BT plans to add 2,800 new digital employees by 2024

BT has announced it will be expanding its digital workforce to 6,300 people, adding 2,800 new employees in the UK and India by 2024. The recruitment drive is part of the telecoms company’s plan to bring more core digital expertise in-house.

The company intends to on-board around 1,000 new employees across its London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Belfast, and Ipswich hubs, with the majority to be based outside of the capital. In India, around 1,800 new employees will be recruited around BT’s hubs in Bengaluru and Gurugram.

The company has also committed to hiring a diverse range of entry level talent by partnering with organisations such as Code First: Girls and 10,000 Black Interns. BT plans to focus on apprentices, graduates, women returners and others starting their careers in digital to make up around 400 of the proposed new hires.

The roles will span product management, software engineering, cloud engineering, digital design, data, AI and machine learning, and agile delivery.

In November 2021, the Harvey Nash Group published its Digital Leadership Report. The report found that while the number of digital leaders planning to boost their technology investment and headcount reached record levels, rising by over a third since 2020, more than 67% of digital leaders globally are now unable to keep pace with change because of a lack of available talent.

As a result, 51% of respondents to the Harvey Nash Group’s survey, said they planned to cross-train people from other parts of their organisation to broaden the skillsets of their tech teams.

BT will also make upskilling and reskilling part of its efforts to strengthen its digital workforce. This includes the development of an expansive learning resource, the BT Digital Campus, which combines digital skills platforms with specialised BT learning content to ensure employees remain up to date with the latest digital technologies.

The recruitment drive is being overseen by BT’s director of HR for digital, Mark Murphy. In comments published alongside the announcement, Murphy said the company is “hard at work transforming the way BT engages with talent” as it looks to bolster its digital employee base.

“New arrivals will be immediately contributing to the progressive, collaborative, transformative ‘Digital Way’ at the heart of how it works,” he said.

Paul Geddes, CEO at QA, a technology skills, training and talent organisation, said this move from BT is another clear example of why businesses facing digital transformation challenges must remain committed to learning and digital skills training.

“Loyal employees are less likely to leave, and more likely to remain committed to business growth. It simultaneously creates a culture of learning and transformation that can keep pace with the rapid changes we see every day in fields such as product management, software engineering, cloud, data and AI,” he said.