Amazon to hire 5,000 UK staff in 2017, boosting headcount by a quarter
Hiring spree will take tech giant’s headcount in the U.K. to 24,000
Amazon will hire 5,000 full-time staff in the U.K. this year, the company said on Monday, following a number of similar pledges from other U.S. technology giants, in what is seen as another win for Britain following the Brexit vote.
The hiring spree will take the U.S. e-commerce titan’s headcount in the U.K. to 24,000, a rise of more than a quarter from the previous 19,000 figure.
Roles will be created in Amazon’s London head office as well as across other parts of the country where new staff will be working on key innovations including the company’s voice assistant Alexa, drone delivery program Prime Air, streaming service Prime Video, and cloud computing.
“We are hiring for all types of roles from flight test engineers, software engineers and corporate managers in our development centers and head office, to operations managers, supervisors, engineers, service technicians, HR roles and order fulfilment roles in our fulfilment centers,” Doug Gurr, U.K. country manager at Amazon, said in a press release on Monday.
Amazon’s new 15-storey head office in Shoreditch, east London, will open this year. Shoreditch is a key hub for London’s technology start-ups.
The Seattle-based firm’s commitment follows other U.S. technology companies, as Britain continues to prove an attractive place to invest despite the uncertainty created following the country’s decision to leave the European Union.
In November, Google said it was going to create 3,000 jobs up to 2020, while Facebook also pledged to boost its U.K. headcount by 500 this year.
“Amazon’s commitment to London will deliver new jobs and growth for the economy and offers further proof of our status as a world-class destination for global technology businesses,” Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, said in a statement on Monday.
