Telecoms giant to create more than 130 engineering jobs across the region
The UK’s digital network business, Openreach has announced it will create more than 130 new engineering jobs in Yorkshire and the Humber over the next 12 months, as it looks to grow its existing workforce of 2,550.
The new roles, which are spread across the region, will enable the company to continue improving service levels across its existing networks, whilst building and connecting customers to its new, ultrafast, ultra-reliable ‘Full Fibre’ broadband network at a record pace.
The roles are part of more than 5,300 new UK-based engineering jobs which the business is creating, including more than 2,500 full-time jobs in Openreach’s own service and network build divisions, as well as an estimated 2,800 positions in its UK supply chain, through partners such as Kelly Group, Kier, MJ Quinn and Telent.
Alongside the investment in jobs the business has also outlined plans to upograde its full fleet – 27,000 – of vehicles to electric by 2030.
Openreach regional director for the North, Robert Thorburn, said: “As a major employer and infrastructure builder, we believe Openreach can play a leading role in helping the UK to build back better and greener. Our Full Fibre network build is going faster than ever and we’re now looking for people across Yorkshire and the Humber to build a career with Openreach and help us upgrade broadband connections and continue improving service levels throughout the region.
“We’re also investing in our supply chain, which will support the creation of thousands of jobs based all over the UK.
“We know the network we’re building can deliver a host of green benefits – from consuming less power to enabling more home working and fewer commuting trips – and we’re going to take that a step further, by committing to build and maintain that network using state of the art electric vehicles across our 27,000-strong fleet. We’ll have completely transitioned to EVs by 2030.”
The announcements follow a record year for the business which saw it hit a new record build rate for its Full Fibre broadband programme, with engineers now delivering faster, more reliable connectivity to the equivalent of a home every 15 seconds.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) have found that a nationwide Full Fibre broadband network would boost UK productivity by £59 billion by 2025 – and updated modelling suggests it could enable nearly one million more people to access employment including over 300,000 carers, nearly 250,000 older workers and 400,000 parents.
