Openreach Recruit 100 Extra N.Ireland Engineers to Boost FTTP

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has announced that, as part of their rapid UK roll-out of “gigabit-capable” Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP technology in Northern Ireland, they are going to recruit a further 100 engineers before the end of March 2021.

At present the operator’s network has already covered 360,000 premises in the country and their commercial roll-out is expected to hit a total of 525,000 premises (60% coverage of N.Ireland) by March 2021, which will form a big chunk of their overall UK coverage goal (4.5 million premises) by that same date.

However the operator also has a long-term strategy, which involves investing £12bn to cover 20 million UK premises with FTTP by the “mid – to late-2020s” (here). As part of that they’ll be hoping to scoop up a chunk of both N.Ireland’s £165m Project Stratum scheme (here) and Boris Johnson’s proposed £5bn investment (i.e. ensuring that every UK home can access gigabit broadband by the end of 2025).

Suffice to say that more engineers will help to keep the delivery flowing smoothly.

Mairead Meyer, Director Openreach Northern Ireland, said:

“Undoubtedly our strength is our people and we’re incredibly proud of skilled and diverse team of over 1000 Openreach people in NI. Our new recruits will join our dynamic engineering team at a really interesting time for Openreach and help support our ambition to deliver the best possible connectivity to everyone, everywhere, across the province.

We are continuing to build Full Fibre broadband to over 750 homes and businesses every day. Openreach is one of the biggest investors in infrastructure in Northern Ireland. I am really delighted that in the midst of the current situation we are still able to progress with our apprenticeship development programme doubling the number of places available from last year.”

The apprentice programme runs over 18 months and the roles will be located across NI. On completion, and in conjunction with Belfast Metropolitan College, all apprentices will be awarded an NVQ. Over the course of their training, the newly appointed apprentices will play a role in building and installing reliable, fast and future-proof broadband in NI – helping to meet growing demand for fibre broadband which has seen a significant spike in recent months. Further details here.