Vodafone to create 2,100 UK customer service jobs

Mobile phone giant Vodafone says it will create 2,100 jobs across the UK.

The company is expanding existing customer service centres, with 800 additional posts in Manchester, almost 150 in Newark, more than 150 in Stoke-on-Trent and about 100 in Glasgow.

Its third-party customer service partners will create another 600 jobs in Newcastle, nearly 200 roles in the west of Scotland, and 100 in Cardiff.

It comes days after it announced hundreds of job cuts at its Newbury HQ.

'Difference'

The firm said the jobs would improve the quality of service for its 18 million UK customers and was part of a wider, three-year, £2bn investment programme in network and services.

"These new, skilled roles will make a real difference to our customers and a real difference to the communities that are the focus of our customer services investment," said Vodafone UK chief executive Nick Jeffery.

Last October, regulator Ofcom fined Vodafone £4.6m for "serious" breaches of consumer protection rules, its largest fine for a telecoms operator.

The regulator said Vodafone had misled pay-as-you-go customers, charging them for top-up credit but "providing nothing in return".

It also found Vodafone had broken the rules on handling customer complaints.

Vodafone said at the time it was "determined to put everything right".

At present Vodafone has around 12,500 members of staff in the UK.

It has 3,700 workers in its UK customer care operation, with 2,450 of those in-house and 1,250 with other partners.

Jobs at risk

"Vodafone is one of our country's great international success stories and it's fantastic this global organisation is demonstrating its confidence in the UK by creating new jobs across the North, in the Midlands, in Scotland and in Wales," said Karen Bradley, secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

On Friday Vodafone announced hundreds of redundancies at its Newbury headquarters.

The mobile phone company, which employs 4,500 people at the site, said the decision was being made to "simplify" its business structures.

It said those working in project management, managerial and functional roles were at risk.