Just Eat plans to create more than 1,000 customer service roles at UK site
Takeaway delivery platform Just Eat has announced plans to create more than 1,000 customer service roles at its new office near Sunderland.
The company, which is part of the Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway group, is bringing work in-house that was previously outsourced to third party operators in Bulgaria and the Philippines.
It said it had already created 300 of the 1,500 roles at the office in Houghton-le-Spring that was previously used by now-defunct energy supplier Npower.
More than 4,500 Just Eat couriers are now employed through a new worker model Pic: Just Eat
Just Eat said employees would initially work from home and it planned to operate a hybrid model – involving a mixture of office and home working – over coming months, with an on-site gym among facilities on offer.
The jobs announcement was hailed by business minister Paul Scully as a boost to the government’s ambition to “level up the whole of the UK”.
It is part of a £100m investment in the region by Just Eat over the next five years, the company said.
Just Eat currently employs around 2,000 people – excluding couriers – in the UK and the 1,500 at the Houghton-le-Spring site are in addition to this.
The new roles are being taken on to deal with its 58,000 UK restaurant partners as well as millions of takeaway customers.
Jobs on offer will range from customer service advisors to team leaders, specialist support roles and management, Just Eat said.
Just Eat has splashed out on marketing including a Euro 2020 tie-up
UK managing director Andrew Kenny said: “We’re delighted to be creating upwards of a thousand new employment opportunities in our customer care department over the next 12 months.
“This move will help us to bring the very best service to our customers and restaurant partners as demand for food delivery goes from strength to strength in the UK.”
The move comes after Just Eat separately began rolling out a new worker model for its couriers last year, which entitles them to rights such as the minimum wage, pension contributions, statutory pay and sick pay.
More than 4,500 are now employed in this way in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Brighton and Cambridge, rather than the usual gig economy model of being treated as self-employed contractors.
The announcement comes after Just Eat last week reported a rise in UK orders by 58 million in the first half of the year although a marketing splurge to boost its growth – which included a Euro 2020 tie-up – drove it to a loss.
A US vaccine firm has opened the first mRNA manufacturing plant in the UK, against a backdrop of increasing anti-jab rhetoric back home.
The new facility outside Oxford is part of a £1bn investment in the UK by Moderna, which specialises in mRNA.
The novel vaccine technology delivered some of the most effective and fastest-to-develop jabs during the COVID pandemic.
Several pharma companies, including Germany’s leading mRNA pioneer BioNTech, are now racing to develop new therapies.
Moderna says the plant will produce up to 100 million doses of its existing vaccine products each year. It has also been designed to scale-up production to 250 million doses a year in the event of a new disease outbreak.
“God-forbid, if there is another pandemic, we can switch the facility any day,” said Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel.
The UK investment deal was agreed by the previous government, but the plant’s opening is welcome relief for the current one.
In recent weeks, four major pharmaceutical companies have halted planned investments in the UK following disputes over drug pricing and profitability in the UK.
‘A great statement’
It also promises to restore domestic vaccine manufacturing capability in the UK, the lack of which was exposed when dangerous supply interruptions threatened the early COVID response.
“It’s a really fast way of getting new vaccines discovered,” said Lord Patrick Vallance, former chief scientist and now science minister.
“It’s also a great statement of confidence in the UK that [Moderna has] chosen to base themselves here.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting attended the opening
Moderna: UK ‘still believes’ in vaccines
The mRNA molecule is the same used by our cells to order the production of new proteins, and allows vaccines to be produced using just the genetic code of a virus or other biological target.
Moderna’s investment decision pre-dated Donald Trump’s return to the White House, but the Moderna CEO said its operation in the UK – a country that “still believes in vaccination” – may pay dividends if anti-vaccine rhetoric translates into a lack of demand for its products in the US.
“If there is less appetite by governments around the world, including in the US, to use vaccines, we might invest less in vaccines,” said Mr Bancel.
“We have to invest where there’s a demand for our products.”
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The UK presents other attractions for the company which has suffered substantial losses as demand for its COVID vaccine has fallen.
It’s betting that leading UK universities and a large patient population will make for successful clinical trials.
The company has ongoing NHS trials of new jabs against seasonal flu, a combination COVID and flu vaccine, cancer vaccines and mRNA therapies for two inherited childhood diseases.
Moderna says it is now the largest private commercial sponsor of clinical trials in the UK.
A shoplifter has been jailed and banned from every Boots store after stealing £107,000 worth of goods from the high street chain.
Liam Hutchinson, 32, of no fixed address, was sentenced to a year in prison at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
He was also issued with a criminal behaviour order, banning him from every Boots store in the UK for 10 years – and the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea for five years.
Metropolitan Police detectives trawled through hours of CCTV footage to find that Hutchinson had committed 99 shoplifting offences at Boots stores in the borough between May and August 2025.
Hutchinson stealing from shelves in Boots on CCTV. Pic: Met Police
Often stealing large quantities of razors and electrical items, his crimes cost the retailer £107,000 in revenue, Sergeant Jack Vine, of the Met’s volume crime team said.
“We recognised the impact Hutchinson’s actions were having on the retailer, and through working with staff, we built a strong case of evidence against him, which has been reflected in his sentencing,” he added.
“This result should act as a warning that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated, and that we will come down hard on those who show a complete disregard for the law, terrorise retail workers and cost businesses thousands of pounds.”
Liam Hutchinson being caught by officers in bodycam footage. Pic: Met Police
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Nicky Harrop, head of security, fraud, and contract management at Boots, said the company have been investing “significantly” in anti-theft measures to make sure stores “remain a safe and respectful environment” for customers and staff.
The Met says it is prioritising shoplifting, having solved 163% more cases in London compared to the same time last year.
It is also dedicating up to 80 additional officers across London’s West End, with 90 more in high-risk theft areas.
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