Rotherham-based IT and engineering consultancy Shift Left announced its acquisition by Planit, an Australian-headquartered engineering and application testing services firm.

The move sees Shift Left join the Tokyo-based NRI Group, which employs 13,500 people around the world and has a market capitalisation of $15.7 billion.

The Shift Left brand will remain in operation with its senior management continuing to lead the business, its employees, and client engagements.

Planit CEO Mike Weale said: “We are thrilled to welcome Shift Left to the Planit group and leverage their suite of services and strong customer base to expand our offerings throughout the UK and into Europe.

“We see these regions as key to executing our Vision 2030 strategy, and have aggressive plans for expansion. Thanks to this acquisition, the combined entity has now grown beyond 300 people in the UK.”

The deal comes just four months after Planit’s acquisition of its primary competitor in the New Zealand market, Qual IT, and cybersecurity specialist SEQA.

Shift Left was co-founded by Alan Upton and Dave Rigler seven years ago in Yorkshire, and has since grown to service clients across the UK and Europe.

“This is an incredible milestone for Shift Left and will launch the next stage of growth …” said Rigler.

“We were listening to the needs of our customers, and we could clearly see the opportunity to expand our global reach and extend our service offerings.

“We also knew that achieving this on our own would be possible but would take significant time and investment.

“We needed to find a partner with a substantial global footprint and Planit was the logical choice.

“Not only did we have a historical relationship, we also knew Planit had the capability and capacity to move our business forward.

“We’ve seen Planit’s great work first-hand at clients like Specsavers, where they have over 100 quality specialists servicing their end-to-end quality needs.”

Weale added: “Shift Left employees will immediately benefit from increased learning and career opportunities across the combined entity.

“They can access our world leading training offering, take advantage of our global mobility program, and gain experience across our broad client-base. We also see this as a great benefit to our customers.”