More than 60 new engineering jobs across Tayside and Fife will be created next year as part of a firm’s investment plans.
Openreach plans to add 47 jobs in Fife, 11 in Perth and Kinross and six in Angus and Dundee to support the telecom provider’s installation of full fibre in Scotland.
More than 2,500 roles will be created across the UK in 2021 as part of the firm’s £12 billion broadband project.
A further 2,800 positions are expected to be created by Openreach’s supply chain.
Thousands of positions created
Robert Thorburn, Openreach Scotland partnership director, said: “As a major employer and infrastructure builder, we believe Openreach can play a leading role in helping Scotland to build back better and greener.
“Our full fibre network build is going faster than ever and we’re now looking for people across the country to build a career with Openreach and help us upgrade broadband connections and continue improving service levels.
“We’re also investing in our supply chain, which will support the creation of thousands more jobs all over the UK.”
Green technology
Openreach has also made a commitment to upgrade all of its 27,000 vehicles – the second-largest commercial fleet in the UK – with its 3,500 vehicles in Scotland to be electric by 2030.
The firm hopes to bring its full fibre network to 20 million homes and businesses by the mid-to-late 2020s, with engineers currently supplying around 40,000 homes a week.
“We know the network we’re building can deliver a host of green benefits – from consuming less power to enabling more home working and fewer commuting trips,” Mr Thorburn added.
“We’re going to take that a step further by committing to build and maintain that network using state-of-the-art electric vehicles across our 3,500-strong Scottish fleet.
“We’ll have completely transitioned to EVs by 2030.”
Job creation
Openreach employs more than 34,500 people, including more than 25,000 engineers who build, maintain and connect customers to its nationwide broadband network. Of these, around 3,200 live and/or work in Scotland.
Over the last two years, Openreach has created more than 600 trainee engineering roles in Scotland to support its build programme.
