New trainee engineers for Shropshire in Openreach’s biggest ever recruitment drive
More than 200 trainee engineers will be hired across the West Midlands – of which 26 will be based in Shropshire – as part of the largest recruitment drive ever undertaken by Openreach.
The announcement follows news that the digital network business will accelerate plans to build more ultrafast Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) broadband across the country.
The 26 roles, part of 3,500 available across the UK during the next 12 months, will be located in Bridgnorth, Bromfield, Donnington, Longville and Tern Hill near Market Drayton.
Openreach has also announced plans to invest about £100,000 over the next 12 months developing a new fibre engineering academy at its Yarnfield Park training centre, near Stone, in Staffordshire, in addition to the pole forest, underground cable chambers and other existing facilities at the site.
The trainees will join the UK’s largest team of telecoms engineers working to expand, upgrade, maintain and install new services over Openreach’s national broadband network.
Openreach’s ‘Fibre First’ programme will deliver expanded ‘full fibre’ FTTP networks in up to 40 towns, cities and boroughs, setting it on a trajectory to reach 10 million British premises by the mid-2020s.
It has committed to making FTTP available in three million British homes and business by the end of 2020 and, if the conditions are right, intends to go significantly further, bringing the benefits of FTTP technology to the majority of homes and businesses in the UK. The roll-out will commence in eight cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Manchester.
Clive Selley, chief executive of Openreach, said: “These trainee engineers will be playing a vital role in the future success and prosperity of the UK. Over the last year our 22,200 engineers have been the driving force behind Government reaching its target of making 'superfast’ broadband available to more than 95 per cent of the country, whilst also improving our customer service performance – but we want to do more.
“Every day, Openreach engineers are working in all weathers across the length and breadth of Britain, connecting homes and businesses and making sure people can access the high quality broadband services they need. We are already investing in upskilling our engineering team and the announcement of new jobs, including 26 in Shropshire, underlines our commitment to make our ‘Fibre First’ programme a reality – future-proofing Britain’s broadband network and supporting emerging mobile technologies like 5G.”
