Amazon UK today announced plans to create more than 5,000 full-time jobs this year, taking the company’s total UK workforce to over 24,000. These new job opportunities are for people with all types of experience, education and skill levels—from software developers, engineers and technicians, to those seeking entry-level positions and on-the-job training.
The company will work to hire as many individuals as possible from seasonal positions into these new permanent roles; in fact, over 10,000 of the company’s 19,000 current employees started with the company in a seasonal role. In addition to the new full-time roles the company is creating, Amazon continues to empower entrepreneurs and individuals who want to start their business or earn extra money to supplement their incomes through programs such as Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Logistics, and Amazon Flex. For more details on Amazon’s economic impact in the UK, click here.
Amazon also today announced a new apprenticeship programme, offering hundreds of apprenticeship opportunities in engineering, logistics and warehousing roles in fulfilment centres across the country. Last month, Amazon Web Services launched AWS re:Start, a free training and job placement programme for the UK to educate young adults as well as military veterans, reservists, and their spouses, on the latest software development and cloud computing technologies. Working with QA Consulting, The Prince’s Trust, and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), AWS re:Start brings together AWS Partner Network (APN) partners and customers to offer work placements to 1,000 people as part of the programme.
These initiatives to support wider UK skills development are in addition to Amazon’s innovative Career Choice programme, which helps train fulfilment centre employees for in-demand jobs at Amazon and other companies. The programme pre-pays 95% of tuition for courses, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a future career at Amazon. Over 2,000 employees across Europe have participated in Career Choice in high-demand courses such as nursing, personal training and engineering, and more are signing up every day.
Amazon’s 5,000 new full-time UK jobs come with competitive pay and comprehensive benefits. Roles will be created at the UK head office in London; Customer Service Centre in Edinburgh; Fashion Photography Studio in Shoreditch; AWS Europe (London) Region office; Fulfilment Centres across the UK, including three new sites set to open in Tilbury, Doncaster and Daventry; as well as at Development Centres in Cambridge, Edinburgh and London where employees work on global customer innovations like Alexa, Prime Air, Prime Video, cloud computing and more. More than 1,500 roles will be based at these Development Centres and in AWS by the end of 2017.
Doug Gurr, UK Country Manager, Amazon commented: “We are creating thousands of new UK jobs including hundreds of apprenticeship opportunities as we continue to innovate for our customers and provide them with even faster delivery, more selection and better value. We are hiring for all types of roles from flight test engineers, software engineers and corporate managers in our development centres and head office, to operations managers, supervisors, engineers, service technicians, HR roles and order fulfilment roles in our fulfilment centres. We are also proud to empower many thousands of others to work alongside Amazon in serving our customers – from Marketplace sellers to Flex delivery drivers to Kindle Direct Publishing authors.”
In addition to these full-time roles with Amazon, the company is providing a wealth of varied work opportunities to appeal to the full spectrum of the UK workforce. The Amazon Flex delivery programme is offering hundreds of individuals the opportunity to work the hours they want, set their own schedule, and earn up to £15 per hour; more than 74,000 people are currently employed by businesses in the UK to support their selling on Amazon Marketplace; Kindle Direct Publishing enables anyone to publish books and reach millions of readers; and Amazon Web Services gives anyone access to virtually unlimited compute power, storage, and other IT resources, making it faster and less expensive to launch and grow new businesses. Additionally, Amazon Logistics provides opportunities for small businesses to build and grow by delivering parcels for Amazon.
“Amazon is committed to creating opportunities with choice and flexibility that appeal to the widest range of individuals, from those that want a full working week to those that just want to work for a few hours,” said Roy Perticucci, Vice President, Europe Customer Fulfilment, Amazon.
Amazon will also open a new head office this year in the 15-storey Principal Place in Shoreditch, East London. Located on Norton Folgate, between Liverpool Street and Shoreditch High Street stations, Principal Place is a mixed-use development with a 600,000 sq. ft. office building and an adjacent residential tower. Amazon will also maintain its 60 Holborn Viaduct office providing capacity for more than 5,000 employees in the capital by the end of 2017.
