BT boosts Scottish fibre broadband rollout with new engineers

BT has bolstered its Scottish fibre optic broadband rollout programme by taking on 38 new engineers.

The recruits, who will be based in Fife, Tayside, Glasgow and Ayr, will help the telecoms giant work towards its target of delivering super-fast broadband to two-thirds of UK homes and businesses by the end of 2014.

Many of the new engineers will be ex-armed forces personnel. The recruitment drive comes just a matter of months after the company announced plans to employ around 200 former members of the army, navy and air force to help with its series of fibre broadband deployments.

Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment Alex Neil said the new staff will make a "major contribution" to the future success of the country.

"We in the Scottish government have set out our ambition for all of Scotland to have access to next-generation broadband by 2020," he remarked, adding this target is a "key priority" of its digital strategy.