IBM to employ 900 in the UK as it wields axe elsewhere

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty met with chancellor George Osborne at 11 Downing Street this week, and afterwards announced the firm would be hiring over 900 new staff in the UK to help support the country’s digital economy.

The jobs announcement comes after the company recently confirmed that research and development jobs would be axed in the UK, and reports of Big Blue making 900 redundant across its German operations, along with hundreds more in other European countries.

IBM says it now plans to hire more than 900 people in the UK in 2016. “These positions will be for graduates, apprentices and experienced professionals” who have the “digital skills needed to drive business innovation in the UK”, said IBM.

“To continue building the next generation workforce”, the roles will be based across the UK to “harness the skills and technical expertise of talent from a range of regions”, including London, Leicester, Preston and the Thames Valley, added the firm.

IBM’s investment in talent builds on its recent creation of six new digital locations across the UK. Four new IBM Service Centres have opened to help UK based businesses harness the benefits of the latest cloud, analytics, mobile, security, social and cognitive computing technologies IBM is now pushing as priorities.

IBM also opened two new design studios to support industries such as healthcare, financial services and retail.

IBM said: “The UK has emerged as a leading digital economy. IBM’s commitment to the UK supports the government’s ambition to close the digital skills gap, so British businesses are in the best position to adopt the very latest technologies and meet the evolving opportunities of the new digital era.”

Joint CBI and IBM research reported on ChannelBiz this week showed UK firms were behind others in different countries when it came to “digitising” their business processes.

Earlier this month, IBM posted another set of poor quarterly results, although sales in cloud and analytics were up.

@AntonySavvas

Antony Savvas

York, UK-based Antony Savvas has been a technology journalist for 25 years and has expertise in all major areas of enterprise and consumer IT. He has worked for a number of leading technology magazines and websites and his work is syndicated across the internet. He also undertakes corporate work for some of the world's leading technology companies.