Engineers needed to deliver fibre technology
BRITAIN’S biggest phone and internet cabling provider is looking for 3,000 new engineers – including dozens in Leicestershire.
Openreach, which provides infrastructure for online giants such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone, needs hundreds of trainees to expand, upgrade, maintain and install services across its national broadband network.
That will include 185 trainee engineers in the East Midlands, with 37 positions up for grabs in Leicestershire.
The business is particularly keen on more women applying to join it.
The recruits are mainly needed to deliver the compa- ny’s Fibre First programme which will bring faster, more reliable and future-proof fibre technology to three million front doors by 2020.
It will provide internet speeds of up to 1Gigabit per second – enough to allow a family of four to stream four ultra HD or 4k movies at once.
Openreach, which employs 30,400 people, already has 24,282 field engineers and hired 3,500 new engineers in 2018. It is a stand-alone sister company to BT.
Carl Sproston, Openreach partnership director in the Midlands, 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.
“Last year we successfully recruited more women than ever before – and this year we want to go even further.
“Becoming an engineer can be an incredibly rewarding career, and we’re constantly improving our training and recruitment programmes, providing recognised qualifications, to make sure we attract and keep the best in the business.
“We’re investing heavily in upskilling our people, so they can now do more for customers in a single visit and we recently launched new career pathways to give our engineers a clear sense of the skills, accountabilities and experience they need to get where they want to be.”
Clive Selley is chief executive of the £5.1 billion annual turnover company which has invested more than £11 billion in its network in the past decade and now manages more than 100 million miles of cables.
He 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 our target of upgrading three million homes and businesses to full fibre by the end of 2020 – reaching another 13,000 premises a week – and these East Midlands recruits will play a crucial role in that programme.”