By Scott Wright

BT GROUP has hailed its multi-million-pound plans to build a new home in Dundee as the “last piece of the jigsaw” in the city’s £1 billion waterfront regeneration project.

The telecoms giant broke ground yesterday on the construction of a new contact centre on West Marketgait, close to the waterfront. The new building, which is expected to be completed in 2024, will replace the company’s long-standing office on Ward Road, where BT has been based in the city since 1976.

The investment is being made to provide more modern and flexible office accommodation for the company’s 1,000 employees in the city, with the new home developed with “hybrid” working in mind; it will also feature more collaborative workspaces.

Rob Shuter, chief executive of BT Enterprise, told The Herald: “We have got more than 1,100 BT folk working in Dundee, and they are in an office environment that I think has got a little bit dated – [it was] built in the ‘70s. We wanted to give them a better location to work in, and use that opportunity also to modernise the environment for more collaborative working [that is] better suited to hybrid [and] virtual working.

“It has opened up the opportunity also to participate in the regeneration of the waterfront, and our location there is kind of the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle of that whole £1bn project. [It is] a really good confluence of things coming at the same time.”

The Dundee project is part of a wider programme of investment BT is making in its physical infrastructure across the UK, which is also seeing it upgrade its flagship office in Glasgow.

Mr Shuter noted that staff in Dundee, who provide customer service support to consumers and small businesses, regularly score highly for morale and engagement in surveys of BT employees. He said the operation in the city attracts high numbers of graduates and apprentices, and held out the hope that the new office would provide good career opportunities. The Dundee office is “multi-disciplinary”, he added, with representation from BT’s different units, including Openreach, Enterprise and Consumer. The company also runs a “triple 9” emergency services operation for the UK from the site, receiving and farming out calls to the fire, ambulance and police services.

“That gives a lot of opportunities for growth and career progression of our people, which I think is really exciting,” Mr Shuter said.

Asked if the company planned to take on more staff when it moves to the new office in the city, Mr Shuter said the investment was less about adding to the company’s headcount and more about providing a “better, more efficient working location for them.”

The company employs around 7,500 people across Scotland, which includes a large team in Thurso.

Mr Shuter declined to be specific value the value of investment being made in Dundee. He said the it was making in offices such as Dundee and Glasgow, as well as the expansion of infrastructure such as its 4G, 5G and fibre-optic broadband network in Scotland, was a “visible sign” that it is “committed to the region and a big investor”.

Mr Shuter took part in a ground-breaking ceremony for the new building yesterday with Kate Forbes, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy.

Ms Forbes said: “The state-of-the-art facility will provide nearly 1,000 quality jobs that will support individuals, communities and businesses to be better connected, whilst benefitting from technological innovation. This latest investment reinforces Dundee’s standing as a centre of technological excellence with a highly skilled workforce.”

Crucible and Ogilvie are the two main companies involved in building and developing the new building.