Amazon has announced plans to open a new corporate office in Manchester in 2019 and increase the capacity of its Scotland Development Centre and Cambridge Development Centre, providing additional capacity for over 1,000 new technology-focused roles in the UK.

The Manchester office will be located in the Hanover Building in the city’s Northern Quarter. The site will have capacity to create at least 600 new roles, with highly-skilled teams working on projects including software development, machine learning and research.

Amazon will also expand its Development Centre in the heart of Edinburgh, providing capacity for more than 250 new, highly-skilled roles. The new roles will join hundreds of software engineers, machine learning scientists and user experience designers already working on new advertising technology and personalised shopping recommendations.

Amazon’s Cambridge Development Centre will also receive new investment for expansion, creating capacity for an additional 180 new roles. The Development Centre houses research and development teams working on Amazon devices, Alexa, Amazon Web Services, the Prime Air drone delivery service and core machine learning retail systems.

Secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, Jeremy Wright, said: “Our booming digital sector is one of the fastest-growing industries in the UK and this is a vote of confidence in our world-leading skills in tech innovation.”

Doug Gurr, UK country manager for Amazon, added: “These are Silicon Valley jobs in Britain, and further cement our long-term commitment to the UK.”

The new site and additional investment follow the opening last year of Amazon’s new UK head office and Development Centre in Shoreditch, East London. Additionally, Amazon has 17 fulfillment centres and over 40 delivery stations in the UK.

Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than £9.3 billion in the UK to build and run its operations, and is on course to grow to 27,500 roles - including over 6,500 roles in its corporate, Amazon Web Services and R&D divisions - by the end of this year.

In the UK, 85,000 people are employed by businesses selling on Amazon, and 60 per cent of UK businesses selling on Amazon export, achieving £2.3 billion exports in 2017.

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