Amazon To Open Darlington Fulfilment Centre

Amazon today (19th December) announced plans to open a new fulfilment centre in Darlington, County Durham and begin recruitment for more than 1,000 new permanent jobs. Amazon’s new investment will help meet customer demand and enable SMBs selling on Amazon to scale their businesses.

Amazon has started recruiting for a range of new roles for the fulfilment centre, including engineers, HR and IT professionals through to health & safety and finance specialists and operations managers.  Recruitment for the Amazon team in Darlington who will pick, pack and ship customer orders will begin early next year. People interested in applying for jobs at Amazon should visit https://www.amazon.jobs/en/locations/darlington

“We are excited to start the New Year with a recruitment drive for 1,000 new permanent roles in Darlington, with competitive wages and comprehensive benefits starting on day one,” said Stefano Perego, Amazon’s Vice President of UK Customer Fulfilment. “We are delighted to expand our operations in the North East with this new team playing a crucial role in delivering a first rate level of service for our customers.”

The Darlington site will be fitted out with advanced Amazon Robotics technology. The robots slide under a tower of shelves where products are stowed, lift it and move it through the fulfilment centre.

Amazon fulfilment centre employees receive competitive pay and comprehensive benefits. Pay starts at £9.50 an hour for all permanent, temporary and seasonal employees working in the company’s fulfilment centres. Employees are offered a comprehensive benefits package, including private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection, subsidised meals and an employee discount – which combined are worth more than £700 annually – as well as a company pension plan. 

Amazon also offers employees an innovative programme called Career Choice that provides funding for adult education, offering to pre-pay 95% of tuition and associated fees for nationally recognised courses, up to £8,000 over four years.

Peter Gibson, MP for Darlington, said: “I welcome any new employer to Darlington but in the first week as MP for our town this is truly brilliant news, which deserves to be celebrated. Bringing jobs and investment to the Tees Valley are as key focus of me and my new Conservative colleagues working hand in hand with Ben Houchen.

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said: “My number one priority is always attracting the businesses and investment to the Tees Valley that will create the good quality well-paid jobs we all want to see come to our region and they don’t come much bigger than Amazon. Jobs are already open for application in HR, IT, finance, operations and engineering – just the sort of high-quality professional roles we want to see for the talented people in our area. I would encourage everyone to get applying for these exciting new roles now!

“We’ve worked incredibly hard with Heather Scott and everyone at Darlington Borough Council, and I am excited that this day has finally come and I look forward to the site being fully operational in the New Year. It is another huge vote of confidence in our region.”

Councillor Heather Scott, Leader of Darlington Borough Council, said: “It is a pleasure to welcome Amazon to Darlington. There has been a great deal of interest in the site as building work has progressed, so it’s great to get this announcement just before Christmas. The jobs, investment and ongoing economic benefits this development will bring can only be a good thing for Darlington. I am sure this is just the beginning of long and fruitful working relationship between Amazon and Darlington.”

To date, Amazon has created over 29,500 jobs and invested over £18 billion in its UK operations since 2010 to provide convenience, selection and value to UK consumers, while supporting more than 373,000 businesses and creative professionals including sellers, AWS developers and KDP authors.

Earlier this year, Amazon announced plans to create 1,000 new full-time apprentices roles, including over 90 bachelors and master’s degree-level apprenticeships for software development, automation engineering and senior leadership, across corporate and operations sites in the UK over a two year period.

Darlington will be Amazon’s first fulfilment centre in the North-East. Amazon opened a delivery station in Washington, near Sunderland, in 2015, creating 90 permanent jobs, and works with around a dozen independent delivery companies with hundreds of drivers to provide the fast and reliable delivery Amazon customers love and trust.

Source : Amazon UK

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