UK DIGITAL network business Openreach is making a £400,000 investment in a fibre training school for Scotland which it said will educate a new generation of digital engineers.

It said that more than 4,000 people have applied for 400 new trainee engineering roles being created in Scotland by Openreach as it gears up for a major rollout of ultrafast broadband.

Clive Selley, Openreach chief executive, who was in Scotland on Friday to mark the investment at its Livingston national training centre, admitted that there are particular challenges north of the border in accessing high speed broadband. He explained that this is due to country’s relatively large geographical area with low populations in remote areas outside the central belt.

But while BT Group – of which Openreach is a now a wholly owned and independently governed business – is cutting jobs, Mr Selley said he is “net hiring” across the UK, including Scotland.

BT announced earlier this month that it is cutting 13,000 jobs over three years, about 11 per cent of its workforce, as it aims to slim down its management and back-office roles and reduce costs by £1.5 billion.

Mr Selley said: “I can’t speak for rest of the BT group. We are a more independent Openreach now. BT is the owner, but we are governed independently and I report to an Openreach board. We are net hiring in the thousands nationwide for Openreach. That is because we have huge job to do.”

He added: “Whatever the BT Group is doing, we are net hiring in Scotland. We’re expanding in many ways in Scotland We are taking on 400 people and investing in training and skilling. These are good, career jobs, not short-term jobs.”

Openreach’s legal separation from BT is to address industry regulator Ofcom’s concerns on competition.

The Openreach recruits will be among the first pupils to pass through the new fibre training school at the Livingston centre, with around 40 people being hired to work directly on the rollout of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) in Edinburgh. The Scottish capital will be the first city in Scotland to see widespread rollout of FTTP at speeds of up to 1Gbps.

Mr Selley said: “The big fibre-to-the-premises programme has just kicked off. It involves very big numbers and is a long programme. Ultimately, we want to get to most UK homes with fibre. That’s the ambition and it’s probably a 15 year-plus programme.”

While in Livingston, Mr Selley met Keith Brown MSP, Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Jobs and Fair work.

During the visit, the Cabinet Secretary and Mr Selley saw the first of four new fibre classrooms at the West Lothian centre – designed to provide a real-life setting for pupils complete with duct pipes, fibre cables and walls replicating inside and outside customers’ houses – and met Openreach trainees.

During this year Openreach said a residential street will be replicated outside the centre to give recruits a safe, real-life environment to learn and practice every aspect of their work.

Around 1,700 trainees are expected to pass through the doors in Livingston throughout 2018 and 19, with numbers rising once work completes on the fibre school later this year.

As well as being the first Scottish city, Openreach said Edinburgh is one of only eight in the UK at the forefront of its Fibre First programme, which will see three million homes and businesses upgraded to ultrafast FTTP by the end of 2020.

But while Mr Selley said that Scotland does not lag behind the rest of the UK, he admitted there are specific challenges north of the border on fast broadband connection.

He explained: “There are particular challenges in Scotland. Scotland is a huge geographic area which in comparison to England, for example, has a low population density. Scotland, above the central belt and outside the big conurbations of Aberdeen and Dundee, is a vast area with a relatively small population. That is very challenging.

“There is no area anywhere else in the UK as challenging as that. But Scotland still has a very impressive footprint for superfast broadband. I want to be clear that Scotland is winning on the delivery of superfast broadband and that is essential to the economy and social cohesion. Ultimately, everyone needs access to decent broadband. I think that goes without question.”

Speaking at the Livingston centre, Mr Brown said: “Educating the next generation of digital engineers is absolutely vital to ensuring we meet our digital ambitions. I therefore welcome this investment from Openreach in their fibre training school, which will underpin the roll-out of high-speed broadband to communities across Scotland.”