Amazon opens Manchester office in UK research and development push

Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezos.
Lindsey
Wasson/Reuters

• Amazon announced it’s
  opening a new office in Manchester, UK.
• The new office, based in the Hanover Building, will
  accommodate at least 600 staff.
• Amazon is also expanding its research and development
  teams in Cambridge and Edinburgh.

Amazon has that it’s opening up a new office in Manchester, and
investing in 1,000 additional research and development jobs in
the UK.

Amazon’s new Manchester office will open in 2019 and will be
based in the Hanover Building in the city’s Northern Quarter. It
will be big enough to eventually house 600 staff.

UK manager Doug Gurr said: “Manchester was at the heart of the
industrial revolution and has a fantastic history of innovation.”

Hanover Building
Manchester.
Wikimedia
Commons

“Our new office will be home to over 600 staff, many of whom will
be focused on developing exciting new products and services used
by Amazon customers around the world

“The city offers an incredibly talented workforce and a budding
tech scene with some of the most exciting, fast-growing tech
companies in the UK situated here.”

Extra staff will also be added in Edinburgh and Cambridge, where
specialists work on machine-learning, drones, and the AI
assistant Alexa.

Amazon said it has invested more than £9.3 billion ($12.2
billion) in the UK since 2010 and is on course to have 27,500
staff on its books by the end of the year.

Liam Fox, the British secretary of state for International Trade,
said: “Amazon’s decision to create hundreds of highly-skilled
jobs in Manchester, Edinburgh and Cambridge is an enormous vote
of confidence in the UK and a signal to the world that the UK is
very much open for business.”