CityFibre and Kelly to Create 1000 UK Jobs for FTTP Broadband Installers
Network operator Cityfibre, which is rolling out a new gigabit-capable “full fibre” (FTTP) broadband ISP network to millions of UK premises, has today announced that they’ve chosen civil engineering firm Kelly Group to be their “preferred supplier” for installing customer connections in homes.
At present Cityfibre is investing £5bn+ on their programme to cover up to 8 million premises – across around 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – with their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network by the end of 2025 (here). So far, the operator has already covered 2 million UK premises – with 1.8m Ready For Service (RFS) via a supporting ISP (here).
However, under today’s deal the Kelly Group is expected to create over 1,000 new jobs across the country, including up to 920 engineers, as well as additional Team Manager roles, New to Field Coaches, Technical Trainers and Logistics. Most of this will be focused on tackling the final drop installations into homes.
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According to the announcement, CityFibre and Kelly Group have already achieved an “industry-leading” 91% Right First Time (RFT) score for customer connections across the country (i.e. the vast majority of new full fibre broadband installations go without a hitch). Most homes are currently connected in as little as 5 working days.
The company specifically plans to target former military personnel and will also work with ‘Route 2 Work’, which is a specialist in identifying candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:
“We are delighted to be extending our partnership with Kelly Group and working with them to make sure people up and down the country can take advantage of full fibre as quickly and as smoothly as possible. At the centre of our nationwide rollout is our tireless focus on the installation journey which is now setting a new benchmark for customer satisfaction in our industry.”
Successful candidates will attend an Installation Training Course at one of Kelly Group’s training centres in Brimsdown, Nuneaton or St Helens (pictured). During this course they will attain overhead and underground safety qualifications, Streetworks 01 qualification, PIA accreditations, CityFibre Installation Training and Customer Service Training. Kelly Group are forecasting a total group headcount of circa 3,800 heads by the end of 2022.
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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At least city fibre dont care about their customers being left in the hands of Kellys !
CityFibre using Kelly’s is a good move. Meanwhile Openreach continue protests on strike.
Everybody will switch away from expensive slow-upload Openreach to symmetrical AltNet’s.
Why do BT need massive call centres? Customers do not want ‘relationships’ with their ISP.
They want to buy the service and have it working 100% all year round without exceptions, especially not having to continually phone hapless call-centres staff to book service calls.
Kelly Group are one of the main contractors who do installs for Openreach…
The irony here is that the more diluted the market becomes, the less can be invested on any one network. Which will have to cut service reliability, quality, or some other aspect.
Openreach are gping to be in trouble as the network relies on the high density areas to subsidise the rest.
Altnets only do high density areas. Often badly. I’ve seen duct that should be at 600mm, at 100mm. Fibre taken into manhole shafts (under PIA) that will need to be chopped for access.
Any provider can do symmetrical. The technology is not proprietary. Its sold as a premium product, which may change.
I would sooner have seen one open network reach every house rather than this current mess.
Hope they’re training them how to use ladders too…
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/10/confusion-as-cityfibre-says-four-story-building-too-tall-for-fttp-broadband.html
Cable broadband Fiber optic technician jab visa application.
Hello, sir/madam
My name is Niamat Ullah Mashkoor IT Engineer in Afghanistan now I want work in UK. You know how can live in Afghanistan no job no salary anyone help to find a job.
Thank you
Well City installed fibre on the 14of this month and still not up and running say it needs turning on at cabinet what a joke
Brian
The build phase takes a minimum of 6 weeks per area if everything goes to plan, then everything has to go through the relevant processes.
Expecting anything to be active 2 weeks after being put in the ground is a bit of a stretch, hopefully you get it ready in a month or so and you can get fast cheaper fibre
Im still on 10mb and stuck in an apartment block not able to get anything so you are lucky.
Hopefully they actually train them to not give up on a job in about 4 seconds if its difficult.
Cable laid in our road end of March. It’s now end of October and we still can’t get broadband! When we ask they say “not yet” and can’t cite any reason for why it’s not available. Annoyingly Hey Broadband can install their product up to 2 houses away for the past 2 years but that’s as far as they can go and again won’t provide reason why they cant go further! Guessing all this was incentives from the government to hit that target of people being able to connect to full fibre, but the reality being that we can’t really be connected.
Hi,
I’m with TalkTalk,I have fibre150, it comes into my Glasgow flat via the old copper cables, they tell you that it’s full fibre but in reality it’s only full fibre to the to box in the street.
The internet works well and I do get the promised 150Mb although it sometime drops in there have also been some loss of service sometimes folks hours at a time,I have never had any compensation for the loss of service
My contract was £22.00 per month including calls which I secured on a fixed contract for 24 months.
This year TalkTalk informed me that they needed to increase my package by £3.00 a month because other ISPs where putting up their call charges, I told them that I had Fixed contract witch included the call charges, I was told that the charges were going up and that was that, I have been a loyal customer for well over 12 years and never have I had my contact with TalkTalk increased during the contract period.
It’s disgraceful that these companies can get away with this is and by doing this they have breached their contract with me, they should be made to stick by what they agreed too.