![\"Martyn](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763157316_317_24.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTom Gray, now a strategic advisor to Kainos plc, started working at the company in 1990 and served as its chief technology officer for 20 years.<\/p>\n
He was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to the IT Sector award at the Belfast Telegraph IT Awards in partnership with Telef\u00f3nica Tech UK&I.<\/p>\n
Tom was one of 19 winners announced at the glittering ceremony on Friday night at Belfast’s MAC Theatre.<\/p>\n
It was hosted by comedian Andrew Ryan and attended by hundreds of people from the IT industry in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the sixth year in which the Belfast Telegraph has held the IT Awards, and the fifth year of its long-running partnership with Telef\u00f3nica Tech UK&I.<\/p>\n
Martyn Bullerwell, CEO of Telef\u00f3nica Tech UK&I, said: \u201cWe at Telef\u00f3nica Tech are delighted once again to be the title sponsor of the Belfast Telegraph IT Awards.<\/p>\n
“These awards help showcase Northern Ireland\u2019s exceptional IT talent and the significant innovation within the sector.<\/p>\n
“I want to wholeheartedly congratulate all of the people, companies, teams, and departments amongst the winners and indeed on the shortlist this year.<\/p>\n
“It has been a true honour and fantastic night celebrating the winners of the 2025 Belfast Telegraph IT awards in partnership with Telef\u00f3nica Tech.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Martyn Bullerwell, CEO Telefonica Tech; Ellen Dickson, Telefonica Tech; Tom Gray, Kainos plc, and Margaret Canning, Business Editor, Belfast Telegraph, at the Belfast Telegraph IT Awards 2025 in partnership with Telefonica Tech. Pic: Peter Morrison<\/p>\n
Eoin Brannigan, editor-in-chief of the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life, said: \u201cCongratulations to all our winners tonight \u2013 you should be very proud of your achievements. <\/p>\n
“It\u2019s been fantastic for us to hold the IT Awards, joining forces with Telef\u00f3nica Tech UK&I for the fifth year in a row. <\/p>\n
“Thank you to Telef\u00f3nica Tech for their support, and for helping us stage the most eagerly-awaited event in the IT industry calendar. <\/p>\n
“We\u2019re so grateful to our judging panel, led by Peter Russell, for their hard work in choosing the winners from a really stunning range of entries this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Gray was praised by the judging panel as \u201csomewhat of an understated legend in the NI software industry\u201d.<\/p>\n
The panel said: \u201cHaving invested a career with NI indigenous firm Kainos, in 2025 Tom stepped down from his role as group chief technology officer and director of innovation.<\/p>\n
“In addition to his contributions at the company level, where he has been a superb advocate for early tech talent – Tom stands out for his dedication to the wider software industry and for helping the entire ecosystem thrive as it does today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has seen him volunteer countless hours, days, months and years advising and advocating for initiatives that have helped accelerate the industry – further borne out in his countless commitments to initiatives with universities, schools, the sponsoring of programmes, and as a founding member of Software NI.\u201d<\/p>\n
And they said he showed no signs of slowing down despite retiring earlier this year, leading development of a report by Matrix NI on AI and the future of work, and accepting an appointment as Professor of AI and innovation at Ulster University.<\/p>\n
Winners of the 2025 Belfast Telegraph IT Awards in partnership with Telef\u00f3nica Tech UK&I<\/p>\n
Best Public Sector or Third Sector IT Project of the Year sponsored by Allstate<\/p>\n
Winner: Business Services Organisation – encompass<\/p>\n
AI Project of the Year sponsored by Fujitsu<\/p>\n
Winner: Liberty IT<\/p>\n
Cybersecurity Project of the Year sponsored by eir evo<\/p>\n
Winner: Clanmil Housing Group<\/p>\n
IT Project of the Year sponsored by Ocho People<\/p>\n
Winner: Business Services Organisation – encompass<\/p>\n
Mobile App of the Year sponsored by Options IT<\/p>\n
Winner: Cranmore Consulting<\/p>\n
Young IT Professional of the Year sponsored by Leaf IT<\/p>\n
Winner: James Galbraith, Cranmore<\/p>\n
Best Place to Work in IT \u2013 under 100 employees sponsored by Kindred Collection<\/p>\n
Locate a Locum<\/p>\n
Best Place to Work in IT \u2013 100 employees or more sponsored by NI Jobfinder<\/p>\n
Winner: Allstate<\/p>\n
IT Supplier of the Year sponsored by Openreach<\/p>\n
Salt Communications<\/p>\n
IT Services Company of the Year sponsored by S3 Creative<\/p>\n
Winner: StormHarvester<\/p>\n
IT Woman of the Year sponsored by Ulster University<\/p>\n
Alison McFadden, Continu<\/p>\n
Development Team of the Year sponsored by ARC Regulatory<\/p>\n
Rapid 7 AppSec Team<\/p>\n
Data Scientist of the Year sponsored by Bearing Point<\/p>\n
Aileen Ward, Allstate<\/p>\n
Excellence in Workplace Health and Wellbeing sponsored by NB1<\/p>\n
Fujitsu<\/p>\n
IT Team or Department of the Year sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services<\/p>\n
Continu<\/p>\n
Best Use of CSR sponsored by Expleo<\/p>\n
Options IT<\/p>\n
IT Professional of the Year sponsored by Hubflow<\/p>\n
Eve Brennan, Business Insider<\/p>\n
Overall IT Team or Company of the Year 2025 sponsored by Telef\u00f3nica Tech<\/p>\n
Options IT<\/p>\n
Outstanding Contribution to the IT Sector sponsored by Telef\u00f3nica Tech<\/p>\n
Tom Gray<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Gray, now a strategic advisor to Kainos plc, started working at the company in 1990 and served…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[179378,778,1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-570690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-it-awards","9":"tag-margaret-canning","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115550285936827517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}