BT’s Digital arm plans to bring approximately 2,800 colleagues into the unit in the UK and India, taking its internal colleague base up to 6,300 people by 2024
This is part of the plan to greatly accelerate the Digital transformation in BT with the goal of bringing more core digital expertise in-house
The ~1,000 new UK based colleagues will be based around BT’s hubs in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Belfast, Ipswich and London; ~1,800 new India colleagues will be based around Bengaluru and Gurugram
These roles span product management, software engineering, cloud, design, data, AI and machine learning and agile delivery.
Up to 400 diverse entry talent hires planned – graduates, apprentices, women returners and others starting their careers in Digital
New Delhi, NFAPost: BT announces 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.
Commenting on the development, BT Chief Digital and Innovation Officer Harmeen Mehta said 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,” states BT Chief Digital and Innovation Officer Harmeen Mehta.
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.
Mark Murphy comments that the company is hard at work transforming the way BT engages with talent as BT adds to the type of people the company wants 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,” said BT Human Resources Director Mark Murphy.
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.
BT Chief Digital and Innovation Officer Harmeen Mehta adds diversity is a key focus in the company’s recruitment efforts as it needs a broad set of temperaments, mindsets and abilities to drive through the cultural transformation that comes hand-in-hand with this talent drive.
This announcement builds on earlier news that BT has signed a £30m deal with Distributed, a company that will bring agile elastic teams to work collaboratively with BT’s Digital team on projects and provide another route for BT to access highly skilled tech talent to drive its ambitious transformation goals.
About BT Group
BT Group is the UK’s leading provider of fixed and mobile telecommunications and related secure digital products, solutions and services. We also provide managed telecommunications, security and network and IT infrastructure services to customers across 180 countries.
BT Group consists of four customer-facing units: Consumer serves individuals and families in the UK; Enterprise and Global are our UK and international business-focused units respectively; Openreach is an independently governed, wholly owned subsidiary, which wholesales fixed access infrastructure services to its customers – over 650 communication providers across the UK.
For the year ended 31 March 2022, BT Group’s reported revenue was £20,850m with reported profit before taxation of £1,963m.
British Telecommunications plc is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
