1981 to 2000 The company was founded by
David Goldman,
Paul Muller, and
Graham Wylie in 1981 in Newcastle upon Tyne, to develop estimating and accounting software for small businesses. A student at
Newcastle University, Graham Wylie, took a summer job with an accountancy firm funded by a government small business grant to write software to help their record keeping. This became the basis for
Sage Line 50. Next, hired by David Goldman to write some estimating software for his printing company, Campbell Graphics, Graham used the same accounting software to produce the first version of Sage Accounts. David was so impressed that he hired Graham and academic Paul Muller to form Sage, selling its software first to printing companies, and then to a wider market through a network of resellers. In 1984, the company launched
Sage software, a product for the
Amstrad PCW word processor, In 1994,
Paul Walker was appointed
Chief Executive. In 1998, Sage's Professional Accountants Division was established. In 1999, Sage entered FTSE 100 Sage was the best-performing UK share in the 1990s, increasing in value by 28,000%.
2000 to 2010 music venue, located on the banks of the
River Tyne, was named the Sage Gateshead during its sponsorship. In 2001, Sage acquired Interact Commerce Inc. and entered the
CRM/contact management market and in 2002 Sage won "Business of The Year" in the National Business Awards. Also that year, Sage sponsored the new Music Centre in Gateshead for £6m – known at the time as
Sage Gateshead – the largest ever UK arts/business sponsorship. Sage are one of two technology stocks listed on the
FTSE 100 Index, the other being
Micro Focus. In 2003, at age 43, Graham Wylie retired with 108.5 million shares in Sage worth £146m. He was rated Britain's 109th richest person in the 2002
Sunday Times Rich List.
2010 to present On 19 April 2010, Sage announced that its
CEO,
Paul Walker, had indicated an interest in stepping down from his position, which he had held for 16 years. The
Financial Times reported that his departure would lead to speculation over Sage's mergers and acquisitions, which have been a key component to the group's growth in the past 20 years. On 1 October 2010
Guy Berruyer became CEO of Sage Group; Berruyer had previously been CEO of Sage's Mainland Europe & Asia operations. In August 2014, Sage announced that Guy Berruyer would retire.
Stephen Kelly, the UK government's former chief operating officer, became group CEO in November 2014. In September 2014 the company announced the acquisition of PayChoice for $157 million. In 2016 Sage introduced its first AI offering, a chat bot named Pegg. In March 2017, Sage Group acquired Compass, an analytics and benchmarking platform. In March 2017, Sage Group also acquired Fairsail, a Human Capital Management (HCM) cloud-based platform. In July 2017, Sage purchased
Intacct for $850M. On 31 August 2018, Sage announced that Stephen Kelly had stepped down as a director and CEO. On 2 November 2018,
Steve Hare was appointed CEO. Hare had been chief financial officer of Sage since 2014 and had been interim COO following the departure of the previous CEO. In the 2020s Sage began to integrate
artificial intelligence into more of its products. In 2022 Sage launched a
carbon accounting product, Sage Earth. In February 2024, Sage announced the release of Sage Copilot, a generative AI-powered assistant, and the integration of its features into both its online and hybrid-desktop products. In July 2025, Sage announced its acquisition of Fyle, an AI-powered expense management platform. In March 2026, Sage and
Barclays entered a
strategic partnership to integrate banking and accounting services for UK small businesses, a move described as a shift toward embedded finance aimed at reducing administrative burdens and supporting compliance with
Making Tax Digital (MTD) regulations. ==Operations==