Amazon has signed the lease on prime central London offices to accommodate 1,600 staff as it expands further into sectors such as book publishing and television production.



The web retail giant’s British headquarters will remain in Slough but it will fill 12 floors covering 210,000 sq ft at 60 Holborn Viaduct, a new development opposite Smithfield Market. Amazon said several hundred existing employees would move to the new site by the end of the year.

The curved glass and steel building has replaced Bath House, a 1960s concrete block that housed a BT telephone exchange. Construction was put on hold when the financial struck hit in 2008 but was resumed in 2010 and is due to be completed this summer.
“This new office location will provide the space we require for hundreds of our existing employees as well as many more that we will hire in the future,” said Amazon UK managing director Christopher North.
It is Amazon’s second major property investment in the capital in less than a year and comes as the company faces criticism over its avoidance of British taxes. Its most recent accounts showed it received more in government grants than it paid in corporation tax in 2012.

“Amazon has over 6,000 permanent employees in the UK and we will continue to create thousands of jobs in the coming years across the UK,” said Mr North.


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