2500 new roles created as Amazon expands UK operations

Friday, June 8, 2018 - 08:59 by Graham Miller

The popularity of shopping online in the UK makes it the perfect place for an e-commerce firm like Amazon to thrive, so it is no surprise that the US retailer announced it will be taking on an extra 2,500 staff over the course of 2018.

In the next six months its workforce will swell to 27,500, representing domestic spending of £9.3 billion during the past eight years, according to the Telegraph.

Company spokesperson, Doug Gurr, confirmed that its expansion plans were set to gather pace irrespective of the impact of Brexit on consumer spending and the UK economy. He also said that there were lots of skilled people across the country and that Amazon was eager to tap into this talent pool to expand its own workforce.

Of the 2,500 total jobs arriving on British soil this year, around 650 will be distributed between Edinburgh and the south east of England, where Amazon operates centres for its cloud-based Web Services solution.

The rest will go towards helping the firm fulfil the tens of thousands of orders that are placed online each week by customers across the country, with distribution centres getting a boost both on the product picking floor and at the management level.

Observers have pointed out that while this increase in Amazon’s UK workforce sounds significant out of context, it is actually half the number of new hires that were made last year. This could be seen as a sign that the company is being a little more cautious about its British expansion, or simply an indication that the firm is reaching the point at which it does not need to grow so rapidly to meet customer demands.

The main certainty is that Amazon will continue to dominate online sales in the UK, so long as its site remains resiliently secure and keeps customer data private.