Amazon announced today that it has completed the move of its UK headquarters to London.
The US company, an Elite company in Internet Retailing’s IRUK 500 research, now employs more 2,000 people in its Amazon UK corporate headquarters in Holborn Viaduct, in Glasshouse Yard near the Barbican and in its technolody development centre at Leadenhall Court – and says it expects to hire hundreds more in 2015.
“London is now officially our new home,” said Christopher North, managing director at Amazon UK . “The move to the capital was vitally important to our continued growth in the UK and to finding the very best talent who will join our existing team that works day in, day out to provide an exceptional service for our customers all over the country, Europe and the world.”
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson MP said: “With our unrivalled mix of investors, talent and creativity it is hardly surprising that tech businesses such as Amazon are clamouring to be part of the incredible London tech story. This sector has flourished beyond recognition in the last five years, creating thousands of jobs and outpacing the rest of the economy.”
Later this year the retailer opens a fashion photography studio in London that it says will be one of the largest of its kind in Europe, and in 2017 the retailer will open another building at Shoreditch’s Principal Place to house 5,000 more employees.
“We now have in excess of 2,000 permanent employees based in London in addition to the thousands of permanent employees in our UK fulfilment and customer service centres across the UK,” said North. “We’re enabling tens of thousands of UK businesses to sell their products worldwide through Amazon Marketplace, powering British entrepreneurs and business start-ups through Amazon Web Services, and we have invested well over £1 billion in our UK infrastructure. The building of our new office in Shoreditch is a further illustration of the important role that London and the UK will play in our global operations.”
