Amazon warehouse

Amazon is set to open its 13th UK fulfilment centre in Essex next year.

The centre in Tilbury will be equipped with Amazon’s “most advanced” robotics technology to help it meet increasing customer demand and expand its product selection of more than 150 million items.

The robots, which were first introduced into its Dunstable and Doncaster fulfilment centres earlier this year, will speed up order times by moving shelves of products to employees for picking. They also promise to slash storage space requirements by 50%.

The Tilbury centre will create 1,500 new jobs, on top of the 1,000 positions Amazon is set to create by the end of this year.

The announcement comes hot on the heels of its decision to open a third fulfilment centre in Doncaster next summer, which will create 500 extra jobs.

By the time both centres have opened, Amazon should have a workforce of 17,500 in the UK.

Amazon said it had invested more than £4.6bn in the UK economy since 2010.