Kirby Group Engineering is creating 50 new jobs following the opening of its second office in Cape Town, giving HR and talent acquisition teams at Irish-headquartered multinationals a working example of scaling an overseas engineering workforce while retaining access to a single skilled talent hub.

Kirby Group Engineering was founded in 1964 by Tom and Michael Kirby, and is a Limerick-headquartered mechanical and electrical engineering contractor employing over 1,900 people across Ireland, the UK, Europe, the Nordics and South Africa.

The strategic logic favours proximity over dispersion: opening a second office within the same city, rather than a new location, protects access to an established skilled labour pool while allowing headcount to scale beyond what a single site can absorb.

The structural driver is fast-growing demand for mechanical, electrical, commissioning and structural engineering skills, particularly tied to data centre and industrial construction work. Kirby's South African operation, established in 2023, has grown quickly enough in three years to justify doubling headcount to more than 110.

Jimmy Kirby, executive chairman, said the Cape Town operation has gone from strength to strength over three years, and that expanding to the northern suburbs reflects confidence in the team built there and the long-term opportunities the company sees in the area. He said the new office allows capacity to grow within the same talent hub, maintaining consistency, collaboration and continued access to the city's skilled professionals.

Recruitment is open across mechanical, electrical, commissioning and structural engineering roles, alongside partnerships with the University of Pretoria and the University of Cape Town on sponsorship, scholarships and graduate development, embedding a structured talent pipeline directly into the expansion.

For the sector, the case signals that Irish engineering employers are increasingly building university-linked graduate pipelines abroad, rather than relying solely on relocation or contractor staffing, when scaling overseas operations.

Source: Limerick Post