Acora 2025: Full-Stack, Full Speed, Fully Wrapped

2025 has been a landmark year across politics, policy, diplomacy, and culture. From the 200th railway anniversary to the launch of the Great British Energy Act, and even the accidental early release of the budget. But it’s also been a year of defining moments for Acora. As we look back, we reflect on the milestones that have driven growth, innovation, and impact across our organisation.

AWS Capability Through Acquisitional Growth

Back in April, we announced the successful acquisition of Hydras, a London-based AWS consultancy. A key reason behind this was driven by our customers asking us to grow or acquire AWS capabilities, giving them and us further optionality, fully supporting their business growth and multi-cloud journey.

With around 80% of organisations surveyed now operating some form of multi-cloud strategy, AWS continues to lead the global cloud infrastructure market. Now, 9 months on since we announced the acquisition, we move forward, and our focus remains on delivering exceptional outcomes for our customers.

Continuing to strengthen our public cloud capabilities through this integration, we are seeing the impact and additional value it is bringing to our customers. These additional capabilities enable us to provide customers with a full hybrid-cloud strategy, truly running the right workload in the right place, regardless of platform.

We are also investing in advanced automation, cost optimisation, and security frameworks to ensure our customers can maximise the benefits of multi-cloud without complexity. By combining Acora’s managed services with Hydras’ deep AWS knowledge, we are creating a unified offering that empowers businesses to innovate faster, reduce risk, and achieve greater agility.

Our commitment is clear: to help organisations run the right workload in the right place, leveraging best-in-class technologies and practices. Onboarding over 25 new organisations this year who have entrusted us to be their Full-Stack Partner of Choice, this is just the beginning of an exciting journey, and we look forward to continuing to deliver transformative value for our customers.

 

Matt Wood – Director of Customer Success

Partner Acceleration: A Year of Momentum

Partnerships continued to play a pivotal role in our progress throughout 2025, helping us accelerate innovation, deepen capability and deliver greater value for customers.

Across the year, we hosted a series of Partner Town Halls, creating space for open dialogue, shared learning and collaboration. These sessions brought partners and teams together to generate ideas, spark innovation and strengthen relationships, reinforcing the importance of community and connection in driving progress.

We also maintained a strong presence at Gartner events, staying closely aligned to market insight, industry direction and emerging opportunities. These engagements supported informed conversations with partners and customers alike, grounding strategy in real-world intelligence.

The year was marked by a number of industry recognitions, reflecting both individual excellence and the strength of our partner ecosystem. Our Cyber Security Head of New Business, Brad, was named S1 Channel Champion 2025, recognising elite-level partnership and Paladin expertise. We were also proud to be awarded Horizon3 UK & Ireland Partner of the Year, a milestone in our shared mission to challenge and disrupt traditional approaches to penetration testing. Further recognition came from Fortinet, where we were honoured as Crime Stoppers International Winner 2025, Cyber Security Leadership Award, reinforcing our commitment to leadership and impact in the security space.

In parallel, we continued to strengthen our Data and AI partnerships, with the ongoing Databricks relationship under Elastacloud remaining a key strategic focus. Led by Sandy in his role as Head of Launchpad at Elastacloud, this partnership continues to play an important role in enabling advanced data and AI outcomes for customers.

Together, these partnerships, recognitions and collaborations defined a year of acceleration, built on trust, shared ambition and a collective focus on delivering what’s next.

External Radar: Technology & Partnership Recognition

2025 was also a year full of external recognition, with accolades that reflect both our strategic impact and the strength of our services in the market.

We were proud to be included in the E2E Tech 100, an annual list celebrating UK-based companies that not only excel in their disciplines but also lead with transformative business strategies and deliver strong commercial results. Being recognised alongside such ambitious and forward-thinking organisations validated the collective dedication and performance that have defined our year.

In addition, Acora was also proudly listed on Cloud Tango’s MSP Select 2025, a recognition that highlights trusted managed service providers delivering excellence in customer experience, technical capability, and value. This acknowledgement reinforces our commitment to quality and the outcomes we help our customers achieve across cloud, security, and full-stack service delivery.

These awards underscore external confidence in our direction, affirming both the strategic choices we’ve made and the impact those choices are having across industries. They’re a testament to the hard work of our teams and a key milestone as we continue to grow and evolve in the years ahead.

Service Trends: AI Momentum and Cyber Readiness

This year, we saw certain service areas surge ahead in 2025, really demonstrating how organisations are balancing growth, innovation, and resilience.

In particular, two trends stood out: the rapid adoption of AI and the heightened demand for structured cyber readiness assessments. Both highlight the increasing expectation that service providers deliver end-to-end solutions across Cyber Security, Managed Services and Data and AI, not just point solutions.

AI momentum became one of the most transformative trends. Customers moving beyond experimentation began seeing real, measurable returns quickly, from more efficient operations and automation to enhanced data-driven insights. Our ability to deploy AI across the full stack, whether embedded in apps, cloud platforms, or analytics environments, enabled organisations to extract value faster and scale impact across the business, internally and externally.

Simultaneously, we witnessed a significant surge in Cyber Incident Baseline and Readiness Assessments. Organisations across sectors were prioritising proactive security, wanting a clear understanding of their current posture and the ability to strengthen resilience before incidents occur. For our customers, these assessments are critical because they inform not only security strategy but also underpin decisions in cloud, infrastructure, applications, and data initiatives, ensuring the wider technology stack is robust, aligned, and ready to scale.

Together, these trends highlight how customers increasingly rely on a comprehensive, integrated approach to technology, combining fundamental services to drive measurable outcomes and future-proof their operations.

Together Days: Bringing the Team Closer

2025 has also seen the exciting launch of a brand-new internal initiative designed to connect, celebrate, and collaborate: Acora Together Days. Held once a month, every month, these dedicated days invited all employees to come into their local office and take part in a range of activities designed to unite teams, spark ideas, and grow together.

Together Days were created to represent more than just dates on a calendar; they have become opportunities to meet colleagues from individuals’ own teams and across other departments, allow everyone to stay up to date with company initiatives, celebrate achievements, attend training, or give back through charitable activities.

Each day has been themed around key company priorities and packed with opportunities to engage, all while including business updates, team recognition, skill-building and regular lunches to fuel the days.

Together Days really have been all about building connection, fostering collaboration, and celebrating what makes Acora a great place to work: our people. And with the successful feedback shared by Acorans across the business, Together Days are proudly returning for 2026, bigger and brighter than before.

We Also Moved, and Not Just Desks

This summer, we opened our new London office, marking a significant milestone in the growth of the organisation. Bigger, brighter and located in one of the city’s most iconic areas, the space reflects both how far we’ve come and the direction we’re heading.

Following the completion of our latest acquisitions, the office became a focal point for bringing teams together, reinforcing a shared sense of purpose and momentum. It stands as a clear expression of our pace of growth and the trust we place in our people to shape what comes next.

Built with collaboration in mind, the space enables teams to work more closely while also providing a welcoming environment to host customers, partners and events. It’s designed to support connection, conversation and progress.

More than a change of address, the move signals continued ambition and confidence in the future.

So That Was 2025…

A year of moves, mergers, milestones, and a healthy dose of momentum. From expanding our AWS muscle and supercharging AI projects, to launching Together Days and taking over a shiny new London office, we didn’t just keep up, we set the pace.

And 2026? We’re just getting started. More innovation, more impact, and yes, more reasons to celebrate, collaborate, and maybe even dance in the office once in a while. Buckle up, it’s going to be a wild, bold ride.