Deloitte has appointed Stephen McMaster as their new technology partner in Belfast.

McMaster will continue in his role as Deloitte UK’s Engineering Chief Technology Officer (CTO) but will also become the Cloud Strategy and Architecture Lead for the UK firm.

McMaster joined Deloitte 13 years ago as an enterprise architect following a 16-year career in technology and has led Deloitte’s engineering capability from Northern Ireland.

In his current role, he helps clients across the public sector, financial services, and life sciences, design and build complex cloud platforms, with a particular focus on quality, security, and compliance.

McMaster began coding at the age of eight, and throughout his software engineering career, he has been heavily invested in nurturing junior talent in Northern Ireland, running several academies in conjunction with the Department for the Economy. 

As a driving force behind Deloitte’s LGBTQ+ network PROUD in Northern Ireland, he is actively involved in Pride month activities as well as other year-round initiatives, and is committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive at work.

McMaster said: “I am extremely proud to become a partner in Deloitte and look forward to continuing to work with our fantastic clients to design and build technology platforms that help transform their operations.

“I have and always will be an engineer. I started programming on my Commodore 64 at the age of eight, which ignited a passion for coding, but I didn’t go to university or follow a traditional career path into IT.

"I moved to Deloitte 13 years ago as an experienced hire in the analytics team and have been given the opportunity to grow and develop further in a number of platform engineering roles.

“I believe Northern Ireland is uniquely positioned for growth, given our highly skilled and motivated workforce, and I’m excited to help lead the growth of our local practice.”

Marie Doyle, office senior partner at Deloitte Belfast, said: “I would like to congratulate all of those people in the Belfast team who have been promoted in this year’s round of promotions.

"It has been a busy and successful year in Northern Ireland and I’m thankful for everyone’s hard work.

"All of the promotions are very well deserved.

“I’m so pleased to welcome Stephen into the partner group in Belfast and have no doubt he will continue to bring tremendous value to the firm in his new partner role.

"He has worked extensively on business critical, resilient and secure platforms for clients in a range of sectors and has unrivalled technical expertise.”

Last month, Deloitte announced plans to create 500 new technology-focused jobs in Belfast over the next three years, in response to increased client demand for UK-based delivery capabilities and specialist technology expertise.