MORE than 1.5bn is to be invested in boosting the fibre broadband network across Scottish cities, creating thousands of jobs.
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness and Stirling are set to benefit from the new scheme announced today by CityFibre, one of the UK’s largest national digital infrastructure companies.
Stirling will also become one of the country’s first ‘Gigabit cities’ - a city with an entirely fibre network, which not only increases the speed of internet connections but makes it more stable than normal broadband.
The firm will spent more than £1.5bn upgrading the broadband capabilities of the six cities, and plan to create jobs for skilled and unskilled workers over three years. Across the whole of the UK, around 10,000 people are set to be employed as part of the programme, with upgrades taking place in 100 towns and cities.
The jobs are to be targeted specifically at service-leavers and the unemployed, with women and people from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds (BAME) set to benefit from the work created by the firm and contractors involved in the project.
It comes after the UK Government made the nationwide deployment of full fibre broadband by 2025 a key target.
The aim is to see 15 million premises connected to full fibre by 2025, with coverage across all parts of the country by 2033. Ministers also hope the majority of the population will have 5G coverage by 2027
Experts have previously said the provision of stable and fast internet across the country is essential to ensure a faster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, with the latest figures predicting the UK will be one of the hardest hit countries as a result of the virus.
National income could shrink by as much as 11.5% by the end of this year, according to estimates.
Steve Holliday, Chairman at CityFibre said: “We’re delighted to launch our training and recruitment programme creating up to 10,000 jobs in such a critical and vibrant sector. The programme will reach deep into our society to include some of those most in need of opportunity.
“Ultimately, it will ensure the skilled workforce is in place to get the job done and at the same time provide up-skilling and well-paid jobs across more than 100 towns and cities.
“In the wake of the Coronavirus, delivering the Government’s target of full fibre nationwide by 2025 could not be more important. Of all the infrastructure projects and industrial policies under consideration, full fibre will have the biggest impact in the shortest time, and for the least public money.
“It will help ensure that the UK not only recovers economically, but that it swiftly transitions to a greener, smarter and fairer economy in which to thrive.”
Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “Our £5bn commitment to bring faster, gigabit-speed internet to the whole country is key to ensuring everyone is better connected, creating jobs and powering the UK’s economic recovery from coronavirus.
“We’re working closely with firms like CityFibre and I warmly welcome their commitment to building a highly-skilled and diverse telecoms workforce which will boost growth right across the UK.”
CityFibre plans to work with the DWP, the Construction Industry Training Board and the Career Transition Partnership as well as groups like the Women’s Engineering Society to encourage people to apply for a place on the training scheme.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel