Key takeaways
- Amazon contributed more than £1.3 billion in direct taxes in 2025 in the UK – over 20% more than a year before – and contributed more than £6.5 billion in total taxes in 2025.
- Amazon’s £40 billion investment plan is creating thousands of jobs and new infrastructure across the UK.
- Amazon's total permanent workforce of more than 75,000 employees makes it one of the top 10 private sector employers.
For more than 25 years, Amazon has been serving the UK – delivering for millions of customers, creating jobs, and contributing to local communities through our skills, education, and charity programmes.
As a result of our continued investment in the UK, our total tax contribution rose to more than £6.5 billion in 2025, including more than £1.3 billion in directly incurred taxes, which is over 20% more than a year before – exceeding £1 billion for the second year running.
Here are six ways that Amazon is contributing to the UK economy.
1. Amazon is a top five tax contributor in the UK
As we continue to invest in our UK operations and workforce, we help fund public services and infrastructure across the country. When comparing our 2024 data to the most recent PwC Total Tax Contribution survey of The 100 Group (an independent study which analyses UK tax contributions from FTSE 100 companies and other large UK private companies), Amazon ranks in the top five largest UK tax contributors for taxes borne and collected. For the fifth consecutive year, Amazon ranked in the top 10 for total capital investment and business rates.
How much tax did Amazon pay in 2025?
The full year to 31 December 2025 shows:
- Our total taxes borne were more than £1.3 billion (2024: more than £1 billion). This includes all the taxes payable by Amazon from our business activities in the UK, such as corporation tax, business rates, national insurance and digital services tax.
- The taxes we collected and administered for the government were more than £5 billion (2024: £4.7 billion). This includes the taxes we collect and remit from our customers, employees, and other third parties because of our business activities in the UK. These include VAT and the taxes paid by our employees through PAYE.
- Our total tax contribution (combining taxes borne and taxes collected) was more than £6.5 billion (2024: £5.8 billion).
2. We are delivering on our £40 billion investment plan
Last year, Amazon announced plans to invest £40 billion in the UK between 2025 and 2027, marking its long-term commitment to customers, employees, and communities across the country.
These direct investments raise the economic activity in a given region and create a ripple effect through the economy as the firms that supply goods and services to Amazon expand and associated household spending increases.
One year on, Amazon has invested more than £15 billion in the UK, launching new operational sites, starting drone deliveries, expanding studio production facilities, as well as opening a new London campus in Shoreditch with expanded office space. Veeqo – the Swansea-based tech start-up which became part of Amazon in 2021 – also recently opened a brand-new development centre.
Here’s a summary of our overall investments in the UK:
- Since 2010, we’ve made direct investments in our UK operations of more than £96 billion.
- Last year, we invested over £2 billion in our UK infrastructure, up over 20% on 2024.
- In 2025, the total revenues of Amazon’s activities in the UK were more than £30 billion.
- In 2024, we announced plans to invest £8 billion between 2024 and 2028 in building, maintaining and operating data centres in the UK.
3. We’re investing in our people
As one of the UK's top 10 private sector employers, Amazon employs around 75,000 people across operations, corporate and technology roles, and is a LinkedIn Top Employer in the UK.
Amazon continues to lead pay in the logistics sector. Minimum starting pay for frontline operations employees rose by up to 5.9% in 2025, bringing starting salaries to at least £29,744 per year – and £31,824 in some locations. Since 2022, minimum starting pay has increased by 43%.
Amazon has created more than 6,000 apprenticeships across more than 60 programmes since 2013, with 1,000 placements in 2025 alone, and 90% of apprentices going on to secure permanent roles.
Amazon also invests in skills through its Career Choice programme, which pays 100% of tuition for employees (from one year of service) to train in high-demand areas like robotics, HR and HGV driving. Over 30,000 UK employees have participated to date. Amazon remains committed to supporting the UK government's ambition to train 10 million workers in essential AI skills by 2030 – around 20% of the UK workforce.
This summer, more than 130 young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) will graduate from Amazon’s Supported Internships programme across 26 UK sites, making Amazon the largest private sector provider of supported internships in the UK.
4. We’re innovating for customers
In 2025, Amazon delivered to UK Prime members at its fastest-ever speeds, with more than 1.6 billion items arriving the same or next day. Amazon is also testing new ways to serve customers.
Drone flights have now successfully started from Amazon’s Darlington fulfilment centre, as the town becomes the first location in the UK to trial Prime Air.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s ultra-fast delivery service – Amazon Now – is now available in parts of London, offering thousands of groceries and household essentials in around 30 minutes or less, with plans to expand to more areas in the coming months.
In 2025, Amazon began rolling out its largest-ever order of more than 160 electric heavy goods vehicles on UK roads. Once fully deployed, the UK will be home to the largest number of eHGVs in Amazon’s global transportation network, supporting the country’s transition to a lower-carbon economy.
Amazon is also investing in low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, in the UK and around the world, which will provide high-speed internet to remote communities that cannot currently access it. A recent report from Oxford Economics found that LEO satellite broadband could generate an additional £2 billion in UK economic output and support more than 24,000 jobs by 2035.
5. We’re supporting local economies, businesses, and communities
Our infrastructure investments create far-reaching impact in local communities. A recent report commissioned by Amazon into the company’s impact in Teesside showed that nearly half (48%) of Amazon's entry-level employees at its Stockton-on-Tees fulfilment centre were previously unemployed or joined straight from education, highlighting the company's role in opening up employment pathways for local people, just two years after opening its first fulfilment centre in the area. In 2024, Amazon contributed £300 million to the local economy (2% of the area's total GDP).
Amazon’s investments support more than 100,000 UK-based sellers, including tens of thousands of professional sellers, many of whom are small businesses. They achieved export sales worth more than £4 billion last year alone.
The Multibank, supported by principal partner Amazon, has now donated more than 16 million surplus goods through more than 2 million orders to families across Scotland, Wales, Greater Manchester, London, Tees Valley, and Birmingham. This is supported by Amazon’s You Buy We Donate campaign, where every third purchase of selected products will be matched with a donation to The Multibank at no extra cost to the customer.
Amazon also continues to support communities through long-standing partnerships like Comic Relief, helping raise funds for Red Nose Day to support people facing poverty across the UK and around the world.
6. We continue to empower the UK’s creative industries
Amazon invests in the UK's creative sector with over 2,000 people working across our film and TV, music and audio, books and publishing, fashion, and gaming businesses, and a further 16,000 jobs supported.
Since 2022, we have invested more than £14 million, supporting more than 2,500 freelancers through programmes like Prime Video Pathway, designed to open up opportunities in the UK’s TV and film industry and to support the development of talent already in the industry.
Last year, Amazon launched the Regional Creatives Fund, providing grants to 40 charities across every nation and region of the UK. The fund supports organisations helping people from underserved communities build careers in creative industries – spanning music, gaming, film, TV, publishing, fashion, and advertising. Charities also receive pro-bono upskilling, mentoring, and placement opportunities from professionals across Amazon Music, Prime Video, and Amazon Games.
