Amazon , the UK’s largest online retailer, says it will take on 5,000 new staff as it expands in areas from its development centres and fashion photography studio through to its fulfillment centres. By the end of the year it expects to employ more than 24,000 people across the UK, including more than 1,500 at Amazon Web Services and at the development centres where it works on innovations including Alexa voice ordering and Prime Air, its drone delivery operations.
As well as recruiting for qualified and experienced staff to work in positions from software developers, engineers and architects, to fulfilment centre staff. It has also launched an apprenticeship scheme to offer opportunities in areas including engineering, logistics and warehousing.
Doug Gurr, UK country manager, Amazon, said: “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.”
Some 5,000 of its UK workforce will be based in London: Amazon is set to open its new head office in Shoreditch, which will operate alongside its existing Holborn Viaduct office.
Amazon says that many of the new hires will come from seasonal workers: more than 10,000 of its 19,000 employees started in a seasonal role. The company also operates a Career Choice programme in which fulfilment centre staff can train and widen their opportunities, whether at Amazon or another company. So far more than 2,000 Amazon European staff have taken part in the scheme, which pre-pays 95% of tuition. Popular courses include nursing, personal training and engineering.
• Meanwhile, registrations have opened for an Amazon Academy event, to be held in Manchester on March 31, to advise and support SMEs as they grow their businesses online.
