In addition, Openreach is retraining and reskilling hundreds of existing staff so that they become engineers dedicated to the provisioning of broadband services for customers across the UK.

, an ex-BT executive, telling a parliamentary committee that BT was anxious about the number of engineers it had available to it - a claim which BT denied at the time.

"I know people in BT who are concerned about the capacity problem within BT to deliver [its exchange upgrade programme]. There aren't enough people on the ground to face this problem," said Mitchell at the time.

Between March 2011 and December 2012 Openreach expects to have recruited 1,650 new engineers, including the 400 announced today.

The UK government has said that it hopes to have the best and fastest broadband network in Europe by 2015, and has committed a minimum of £730 million up until 2015 to support the rollout. The money is being distributed to local authorities that bid for funding via a framework created by governing body Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK).