US retail giant Amazon has opened a fulfilment centre in Northampton, UK, and set out plans for a cross-dock facility in Kettering, with combined Northamptonshire investment exceeding £1bn ($1.33bn).
The Kettering project is a £500m site covering 900,000ft² and is due to become the UK’s “largest” cross-dock facility when it opens later this year.
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It is expected to handle around 20 million items each week and create more than 2,000 permanent roles, in addition to hundreds of seasonal jobs.
In Northampton, Amazon has opened a fulfilment centre representing a £500m investment.
The site stores tens of millions of items across three floors of robotics operations, where Hercules robots retrieve products for employees.
The company said the facility is creating more than 2,000 jobs.
Amazon has also enlarged its London headquarters in Shoreditch, Hackney, by opening a third building.
This takes total capacity across the campus to 6,000 employees and more than 140 collaboration spaces.
The developments in Northamptonshire and London are part of Amazon’s wider UK investment programme announced a year ago.
Under that plan, the company said it would spend £40bn across the UK between 2025 and 2027, which it described as the largest investment in its history outside the US.
Amazon said more than £15bn of that commitment has already been deployed.
The company currently has around 75,000 permanent employees across more than 100 sites in the UK.
During the past year, Amazon has also opened a fulfilment centre in Hull, announced a distribution centre in Peterborough, started drone deliveries from its Darlington facility, and begun deploying more than 160 electric heavy goods vehicles, which it said is the largest electric truck fleet in Amazon’s global network.
Amazon regional director Gareth Davies said: “As someone from Northampton, I am proud to see this county become one of the most important regions in our UK network.
“Our new fulfilment centre is up and running with cutting-edge robotics, a modern working environment, and genuine career development opportunities. With another £500m facility on the horizon, this is an incredibly exciting time for our teams and the wider community.”
