Amazon has opened a new fulfillment center in Northampton and announced plans for a second major facility in nearby Kettering, taking its total investment in Northamptonshire to more than £1bn (US$1.34bn) and creating over 4,000 jobs.
The Northampton site, costing £500m (US$670m), is described as one of the most advanced logistics operations in the UK. The facility stores tens of millions of items across three floors, where thousands of Hercules robots retrieve products and bring them directly to employees. More than 2,000 jobs are being created at the site.
The Kettering facility, also a £500m investment, will be the UK’s largest cross-dock facility when it opens this autumn. The 83,600m2 site will process around 20 million items per week and create more than 2,000 permanent jobs alongside hundreds of seasonal roles. Recruitment is underway for engineers, HR and IT professionals, finance specialists and operations teams.
Amazon UK an Ireland country manager John Boumphrey said the openings were evidence of the company delivering on its commitments: “A year ago we said we planned to invest £40bn (US$54bn) in the UK. Today you can see what that means; from 4,000 jobs in Northamptonshire and 2,000 in Hull, to drone deliveries from Darlington and a new tech HQ in Swansea. We said we’d deliver and we have. And we’re only a year in.”
Amazon UK regional director Gareth Davies added: “With another £500m facility on the horizon, this is an incredibly exciting time for our teams and the wider community.”
The developments come one year after Amazon announced a £40bn UK investment plan spanning 2025 to 2027 – described as the largest investment in the company’s history outside the USA, with more than £15bn (US$20bn) already delivered.
Amazon said that over the past year, it has delivered more than 1.6 billion items same day or next day in the UK; launched drone deliveries from its Darlington fulfilment center; and begun rolling out more than 160 electric heavy goods vehicles – the largest electric truck fleet in Amazon’s global network.
Other recent UK milestones include a new fulfillment center in Hull creating 2,000 jobs, a new distribution center announced for Peterborough, and the opening of a global tech headquarters in Swansea for Amazon-owned Veeqo.
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