£10m investment and staffing restructure for Newbury's Vodafone HQ
“This is very much us committing our future to Newbury"
VODAFONE’S Newbury headquarters is to receive a staffing and multi-million pound boost through a company restructure, which will also see some staff move away from the town.
The telecoms giant is to invest £10m in its headquarters to create a “technology and digital nerve centre of the future in Newbury.”
A number of staff in consumer and digital roles in Newbury will be relocated to London, and staff who cannot relocate could be made to leave.
But the company said that the reshuffle was good news for Newbury and that a net gain of up to 600 staff will be based in the town.
In a statement Vodafone said: “We are creating one of the UK’s largest digital technology centres in Newbury with our focus on innovation and futuristic services.
“This will mean more people working here, additional investment and improved prospects for extra jobs. It should also provide a boost to local businesses, retailers and services.”
The move is part of Vodafone’s latest restructure involving around 2,700 staff in the UK.
The move includes moving network operations and technology teams from Bracknell to Newbury. At the same time, consumer and digital teams will be moving to London.
A spokesman for Vodafone, Simon Gordon, said that the number of staff leaving Newbury was “in the hundreds, a smaller number than what’s incoming” adding that around 500 to 600 more staff would be based in Newbury following the reshuffle.
“It means more people in Newbury. We have capacity in the campus here. All new services will be developed in Newbury.
“This is very much us committing our future to Newbury. This is us saying despite the uncertainty out there we are continuing to invest in the UK, in particular Newbury, Manchester and London. Newbury is very much the heart of the technology investment going forward.”
“We do recognise there are employees who will be impacted by the move. We will sit down with those individuals and talk through their specific circumstances. We hope they stay with us but clearly there will be circumstances where people can’t move or don’t want to move. There might be a package or an option.”
