Openreach announces plans to create hundreds of jobs in Yorkshire
Openreach, the UK’s digital network business, has announced plans to create hundreds of jobs across Yorkshire over the next 12 months.
The 346 new roles, to be located in Yorkshire and the North East, will join the country’s largest team of telecoms specialists working to expand, upgrade, maintain and install services over Openreach’s national broadband network.
This recruitment drive forms part of a wider programme that will see the appointment of 3,000 new trainees, of which around 1,600 are newly created roles, across the UK.
Around half of the engineers will be hired to help deliver the company’s ‘Fibre First’ programme, which will bring Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology to millions of front doors.
Clive Selley, chief executive of Openreach, said: “Openreach is ambitious for the UK and is determined to build full fibre as quickly as possible to ensure the country has a reliable broadband network capable of supporting future data-hungry services and applications essential for boosting productivity and sustaining our position as a leading digital economy.
“We’re making great progress towards reaching our target of upgrading three million homes and businesses to full fibre by the end of 2020 – reaching another 13k premises per week – and these new recruits will play a crucial role in that programme.”
Openreach has also identified 11 locations where it will be building new FTTP networks during 2019. This brings the total number of towns, cities and boroughs that Openreach will be building in to 25.
Ambe Rudd, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, spoke at the official opening of Openreach’s new training school in Peterborough, one of 12 new regional fibre training centres built to support the rollout.
She said: “This is a huge expansion in high skilled, well paying, jobs across the UK and yet another demonstration of the jobs success we have seen since 2010. Because behind every employment number is a person and family whose self-esteem, mental wellbeing and economic circumstances and life chances are all vastly improved by being in the workplace.
“And it is also good news that these are some new training roles, developing the skills of our workforce.”
The new Peterborough training school, after Bradford, is the second facility to become fully operational under Openreach’s multi-million pound investment plans.
Kevin Brady, HR director at Openreach, added: “We want to get on with the job of delivering full fibre broadband to the UK, and that’s why we need to continue growing our team of highly skilled engineers ready to connect homes and businesses across the nation.
“We want people from all walks of life to apply for roles at Openreach, to build a diverse workforce that reflects the hugely diverse communities we serve. Last year we successfully recruited more women than ever before – and this year we want to go even further.
“Our training schools will help us to meet our new training demands and, in March this year, we’ll have almost doubled the learning days we deliver annually to more than 160,000 – the highest in the history of our business.”
