First exclusive look inside new Amazon store in Stockton

It's already one of the most prominent and instantly recognisable buildings on Teesside - but no one apart from its staff has seen inside it until now.

The Echo has been given exclusive access to the vast new £450million Amazon Fulfillment Centre which has only been operating for three weeks at North Chapel Lane in Stockton. With the trademark blue smile underlining the company name, the brand is sweeping across the North East.

This is Amazon’s fourth centre in the region following the opening of centres in Darlington in May 2020, Durham in September 2020 and Gateshead in September 2021.

The centres are almost exact copies of each other, with a tried and trusted company template for every conveyor belt, robot, scanner, nut and bolt to handle a never-ending stream of inbound and outbound parcels.

And, of course, there are jobs - the 2,000 new roles created here will take Amazon’s total workforce in the North East to 6,000 full and part-time roles, and the company’s investment in the region to more than £1.7 billion since 2010.

You can join with no formal qualifications and grow a career through paid-for training, education and mentoring.

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The roles, including engineers, graduates, HR and IT professionals, health and safety and finance specialists, as well as the teams who pick, pack and ship customer orders, start at £11.80 per hour for all full-time, part-time and seasonal workers.

All employees at Stockton will also be offered a comprehensive benefits package, including private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection, subsidised meals and an employee discount as well as the company pension plan.

This year the company has created hundreds of new apprenticeship roles, helping people begin their careers in fields ranging from automation engineering and IT to digital marketing and fashion buyers, with pay of up to £32,000 a year for degree-level apprenticeships.

Amazon also offers employees Career Choice, which pre-pays 95% of tuition for courses in high-demand fields, up to £8,000 over four years, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.

Scott England of Redcar used to work in the food industry (Image: Newsquest)

Site Leader, Rich Griffiths told us that after only three weeks , the operation was making perfect progress: "Our inbound function is fully operational and our outbound shipping directly to our customers has launched and over the next few weeks this will  grow week after week as we continue to recruit our new team in this area. 

"On sites like this, it is all about the people - perhaps someone who fancies a change on a completely different career path. You can join our business with with no prior qualifications and we've got a range of different mechanisms and packages to support your growth within the business.

"To make sure we get as wide a range of people as possible, we've got a range of different shifts. Of course we offer our traditional roles, but we've got a range of different contract offerings from term time contracts which allow parents to get the time off that they need over the school holidays, and flexible working contracts where associates can simply choose and select the shifts that they work to fit around their life.

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Parcel heaven - inside Amazon (Image: Newsquest)

Danni Vallin from Middlesbrough has been with the company for just over a year (Image: Newsquest)

"I want as diverse team as possible with different perspectives, different views, and particularly different work experience. We have lots of our associates saying 'why don't you do things like that' or 'in my previous employment we did it slightly differently' -  that rich input from others and from our team is really what moves the needle for us and giving them the opportunity to showcase a skill is critical. 

"We want to give someone more than just a nine-to-five role that you come and do and then you go home at the end of it.

"We're trying to build a community and my vision for the site is that as we grow our team from the local community we give back to that community, in terms of development and growth and training for our teams, but also how we embed ourselves here by giving our time to support the growth of local communities - it's hugely important to us."

Part of the comprehensive Amazon checking system (Image: Newsquest)

The Amazon robots in the vast goods area (Image: Newsquest)

Site Leader, Rich Griffiths (Image: Newsquest)

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The famous Amazon brand at Wynyard (Image: Newsquest)

Inside Amazon at Stockton (Image: Newsquest)

Thirteen Amazing Amazon facts:

• The new Stockton building's footprint is around 464,000 sq ft or the equivalent of five and a half football pitches.
• There are three floors of Amazon Robotics where products are stowed and customer orders picked.
• The site will store tens of millions of items and ship hundreds of thousands of items to customers every day.
• Since 2010, Amazon has invested £3billion in our region, creating 6,000 full and part-time jobs
• It has more than 2,000 SME selling partners in the North East
• Small business from the region selling on Amazon recorded more than £40 million of export sales in 2022
• In partnership with the charity Magic Breakfast, Amazon has delivered more than 280,000 healthy breakfasts to vulnerable children and schools across the North East, Tees Valley and Durham

• The company has invested more than £56bn in the UK over 25 years.
• Total permanent UK workforce is 75,000. 
• As well as sorting centres, delivery stations, fulfilment centres, and two receive centres, there are also two corporate offices, three research centres, a customer services centre, a fashion studio and a growing range of physical stores and experiences – from Amazon Fresh grocery stores to the first hair salon in London.
• Over 85,000 UK-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sellers sell their products in Amazon’s stores across the world. More than half of the products sold on Amazon are from third party sellers.
• Amazon in the UK is Amazon’s third largest geography by revenue after the US and Germany.
•  Amazon.co.uk offers customers more than 250 million unique products.