FORMER soldiers in the North-East are being recruited for their discipline and motivation by a telecoms giant.

BT announced yesterday that "many" of 31 engineers it is taking on in County Durham and the Tees Valley, as part as a national recruitment drive for 520, will be former armed forces personnel.

BT has been working with the Career Transition Partnership (CTP), a joint initiative between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Right Management.

It provides career guidance and employment support to those leaving the Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Marines.

It follows an earlier round of recruitment in May, when many of 280 new engineers taken on nationally by BT had recently left the military.

Chris Sayers, BT regional director for the North East, said: "We believe that service leavers are highly skilled, motivated and disciplined and they have backgrounds in engineering, IT and complex project management, which means we are able to train them up quickly and get them straight out where we need them.

"There are many similarities between the former and new roles which helps to make the transition straightforward.

"We feel it is vital to bring the right skill sets into our business as we continue to roll out advanced communications infrastructure and connect up households and businesses in the North East.

"We are proud that many of these new jobs will be filled by ex-armed forces personnel."

The decision by BT to look to the forces for new recruits was welcomed by James Ramsbotham, chief executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce (NECC).

Mr Ramsbotham, who is honorary colonel for The Rifles in County Durham and served in the army for twelve years, said: "Employing ex-service personnel demonstrates BT's recognition of the wealth of talent and strong work ethic amongst our military as well as their determination to play a leading role in the wider community. BT is a role model for others."

The first of the new recruits will join BT later this month, with all the new engineers due to be in place by the end of January.

They will spend their first few weeks completing training and job shadowing and will then 'buddy up' with experienced colleagues.

BT's recruitment drive comes as the firm continues a £2.5bn programme of super-fast broadband installation across the country.