BT recruits ex-armed forces for fibre optic rollout

BT Openreach has brought in some ex-army personnel to assist in its fibre broadband rollout across the UK.

The telecoms giant revealed it was collaborating closely with the MoD's Career Transition Partnership (CTP) program, a cooperative effort with careers and personnel company Right Management to put former soldiers, sailors and airmen of the British armed forces into new jobs and careers.

BT hopes to recruit around 200 ex-services staff for its fibre optic rollout scheme, which it describes as "one of the UK's largest infrastructure projects."

The rollout aims to provide as many as two thirds of UK premises with fast fibre optic broadband by 2015.

Work has already begun with close to 3,000 full time engineers currently working on the project.

The new ex-services employees will form part of a "mobile engineering workforce" and BT hopes they will join the project in May.

"It's fantastic that we've been able to recruit so many ex-armed services personnel," said Olivia Garfield, CEO of Openreacc.

"These people have served their country well and so deserve the chance of full-time employment with a generous reward package. They are highly skilled, motivated and disciplined and have experience of complex engineering tasks in challenging environments."

Service leavers can access a range of benefits under the CTP scheme including grants, allowances, travel warrants, resettlement leave, transition workshops, one-to-one career guidance support, subsidised vocational training support, housing advice, financial briefs and employment support.

Despite the evident benefits for the workers, with such a purpose-specific recruitment drive it remains to be seen how secure or transferable these new jobs might be when the project is completed.