Amazon planning to more than double its workforce in London
Online retail giant Amazon has signed a deal to open a huge office around the corner from Silicon Roundabout, where it will more than double its current total UK corporate workforce to more than 5,000 employees.
Amazon’s new home will be Principal Place, a massive development between Liverpool Street and Shoreditch High Street stations, which is still being built. The company will take up just over two-thirds of the 600,000 sq ft of office space on offer.
“To support our continued growth in the UK, we have secured this exceptional building giving us the capacity to hire thousands of new employees in London in the coming years, in addition to the thousands of permanent roles we will create across our UK fulfilment and customer service centres,” said Amazon UK managing director Christopher North.
This is part of a plan to move all its corporate UK employees to one of three London offices by next summer – although Amazon said Principal Place won’t be finished until 2016, with a planned move in by 2017.
London mayor Boris Johnson said: “Our city is the perfect home for top tech talent and I am very pleased that Amazon have confirmed their intention to create thousands of new jobs at a major new base in east London.”
Amazon currently employs around 1,700 employees in its UK offices.