BT Consults on Closure of its Londonderry Office by End of 2025
Telecoms and broadband giant BT has confirmed that, as part of their ongoing UK programme to modernise and consolidate the number of offices they have – shrinking them from around 300 to just 30 locations, they’ve begun a consultation on the closure of their Londonderry office. The move, which could be implemented by the end of 2025, puts around 140 jobs at risk.
The operator is instead proposing to relocate most of those impacted by the change to their recently refurbished Riverside Tower office in Belfast, which houses around 2,000 staff. But that reflects a road distance of about 70 miles or a travel time of 1 hour and 20 minutes (on a good day), which in practice means that many local Londonderry staff may struggle with the new commute and perhaps opt for redundancy.
A BT Group spokesperson said: “We are considering closing our office in Derry-Londonderry and we are consulting with colleagues and their unions on our proposals … There’s no impact to customers from these proposals.” Roughly half of the currently c.300 strong workforce in Derry will remain, as they are needed to help operate the company’s local exchange.
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Economy Minister, Dr Caoimhe Archibald, said:
“This news is deeply disappointing, especially coming so soon after losses of 300 jobs in Enniskillen last year.
As a significant employer in Derry for many years, this announcement will be of real concern to BT workers and the wider local community.
I met with the company this afternoon and made clear that these plans are entirely contrary to my drive for regional balance. I offered the support of my Department and Invest NI to retain the jobs in Derry but unfortunately the company is proceeding with its consultation. Invest NI will however be working with staff affected to offer retraining and to help them with other job opportunities.”
BT said they remain “committed to Northern Ireland, building full fibre broadband further and faster than anyone else” (Openreach has already covered 90% of premises in the country with FTTP) and have delivered “extensive 5G and 4G mobile coverage” via EE.
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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Terrible news for the local economy this, but I feel after the Enniskillen debacle last year, this was almost the inevitable next step. The expectation of anyone from the Derry office travelling to Belfast 3x a week for work just won’t happen I feel.. I think most will take the redundancy.
Sad times for the city and locals. The building will remain, Derry Meg Exchange (Headend) is one in the same building.
I’m not sure where the “Londonderry” mentioned in the headline is, but BT appear to be referring to Derry/Londonderry*.
It’s known as “slash city” for a reason. 🙂