The move is part of Amazon’s glorious five-year datacentre investment plan which it says will add an estimated £14 billion to the UK’s total gross domestic product by 2028, and support an average of 14,000 full-time equivalent jobs on an annual basis across local UK businesses.
In a statement AWS said the positions will all form part of the AWS datacentre supply chain – ranging from construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and other jobs within the broader local economy.
AWS opened its first UK datacentre region in December 2016, in London, and has expanded its infrastructure footprint to include three availability zones and several edge computing setups and locations, spanning the capital and Manchester.
This five-year investment commitment means the company is on course to have spent more than £11 billion between 2020 and 2028 on building out its datacentre footprint in the UK, having previously invested £3 billion in the three years to 2023.
Tanuja Randery, vice-president and managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at AWS, said the investment comes at a potential tipping point for the UK digital economy.
“The next few years could be among the most pivotal for the UK’s digital and economic future, as organisations of all sizes across the country increasingly embrace technologies like cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) to help them accelerate innovation, increase productivity, and compete on the global stage,” said Randery.