BT Group Added £24 Billion in GVA to the UK Economy Last Year
A new report from consultancy firm Hatch, which was commissioned by the BT Group, has estimated that the telecoms and broadband giant generated a £24bn contribution to the UK economy (expressed as GVA – Gross Value Added) during the 2019/20 financial year and supports 300,000 full-time jobs (directly and via suppliers etc.).
BT also noted that the One Hundred Group 2019 Total Tax Contribution Survey had ranked them as the 6th highest contributor in the UK, although the impact of this tax contribution has not been assessed in their report. However, their position has changed from 2017/18, when they paid £1.1bn in taxes and were the 5th highest tax contributor.
Elsewhere, the Group (including BT, Openreach, EE and Plusnet) spent nearly £10.1bn with suppliers based around the UK last year, including helping to maintain around 35,000 vehicles, with an ambition to transition up to 28,000 to electric vehicles by 2030.
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Just to compare all this with the results from 2017/18, which is the last such report that we covered. BT has added 300 direct employees, but the number of FTE contractor employees working for them has fallen from 12,300 in 2017/18 to 10,600 now. On the other hand, their spend with suppliers has jumped from £9.2bn to £10.1bn over the same period and their total GVA impact has also increased from £22.8bn to £24bn.
Jane Wood, BT Group Director of Nations and Regions, said:
“I’m immensely proud of the contribution our colleagues make in supporting the UK economy. At an important time for our country, our spending on people, networks and suppliers, provides a vital economic boost for the UK. The wider impact of that spending helps to sustain communities and small businesses right across the UK.
In the past year, having good connectivity has become more important than ever as we’ve all had to work, learn, and spend more leisure time online. Despite these challenges, our dedicated and determined colleagues have ensured EE’s 5G network has been extended to cover 125 towns and cities, built out Openreach’s full-fibre networks to reach 4.1 million premises and EE’s 4G network now reaches 85 per cent of the UK. I know these significant investments will help to underpin the country’s economic recovery post-Covid.”
You can read the full report here (PDF).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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82,000 employees – now they just have to pay ALL of them a fair salary rather than bringing in new staff with poor contracts.
Define “poor”. The age of final salary pensions died along time ago.
If you stop comparing their new contracts to their old contracts and instead compare them to the current employment market offerings you’ll find they’re fairly standard.
@JmJohnson
Because conditions are being driven down in the this sector doesn’t make the new starters contracts fair. A race to the bottom isn’t going to be good for anyone other that the people at the top.
@MrTruth
The issue with that is if a company doesn’t do it then it finds itself in an unsustainable situation.
Much like their existing pension issues.
If they didn’t change to meet the market then that liability would be getting even larger and would sink them.
I worked for GPO/ BT from 1968 ,I installed telephone exchange equipment, our work was put out to contractors ,eventually there was nothing left for us but installing framework. I took redundancy in 2002 and moved to Spain. Best thing I ever done
It’s a shame they don’t calculate how much harm is done to the economy by BT’s woeful inability to deliver FTTH and usable broadband in rural areas.
really
what a stupid riduculous comment
you could always fund your FTTP deployment yourself if your that unhappy
The cost in GVA terms of not converting the BT monies owed into coverage would make a more interesting paper. Some explanation as to why BT is no bidding edge of network bids in Devon, Sommerset, Lincolnshire and failing to win in NI would also be welcome.
The difference in GVA between > 30Mbps and more than 50Mbps would be good to know.
Indeed, added to the complete lack of competitiveness within the home broadband market also.
@Fastman: “you could always fund your FTTP deployment yourself if your that unhappy”
Now that’s a strange attitude here. This country is more than a decade behind of where it should be. And no consumer should have to run campaigns just to get a fibre broadband. it’s time to treat fibre as an essential utility, change the whole framework and government policy on this, and stop this madness of building multiple last-mile fibre access networks in some areas while the majority of this country has no fibre at all.
@GN – would this mean no company could build in any VM area? Would you withdraw Code Powers?
What about a report on the cost of everybody now home shopping and the loss of shops on the highstreet?
Although it was triggered by COVID what about the cost of people working from home more? Public transport loss and the loss of the people that serviced all the commuters with coffee and snacks