5G rollout across Britain set to create 5,000 jobs
Telecoms firms have pledged to create 5,000 new UK jobs through the rollout of 5G technology across Britain, marking a rare bright spot on the bleak jobs horizon during the pandemic.
Liberty Global, which owns Virgin Media, and O2’s Spanish owner Telefonica, have announced plans to create 4,000 jobs and 1,000 apprenticeship roles in the UK to speed up the rollout of 5G.
The telecom giants inked a £31bn merger deal in May as part of plans to challenge industry heavyweights BT and Sky. The new partnership is set to bring in a combined 46m video, broadband and mobile subscribers and £11bn in revenue each year once it has been cleared by regulators.
“This announcement demonstrates our confidence in the long-term potential of the UK’s digital economy”, said José María Álvarez-Pallete, chief executive of Telefónica, and Mike Fries, chief executive of Liberty Global.
The pair said the new business partnership will invest £10bn into the rollout of 5G to more than100 towns and cities across the UK by 2021.
Britain “has fallen behind other nations with respect to country-wide broadband… and sits towards the bottom of the G7 nations for average broadband speed”, they said.
It comes as the UK rate of unemployment rose to 4.1 per cent last month, with many more job losses expected when the government’s furlough scheme winds down at the end of the month.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) last week warned that joblessness could rise to 13.2 per cent — equivalent to 4m people — by next year.
‘Levelling up’
Tech unicorn Octopus Energy today also unveiled plans to create an additional 1,000 jobs across sites in London, Brighton, Warwick and Leicster, as it announced its vision to make the UK the “Silicon Valley of energy”.
The company, which hit the £1bn valuation mark earlier this year following a funding round, plans to double its workforce by 2021.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said that “more green jobs is not only good news for British job seekers — it’s a vote of confidence in the UK economy.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the jobs would “provide exciting opportunities across the country for those who want to be at the cutting edge of the global green revolution”.
The rollout of 5G is seen as integral to the PM’s plans to “level up” Britain by improving infrastructure across the UK’s more rural regions.
Johnson’s plans were dealt a major blow in July after a deal with Chinese tech giant Huawei to build part of the UK’s 5G infrastructure was ripped up following national security concerns.
In a major U-turn, the government banned all Huawei products from Britain’s 5G networks from next year, and demanded that all existing infrastructure made by the Chinese firm be removed by 2027.
Industry figures welcomed the move, but warned it would have significant impacts the UK’s plans to deliver 5G nationwide by 2025.
A report released last week by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) said delays to the rollout of 5G could cost the country tens of billions of pounds in lost economic output.
However, it added that steps to speed up the rollout could provide the UK GDP with an extra £41bn over the next seven years.