Communications firm Openreach has announced plans to hire 5,300 new engineering staff as part of a drive to improve the UK’s full-fibre broadband infrastructure.
The BT subsidiary will recruit 2,500 staff to work full-time in its service and network building divisions, with the other 2,800 roles to be in the company’s supply chain.
The firm has said that people do not need to have engineering skills to apply for these positions.
The recruitment drive comes as the UK attempts to bolster its broadband network, a key pledge in last year’s Conservative Party manifesto.
Although the prime minister initially promised to make “gigabit-capable" broadband available to all homes in the country by 2025, this target was lowered to 85 per cent earlier this year.
Openreach hopes to connect 20 million homes and businesses in the UK to full-fibre broadband by the mid-to-late 2020s. As things stand, only 18 per cent - or 5.1 million - of the UK’s homes have access to it, according to a report released by Ofcom on Thursday.
The communications giant said it is now working at is fastest ever rate, improving another home’s connectivity roughly every 15 seconds.
The firm’s chief executive Clive Selley said: "Our Full Fibre network build is going faster than ever and we're now looking for thousands more people to build a career with Openreach and help us upgrade broadband connections and continue improving service levels.
"We're also investing in our supply chain, which will support the creation of thousands of jobs based all over the UK,” he added.
The chancellor Rishi Sunak praised the initiative, as did culture secretary Oliver Dowden, who said it would help the UK “build back better from the pandemic”.
However, there is still much work to be done on broadband speeds, with Ofcom estimating in its annual Connected Nations report that 190,000 homes and businesses do not have “decent” broadband speeds of 10Mbps.
Additional reporting by PA
