Amazon to open a fulfilment centre in Essex in Spring 2017

Amazon today (Thursday August 18) announced that it will open a new fulfilment centre in the Essex town of Tilbury in 2017, creating more than 1,500 new permanent jobs.

John Tagawa, Amazon’s vice president of UK operations, said: “We will be opening our 13th fulfilment centre in the UK to enable us to continue to expand our product selection, support more third party sellers – including small businesses – with our fulfilment expertise, and meet growing customer demand in the UK.”

Later this summer the online giant will begin recruiting for a range of positions for the fulfilment centre, from operations managers and engineers to HR and IT roles and people who will handle customer orders. People interested in applying should visit  www.myamazonjob.com/opportunities

Tilbury will be equipped with the Amazon Robotics technology which launched earlier this year at Amazon’s fulfilment centres in Dunstable and Doncaster.The robots slide under a tower of shelves where products are stowed, lift it and move it through the fulfilment centre. They help speed order processing time and reduce walking time by moving the shelves to employees. They also save space, allowing for 50% more items to be stowed per square foot. John Tagawa said: “The introduction of Amazon Robotics is the newest example of our commitment to invention in logistics on behalf of our employees and our customers.”

The ecommerce retailer has invested more than £4.6 billion in the UK economy to build and run its UK business since 2010.

Across the UK, Amazon plans to have more than 15,500 permanent employees by the end of this year at: its UK head office in London, three Research and Development (R&D) Centres in Cambridge, Edinburgh and London; its Customer Service Centre in Edinburgh; 12 fulfilment centres across England, Scotland and Wales; 29 delivery stations nationwide; the Fashion Photography Studio in Shoreditch, and to run the Amazon Web Services (AWS) UK Data Centre Region. It will open a brand new London office in 2017 giving total capacity for 5,000 people.

Amazon currently has 10 fulfilment centres in the UK: two in Doncaster and one each in Dunfermline, Dunstable, Gourock, Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Rugeley and Swansea Bay.

In the autumn, two new centres with open, in Manchester and Coalville (Leicestershire), creating 1,500 permanent jobs over three years. The centre in Manchester will also use Amazon Robotics technology.

Amazon announced earlier this month that it will also open a fulfilment centre in Doncaster in summer 2017, creating 500 new full time permanent jobs.