Openreach unveils 220 engineering jobs for Scotland’s network

Openreach is to hire more than 200 trainee engineers in Scotland as part of a nationwide recruitment drive, the digital network provider announced today.

The Scottish roles form part of Openreach's 3,000-strong recruitment drive. Picture: Jeff Holmes

The firm, which is a wholly owned, independently governed division of the BT Group, is set to recruit more than 3,000 apprentices for engineering roles across the UK, with some 220 of these positions to be based in Scotland.

The total includes 48 posts for the Glasgow city region, 38 for Edinburgh and the Lothians and 34 for Aberdeen city and shire, as well as new vacancies in locations such as Highlands and Islands, Dumfries and Galloway, Stirling, Ayrshire and Perth and Kinross.

Of the 3,000 roles, around 1,600 will be newly created positions, after taking into account staff lost through attrition, such as recruitment.

Around half of the recruits will be focused on the company’s “Fibre First” programme delivering fibre to the premises (FTTP) technology, which refers to broadband connections capable of download speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second.

The firm also announced that it will be building new FTTP networks in the Greater Glasgow area during 2019, which brings the total number of towns, cities and boroughs at the forefront of the company’s FTTP project to 25.

Openreach said it is “on track” to deliver on its previous commitment of providing three million homes and businesses with full fibre broadband access by the end of 2020.

The company is currently building or upgrading 12 UK training centres and is due to unveil an investment of £450,000 in it Scottish training centre, based in Livingston, later this year.

Chief executive Clive Selley said: “Openreach is ambitious for the UK and is determined to build full fibre as quickly as possible to ensure the country has a reliable broadband network capable of supporting future data-hungry services and applications essential for boosting productivity and sustaining our position as a leading digital economy.

“We’re making great progress towards reaching our target of upgrading three million homes and businesses to full fibre by the end of 2020 – reaching another 13,000 premises per week – and these new recruits in Scotland will play a crucial role in that programme.

“Openreach is a people business and our new apprentices will enable us to fulfil our commitments, with an ultimate ambition to deliver the best possible connectivity to everyone, everywhere, equally, across the entire country.”

Fraser Rowberry, Openreach’s service director for Scotland, said: “We want people from all walks of life to apply for roles at Openreach, to build a diverse workforce that reflects the hugely diverse communities we serve.”

Openreach currently employs around 24,000 field engineers, 3,500 of which were recruited last year.