Facebook to open new London office

Facebook is opening a new London office that will allow creation of 800 new UK jobs in 2018. About 2,300 people will be working for the social network in the UK by the end of next year.

The office will be the biggest engineering hub of the social media company and will open during its tenth year in the UK.

According to Nicola Mendelsohn, the company's Europe, Middle East and Asia vice-president, the company is "more committed than ever to the UK".

The UK's "entrepreneurial ecosystem and engineering excellence" had made it the ideal location for technology firms, she added.

The seven-floor building, Rathbone Place, near Oxford Circus in central London, which will accommodate engineers and developers as also marketing and sales teams, was designed by Frank Gehry, the architect best known for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

A dedicated incubator space for start-ups, called LDN-LAB will also be housed in the building.

Facebook has pledged to hire 800 new staff in the UK over the next year.

According to the social media giant, the seven-storey building in central London, one of a number of offices it has opened in recent years, would make the capital its largest computer engineering base outside of the US.

Facebook, which has drawn much criticism over its UK tax arrangements, has often highlighted its investment in staff.

With the ''LDN LAB'', Facebook will, for the first time, house start-ups in its offices. Though it will not take equity in the companies, according to a spokesman it would share ''expertise and mentorship'' and it would also be looking for companies dedicated to Facebook's mission of ''building communities'', suggesting the lab could be a pre-cursor to acquisitions.

''Today's announcements show that Facebook is more committed than ever to the UK and in supporting the growth of the country's innovative start-ups,'' said Mendelsohn, The Telegraph reported. ''This country has been a huge part of Facebook's story over the past decade.''