evolved around them.

It’s a culture shaped by how we work: collaborative, accountable and grounded in a shared commitment to doing things properly.

We’re particularly proud of Yakademy and the role it plays in shaping the next generation of Azure engineers. It has enabled many individuals to develop deep technical expertise and build meaningful careers, creating clear pathways for long-term growth and capability within the organisation.

And importantly, we’ve built a team that genuinely cares about what they deliver - and the impact it has on our customers.