A CLOUD technology specialist in Hampshire s planning to create up to 40 jobs over the next two years.

Hosted, based in Whiteley, has appointed Gareth McQuaid as chief technology officer to support its growth plans.

He was previously business director at Matrix IT and has 20 years of experience in IT businesses in the south.

He founded the managed services provider Nexus Business Group, which was sold to Peach Technologies in 2014.

Mr McQuaid’s priorities include developing Hosted as a leading provider of cloud platforms for businesses and the creation of a training academy to recruit staff.

He said: “This is an exciting time for Hosted as we increase our capability to deliver digital and cloud technology to businesses of all sizes.

“We are leaving behind outdated models of managed IT and, through cutting-edge cloud services, we can offer agile, fast, scalable platforms that are highly cost-effective and empower businesses to grow without being constrained by the limits of their IT provider.

“At the same time I am excited to be creating employment opportunities to support our own growth.

“We would expect to see our team increase by 30 to 40 people over the next two years and will be recruiting locally wherever we can, offering full training to build a fantastic pool of talent to drive our continued success,” Mr McQuaid added.

“Throughout this growth we will be introducing more businesses to the benefits of Hosted’s solutions in minimising downtime, enabling them to easily add users depending on their needs, and reducing IT costs.”

Hosted, based at Solent Way, is a Microsoft silver partner.

It also works with major global industry partners including Google Cloud, Cloudflare and AWS.

It delivers support, security and backup services remotely through a “desktop as a service” model.

It says this is more cost-effective than traditional IT providers, with a far lower per-user cost because there is no need to have engineers on site. Its products work with remote, office-based and hybrid teams through scalable platforms.