Openreach is rolling out ultrafast Fibre to the Premises across the UK beginning with eight cities – Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, London and Manchester. Tony McDonough reports

BT’s infrastructure arm Openreach has confirmed it will take on 61 trainee engineers across Merseyside as it embarks on a £250m upgrade of Liverpool’s broadband network.

Openreach is rolling out ultrafast Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) broadband across the country beginning initially with eight cities – Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, London and Manchester.

City deal

Liverpool was not originally on this first phase but following discussions between city Mayor Joe Anderson and Openreach the company added the city on to the list.

As part of that deal Openreach contractor, Liverpool-based MJ Quinn, will base a project team at the city council headquarters in Cunard Building.

The ‘Fibre First’ programme will deliver expanded ‘full fibre’ FTTP networks in up to 40 towns, cities and boroughs, setting it on a trajectory to reach 10m British premises by the mid-2020s.

The 61 Merseyside roles, part of more than 3,500 being recruited across the UK during the next 12 months, including 283 in the North West, will be located in Birkenhead, Liverpool, Southport, St. Helens South, Wirral South and Whiston.

Trainees will join the UK’s largest team of telecoms engineers working to expand, upgrade, maintain and install new services over Openreach’s national broadband network.

‘Vital role’

Clive Selley, chief executive of Openreach, said:  “These trainee engineers will be playing a vital role in the future success and prosperity of the UK.

“Over the last year our 22,200 engineers have been the driving force behind Government reaching its target of making ‘superfast’ broadband available to more than 95% of the country, whilst also improving our customer service performance – but we want to do more.”

Matthew Hemmings, infrastructure delivery director for Openreach in the North West, added: “This latest recruitment represents a further major investment in Merseyside. It’s very exciting news for our region

“We’re looking forward to men and women from all walks of life applying for these roles at Openreach as we’re keen to engage with the aspiring engineers of tomorrow and to build a diverse workforce that reflects the hugely diverse communities we serve.”

For more information on applying for the trainee engineer roles click here.

Openreach is also offering work experience placements, under the Movement to Work programme, to 18-24 year olds who are currently not in education, employment or training. For more information on that click here.