BT today announced plans to create up to 190 new engineering jobs in Wales as part of a major recruitment drive across the UK.

Among the areas the company is particularly keen to recruit from are Fishguard and Haverfordwest.

The latest intake of engineers will help to continue to improve customer service and bring high-speed fibre broadband to even more communities.

BT’s local network business, Openreach, has already made fibre broadband available to more than 19 million UK homes and businesses – some two thirds of the UK. Across the UK, Openreach expects to recruit 1,600 engineers.

As more and more people rely on the internet, they have rising expectations of reliability. The new engineers will help Openreach to continue to improve customer service as it strives to install new lines and fix faults more quickly.

The business expects a significant number of the engineering roles to be taken up by ex-service men and women - continuing the company’s long-standing relationship with the UK Armed Forces.

Openreach is also particularly keen to recruit more female engineers and has launched a campaign encouraging women to enter the world of engineering.

Joe Garner, chief executive of Openreach, said: “Millions of customers depend on broadband and they rely on us to keep them connected, whatever the weather. Our engineers do an incredible job. They have been rolling out fibre broadband faster than anywhere else in the world, and at the same time completing hundreds of thousands of jobs each week to keep people connected throughout the UK – an amazing achievement.

“These new recruits will be a welcome boost to that effort, joining an already world class team."

Recruitment for the new roles is already underway in parts of the country, and people interested in applying for the posts should go to www.openreach.co.uk/careers