BT to add 2,800 roles to Digital workforce

BT has announced plans to grow its in-house Digital talent resource to 6,300 people, from 3,500 at the start of the financial year (1 April 2022). The majority will be brought on board by April 2024.

“Digital was founded to accelerate BT’s transformation, innovation and return to growth. To succeed, we need to bring in and upskill the top digital talent, and our efforts will boost the tech communities in the UK and India along the way,” comments Harmeen Mehta, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer at BT.

The new UK colleagues BT plans to on-board (1,000 approx) will be around BT’s hub sites in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Belfast, Ipswich and London, with the majority of new UK digital talent based outside London. In India, BT will recruit approximately 1,800 new colleagues, centred around BT’s hubs in Bengaluru and Gurugram. Wherever possible, colleagues will be based out of one of BT’s amazing new regional workspaces where they can come together to collaborate when they need to.

BT is also continuing with its ambitious programme of up- and re-skilling, including the development of an expansive learning resource, the BT Digital Campus, drawing on industry-leading digital skills platforms as well as proprietary BT learning content, to ensure its existing talent can be at the cutting edge of Digital technology.

The talent needed will fill highly-skilled and exciting roles in product management, software engineering, cloud, design, data, AI and machine learning and agile delivery.

BT’s FY23 financial outlook remains unchanged as the incremental costs associated with these hiring plans are offset by a reduction in our reliance on subcontracted labour.

In order to support the recruitment drive, BT is bolstering its Digital recruitment capacity, under Director of HR, Digital, Mark Murphy. Murphy comments: “We’re hard at work transforming the way BT engages with talent as we add to the type of people we want in the heart of this new business unit. New arrivals will be immediately contributing to the progressive, collaborative, transformative ‘Digital Way’ at the heart of how it works.”

BT is focusing on entry talent, who could make up as many as 400 of the planned headcount, focussed on apprentices, graduates, women returners and others starting their careers in Digital. The company is working with organisations like Code First Girls and 10,000 Black Interns and knows its success lies in working with a diverse range of talent.

Mehta adds: “Diversity is a key focus in our recruitment efforts as we need a broad set of temperaments, mindsets and abilities to drive through the cultural transformation that comes hand-in-hand with this talent drive.”

Lord Bilimoria, cofounder and chairman of Cobra Beer and CBI Vice President, said: “It’s great that BT is creating so many jobs in such an important area to future economic growth. I’m particularly pleased to see their investment in both the UK and in India – two titans in digital talent. This announcement reflects the strong partnership between the two countries – and the innovation and business opportunities that a new trade deal between them could unlock.”