Amazon to hire 4,000 people across two new £500 million warehouses
Key Points
- Amazon is creating more than 4,000 jobs across two new warehouses in Northamptonshire, each costing around £500 million.
- The Northampton fulfilment centre is already open, while the Kettering site opens in autumn 2026 and will be the UK's largest cross-dock facility.
- Pay for frontline roles starts at a minimum of £29,744 per year, rising to £31,824 in some locations, with private medical insurance from day one.
- The sites form part of Amazon's £40 billion UK investment plan for 2025 to 2027, of which more than £15 billion has been delivered.
Amazon is creating more than 4,000 jobs in Northamptonshire after opening a new fulfilment centre in Northampton and confirming plans for a second major site in Kettering.
The two facilities represent a combined investment of more than £1 billion in the county, with each site costing around £500 million.
The Northampton fulfilment centre is already operating and will create more than 2,000 jobs. Amazon describes it as one of the most advanced logistics operations in the UK, storing tens of millions of items across three floors of robotics, where thousands of Hercules robots retrieve products and bring them directly to employees.
The Kettering site will open this autumn and become the UK’s largest cross-dock facility, sorting and routing goods across the country. The 900,000-square-foot warehouse will process around 20 million items each week and create more than 2,000 permanent jobs, alongside hundreds of seasonal roles.
Recruitment for the Kettering site is under way, with Amazon hiring engineers, HR and IT professionals, finance specialists, and operations teams.
Pay for frontline roles at Amazon starts at a minimum of £29,744 per year, rising to £31,824 in some locations. The company said minimum starting pay has risen by up to 5.9% over the past year and has increased by 43% since 2022.
Benefits include private medical insurance from day one, subsidised meals, an employee discount, and funded career development. Amazon said it does not use zero-hours contracts.
“As someone from Northampton, I’m proud to see this county become one of the most important regions in our UK network,” said Amazon regional director Gareth Davies.
“Our new fulfilment centre is up and running with cutting-edge robotics, a modern working environment, and genuine career development opportunities. With another £500 million facility on the horizon, this is an incredibly exciting time for our teams and the wider community.”
The Northamptonshire sites form part of the £40 billion Amazon committed to investing in the UK between 2025 and 2027, the largest investment in the company’s history outside the US. Amazon said it has already delivered more than £15 billion of that commitment.
Over the past year, the company has opened a fulfilment centre in Hull creating 2,000 jobs, announced a distribution centre in Peterborough with more than 1,400 jobs, and opened a tech headquarters in Swansea for its Veeqo business.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said the investment would help people move from welfare into work.
“This government’s mission is to get Britain working, and we are fully behind all businesses that share our ambition to create jobs in every part of the country,” he said.
Amazon employs around 75,000 permanent staff across more than 100 UK sites. The company said almost half of its entry-level hires were previously unemployed or came directly from education.
Job listings for the new sites are available on the Amazon jobs website.
