10 reasons Amazon was a great place to work in 2019

Building on our existing diversity initiatives, we launched Amazon Amplify to further increase the number of women in tech and innovation roles – both across our UK business and the industry as a whole.

The programme was supported by new research developed in partnership with WISE (the campaign for gender balance in STEM), which found that a 10 per cent increase of women working in STEM careers would lead to a huge £3bn boost for UK businesses.

Amazon’s UK Country Manager Doug Gurr also wrote about why our diverse economy needs innovative women.

Clicks and Mortar is an exciting pilot launched in partnership with Enterprise Nation which saw concept stores open in towns around the country, including Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Sheffield.

Each Clicks and Mortar concept store provides customers with the opportunity to discover and buy a unique range of products from hundreds of small businesses.

These up-and-coming UK brands have all built successful online businesses with the support of Amazon, and now have an opportunity to test physical retail for the first time.

In partnership with LGBT+ education charity Just Like Us and media outlet PinkNews, we were proud to hit the road this year with the LGBT+ Reading Roadshow.

By bringing inspirational role models from glamazon, our LGBT+ affinity network, together with staff and students at secondary schools around the country, we wanted to celebrate the importance of diversity and inclusion.

All participating schools also received a box brimming with age-appropriate books from LGBT+ authors or about LGBT+ themes and relationships. To find out more, check out our specially curated LGBT+ books list.

We were joined by musician and campaigner Will Young to launch the Reading Roadshow, who said: “Even today, young people still suffer from LGBT+ bullying and barriers to being their authentic selves. That’s why it’s great that Amazon is visiting schools across the country to show young people that being true to themselves is an enabler not a barrier to their future.”

Pride Month in June is always an exciting time at Amazon – both for our LGBT+ employees and the many others who are proud to count themselves as allies. It’s a brilliant opportunity to shine a spotlight on LGBT+ diversity at Amazon and beyond.

This year, Amazon Music was delighted to continue its role as Official Music Sponsor for Pride in London. More than 170 people from all areas of our business marched with the Amazon Music float through the city, including our friends at Twitch who live streamed the entire parade from the float.

If you want to know more about why we celebrate Pride Month, glamazon are here to help.

We were delighted to be ranked first in the LinkedIn Top Companies in the UK list, which drew on billions of actions taken by LinkedIn members to identify the top companies “where UK professionals want to work now.”

Glassdoor, one of the world’s largest job and recruiting sites, also published its annual report on the UK’s most in-demand employers and Amazon topping the ranking. The report was compiled using a sample of UK-based job seekers searching for jobs over the and identifies which employers received the most clicks on Glassdoor’s open job postings.

Want to find out more? Come build the future with us.

Amazon Future Engineer launched in the UK with the goal of helping children and young adults from low-income backgrounds build careers in computer science.

The childhood-to-career programme aims to inspire, educate and enable children and young adults to try computer science where they may not have had the opportunity before.

Whether you’re interested in primary, secondary, apprenticeships or post-18 education, the Amazon Future Engineer website has plenty of ways to get involved.

This year we hosted our third annual Bring Your Parents to Work Day, with more than 250 parents attending to get a unique insight into working life for their nearest and dearest. Parents attended workshops on card making with Amazon Handmade, styling sessions with Amazon Fashion and exclusive content previews from the Prime Video team – and much more besides.

We also hosted our inaugural Bring Your Kids to Work Day, with more than 350 kids of Amazonian employees attending workshops from a host of different teams, including Amazon Devices, Amazon Fashion, Alexa Skills, Sustainability, Amazon Fresh and more.

The kids had an action-packed day and enjoyed a variety of exciting activities like cupcake making, coding, robotics workshops and t-shirt decorating.

During Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September, Amazon launched its global Goes Gold programme to help raise awareness and funds for paediatric cancer.

Partnering with the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG) in the UK, Amazon employees donned their pyjamas at work to show support for children who often spend years living in their pyjamas during treatment and recovery.

A golden Amazon can also delivered gifts, STEM equipment and donations to local hospitals and charities, while Amazon sites hosted tours, glitter stations and surprise gifts for visiting children.

With more than £50,000 raised for CCLG, we want to thank everybody who got involved!

Announcing The Climate Pledge signalled our commitment to meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early. The Climate Pledge calls on signatories to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across their business by 2040 – a decade ahead of the Paris Accord’s goal of 2050.

By joining The Climate Pledge and agreeing to decarbonise on a faster time horizon, signatories will play a critical role in stimulating investment in the development of low carbon products and services that will be required to help companies meet the pledge.

Read more about our commitment to a sustainable future.

As part of our celebrations for Black History Month, we partnered with artist, illustrator and teacher Onyinye Iwu to commission a series of illustrations of historical African figures.

These historical figures ranged from warrior queens, abolitionists, early practitioners of medicine and music composers. Schools around the country also received free posters of Onyinye’s illustrations to help change the conversation around black identity and achievement in the UK.

Amazon celebrates Black History Month every October, with activities led by our Black Employee Network (BEN).