Virgin Media relocates 220 jobs to Scotland under restructure

Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson. Virgin Media is moving 22 jobs to North Lanarkshire under a major restructure

The telecoms giant announced earlier today it was axing 800 jobs at its call centre in Swansea as part of a major restructure.

And the decision will be a boon north of the border, with the firm to consolidate its outsource partners at a “smaller, better” site in Bellshill in North Lanarkshire.

Virgin already employs 295 customer service staff in Bellshill.

The company has confirmed it intends to cut the number of UK customer service bases from eight to four.

Operations will be centralised in Manchester under the move.

A site in Nottingham is also being shut over the next two years.

The company employs 14,000 workers at more than 100 sites.

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Tom Mockridge, chief executive of Virgin Media, said: “Last year Virgin Media began a three-year property investment programme to create fewer, higher quality work places to better support our people, our business and growing customer base.

“As a result, we plan to invest an additional £40 million over the next three years to refurbish key sites and acquire new alternative sites.

“As part of this programme we intend to create four regional customer operations hubs while also increasing the flexibility of our customer services resources.

“We have also proposed the closure of a small number of our offices over the next two years, including our call centre in Swansea and our current site in Nottingham.

“We will be increasing our presence in Wythenshawe, near Manchester, and refurbishing that site.

“We also propose acquiring a major new building in the Reading/M4 corridor area for our people presently based in Hook, Langley, Slough and Winnersh.

“We also plan to acquire smaller, better sites in Bellshill and Nottingham.

“Together, these changes will help deliver a more agile, digitally oriented experience which our customers increasingly expect as standard.

“We are now working with and supporting all employees who have been asked to relocate, who may be in a role at risk of redundancy or who may wish to take another role with Virgin Media or one of our partners.”

Staff were told today that in July their jobs would transfer under Tupe (Transfer of Undertakings - Protection of Employment) to Sitel, meaning their terms and conditions are protected.

Scotland will become the primary outsource location for Virgin Media.

Further plans from the company state about 370 Virgin Media staff from Bellshill will move to a new, smaller building on the same business park, along with more than 150 staff who currently work in Uddingston and Renfrew.