History
Lesters incorporating Sybersolve (previously named LesterSybersolve), traces its roots to 1979 when Robert Lester started Lester Associates, a consultancy service designed to meet the needs of foreign contractors working in the UK, especially those from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand working in the IT and offshore oil-rig sectors. One of Robert's earliest hires was Sheila Butterworth, our current Head of Operations.
Lester Associates grew dramatically over the years, expanding into areas designed to make the experience of contractors in the UK as stress free as possible.
In those days and into the early 1990s this included providing inexpensive but clean and well situated accommodation, making arrangements with Vodafone to provide mobile telephones when a person new to the UK who did not have the infamous two utility bills could not get one, establishing a banking relationship with Lloyds Bank such that contractors could open accounts without leaving the Lester office and, most importantly, providing them with what one might say was the first internet cafè in the UK, the Lester Contractor Centre. In the Centre contractors had available computers with internet connectivity and a full suite of software so that they could update CVs, write letters, etc. Coffee, tea and other refreshments were available free of charge, all Lester asked was that they keep the kitchen tidy, which they mostly did.
When the job market got tough with the arrival of recession in the 1980s, Lester Associates created the LesterList, effectively a Job Serve type of service which allowed contractors to be advertised to agencies, helping them to find work quicker than they otherwise would. The List, as it became known, was free to agencies and over the years we estimate helped tens of thousands of contractors locate work.
As in all markets business evolves and the I.T. contractor market is no exception. In the late 1990s, a need was seen to provide a solution service, one that had at its heart the ability to provide companies with highly sought after, difficult to find services. This lead to the creation of the Sybersolve brand to provide managed project and SLA based solutions.
Today the Group offers a full range of services not only to the foreign contractor but also to the range of skills provided by British Nationals, at all times keeping in the forefront of our minds Robert Lester's original proposition of serving skilled professionals with a supportive infrastructure which allowed each individual fee-generating contractor/consultant to focus on their professional strengths.
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