A look inside Amazon’s £450-million site in North East England
Key Points
- Amazon's £450 million Stockton-on-Tees fulfilment centre runs on three floors of robotics across 464,000 square feet, employing over 2,000 people in more than 60 role types.
- New Public First research found 90% of surveyed employees would recommend Amazon as an employer, with 48% of entry-level staff previously unemployed or straight from education.
- Starting pay of £29,744 sits £3,100 above the average Teesside entry-level wage, with 92% of the workforce now choosing full-time hours despite 35% having previously held insecure roles.
- The site contributed £300 million to Teesside's economy in 2024 and supports 2,700 jobs regionally, with 350 local SMEs generating £50 million in additional Amazon marketplace sales annually.
- Stockton is the operational template for four further UK fulfilment centres in Hull, Northampton and the East Midlands, part of Amazon's £40 billion three-year UK investment plan.
Amazon’s Stockton-on-Tees fulfilment centre contributed £300 million to the Teesside economy in 2024 and now employs over 2,000 people across three floors of robotics.
Notably, the site is the operational template for four further UK centres opening in Hull, Northampton and the East Midlands by 2027.
The site, which opened at Wynyard Park in October 2023, spans 464,000 square feet and runs on Amazon Robotics drive units that shuttle inventory pods to human associates rather than sending workers walking miles of aisles.
Stockton now employs over 2,000 people across more than 60 role types, from mechatronics engineers and IT specialists to health and safety staff and operations associates.
What’s it like working at Amazon?
Pay and stability emerged as the dominant themes at the site.
Starting pay is £29,744 a year (£14.30 an hour), £3,100 above the average entry-level wage in Teesside and higher than the average pay of 28% of jobs across the region.
From day one, employees receive private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection cover, paid breaks, a company pension, subsidised meals and an employee discount valued at over £700 a year.
The four-day working week and term-time contracts for parents and grandparents have proved particularly significant. 51% of Stockton associates are parents, 55% are aged 18 to 34, and 92% of the workforce now chooses to work full-time, despite 35% having previously worked in jobs with insecure hours.
The site has become a route into work for people the broader labour market often overlooks.
48% of Stockton’s entry-level employees were previously unemployed or joined straight from education, with their move into employment reducing the local welfare bill and increasing tax revenue by an estimated £1.3 million a year.
One associate, Mamadou, joined at 19 with no qualifications and has been promoted four times in six years while completing a bachelor’s degree fully funded through Amazon’s Career Choice programme, which pre-pays up to £3,000 a year toward nationally recognised courses.
Another associate, Larisa, moved from an entry-level role into HR at associate partner level while raising children as a single parent, citing the four-day week and night shift options as decisive.
A third, Dianne, joined as a warehouse associate after a career in nursing and described the site as a community as much as a workplace through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Apprenticeships in mechatronics and robotics
Training infrastructure runs alongside the robotics.
Amazon provides one in 50 of all apprenticeships in Stockton-on-Tees, with award-winning schemes spanning mechatronics and robotics engineering, accountancy and project management.
Career Choice has funded qualifications for staff moving into careers both within and beyond Amazon.
The site also runs supported internships through DFN Project SEARCH, a year-long programme for young adults with learning disabilities including autism and dyslexia, blending classroom instruction, coaching and structured workplace rotations. 85% of surveyed employees agreed Amazon is a good place to upskill.
A focus of the community
The Stockton site sits at the centre of Amazon’s wider Teesside footprint, supporting 2,700 jobs across the region when supply chain effects are included, equivalent to one in every 84 jobs.
Around 350 local SMEs now sell on Amazon’s marketplace, with more than 250 exporting through the platform, generating an estimated £50 million in additional sales each year.
The average Teesside merchant turns over £137,000 annually on the platform.
The site also anchors community work. Amazon co-founded the Tees Valley Multibank with the Junction Foundation, supplying around 70% of the goods the Multibank redistributes alongside national-level funding, equipment, logistics expertise and dedicated Stockton staff.
Over the past year, Multibank donations reached more than 94,000 households with an estimated total value of £1.9 million, equivalent to 32% of all households in the area.
The initiative has delivered a social return on investment of 5.62 to 1, meaning every £1 donated generates £5.62 in social benefit through higher household incomes, reduced pressure on public services and improved wellbeing.
A blueprint for other Amazon UK investments
Stockton’s two-year operational record now informs Amazon’s next phase.
Hull’s 2,000-job fulfilment centre opened earlier this year, Northampton’s equivalent is scheduled to open in 2026, and two further East Midlands sites are planned for 2027.
A new Stockton delivery station is also under construction targeting Living Future Zero Carbon Certification, which would be Amazon’s first such accredited site in the UK and Europe.
The full £40 billion three-year UK investment, announced in June 2025, is forecast to add £38 billion to UK GDP and includes £8 billion for AWS data centre infrastructure to support UK AI compute capacity.
