1,000 NEW AMAZON JOBS

AMAZON is to open a new office in Manchester as part of plans to create more than 1,000 research and development jobs in the UK.

The new site, in the city’s Hanover Building, is set to house 600 highly skilled workers focusing on software development, machine learning and R&D.

As part of a recruitment drive, the online giant will also beef up numbers at its ‘development centres’ in Edinburgh and Cambridge, with the cities seeing 250 and 180 jobs created respectively. Doug Gurr, Amazon’s UK country manager, said: ‘With the UK taking a leading role in our global innovation, we are delighted to announce plans to create capacity for over 1,000 new highly skilled roles across the country.

‘These are Silicon Valley jobs in Britain, and further cement our long-term commitment to the UK.’

Amazon said that since 2010 it has invested more than £9.3bn in the UK, and is on course to grow to 27,500 employees.