Amazon is to open a new office in Manchester as part of plans to create more than 1,000 research and development jobs across the country.

The new site will be located in the city’s Hanover Building in the Northern Quarter, which is set to house 600 highly-skilled workers focusing on software development, machine learning and R&D.

As part of the recruitment drive, the online titan will also beef up numbers at its “development centres” in Edinburgh and Cambridge, with the cities seeing 250 and 180 jobs created respectively.

Doug Gurr, Amazon’s UK country manager, said: “With the UK taking a leading role in our global innovation, we are delighted to announce plans to create capacity for over 1,000 new highly-skilled roles across the country.

“These are Silicon Valley jobs in Britain, and further cement our long-term commitment to the UK.”

The Edinburgh expansion will see Amazon take three floors in the Waverley Gate building, where the new recruits will work on advertising technology and personalised shopping.

In Cambridge, there will be a focus on Amazon devices, such as the Echo.

Since 2010, Amazon said it has invested more than £9.3 billion in the UK to build and run its operations, and is on course to grow to 27,500 employees.