Member Article

BT Newcastle celebrates 20th year with renewed recruitment drive

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this week, BT’s fast-growing Newcastle contact centre has announced plans to create 70 jobs in the next six months.

Bolstering its ranks with the recruitment of 155 staff since March earlier this year, the site now employs 900 local people while more than 8,500 people are directly employed by BT and its EE business in the North East as a whole.

The centre, which handles around 2.7 million calls a year, carries out a wide variety of work, including customer service and sales of products such as broadband, TV and BT Sport.

The company is today celebrating the milestone with a visit from former Newcastle United legends Peter Beardsley and Andy Cole, who will tour the site at Gosforth Business Park.

Rachel Hancock, general manager of customer care at the Newcastle contact centre, said: “I’m really proud of everything that the teams in Newcastle have achieved over the past 20 years and I’m delighted that they have reached this impressive milestone.

“After two decades we’re still hiring and growing our presence in Newcastle and I love being a part of the centre’s ongoing success.”

One person who has been at the centre since the very first day is Chris Towner. Chris made the move from BT’s Warrington contact centre to Newcastle as a team manager.

He is now a senior communications manager responsible for making sure staff in several contact centres are kept up to date with news and events.

He commented: “I absolutely love my job and have enjoyed a steady career progression during my time here. I remember going into the Newcastle building to test the computer systems when it was still a building site. We wore our headsets over our hard hats and blue plastic bags over our shoes.

“My BT claim to fame is that I got the first ever on-site sale during the testing process. You can definitely carve out a long term career here and I’d hazard a guess that in another 20 years I’ll still be here. I certainly hope so.”