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Amazon invests to create a potential 1,000 ‘Silicon Valley’ jobs in the UK

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Amazon says plans that could see 1,000 new high-skilled jobs created in the UK, opening a Manchester corporate office opening and investing further in its Edinburgh and Cambridge development centres, are about bringing Silicon Valley jobs to Britain. 

The retailer, ranked Elite in IRUK Top500 research, says it will create capacity to employ up to 600 in 90,000 sq ft offices in the Hanover Building in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, where projects under development will include machine learning, research and development (R&D) and software development. 

It will also create the space to house a potential 250 people at the Edinburgh development centre, at Waverley Gate, which focuses on new advertising technology and personalised recommendations. Investment at the Cambridge site will create capacity for 180 new jobs, working with R&D teams that work on innovations for Amazon Alexa, Prime Air, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

“With the UK taking a leading role in our global innovation, we are delighted to announce plans to create capacity for more than 1,000 highly-skilled roles across the country,” said Doug Gurr, UK country manager, Amazon. “These are Silicon Valley jobs in Britain and further cement our long-term commitment to the UK.”

Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Wright, said: “Our booming digital sector is one of the fastest-growing industries in the UK, and this is a vote of confidence in our world-leading skills in tech innovation.”

By the end of this year, Amazon expects to employ more than 27,500 people in the UK, including more than 6,500 in its corporate, AWS, and R&D divisions following investment since 2010 of more than £9.3bn. It also says that 85,000 people in the UK are employed by businesses that sell on Amazon, and that 60% of UK businesses that sell on UK business export, selling goods to the value of £2.3bn in 2017. 

Image credit: Fotolia

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