Amazon to double London research and development as it unveils flagship office
Amazon is planting its flag firmly in London soil with the decision to double its recruitment for research and development roles within the capital as it renews its focus on video and streaming.
Amazon expands London research and development
The move is expected to provide a further fillip to the city’s booming tech sector with a doubling in capacity of its Shoreditch R&D base from 450 to 900 employees, spanning 15 floors of a gleaming new 600.000sq.ft base.
If the recruitment surge goes to plan Amazon will have 5,000 highly paid software development engineers, user-interface experts, data analysts and graphic designers to its books in the city by the end of the year, taking its total UK workforce to 24,000.
Speaking at the opening of the new building Doug Gurr, UK country manager for Amazon, said: “London is one of the world’s truly great cities and home to some of the most talented, creative people on the planet, and we are delighted to provide our teams of innovators with a new, purpose-built workplace.”
Dismissing suggestions that Britain’s withdrawal from the EU might hamper recruitment of European talent Gurr continued: “We have a large number of EU citizens. We feel we benefit hugely from our diverse workforce and we are optimistic and hopefully that will continue.”
London has benefitted from a spate of inward investment in recent months with Facebook doubling its workforce and Google set to open a £1bn London HQ.