Emirates Group, comprising Emirates airline and dnata, plans to hire over 11,000 new staff in the coming year across its business.

The recruitment drive is in line with the organisation’s projected growth across six continents.

As part of this drive, Emirates is looking to attract 450 pilots globally to help sustain the growth of the airline as well as ongoing fleet expansion. 

To support this in the UK, there will be pilot recruitment roadshows at London Heathrow on March 8th and at London Gatwick on March 9th 2015.

Overall, the recruitment drive will increase the group’s overall staff size by six per cent by March 2016.

Approximately half of the new recruits will comprise Dubai-based cabin crew for Emirates airline.

As the airline gears up to receive over 20 new aircraft this year, it is also actively recruiting talent in areas such as flight operations, engineering, airport services and corporate functions.

dnata, which provides aviation and travel services in 90 cities across 38 countries, is also seeking talent for its growing business, particularly airport operations, Engineering and commercial business development.

The UK has been an integral market for Emirates throughout its 30 years of operations, with 3,499 British staff already employed as pilots, cabin crew, engineers and support staff.

There are 1,811 Dubai-based cabin crew from the UK and Emirates also employs over 687 people across its five major UK gateways – Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Newcastle, London Heathrow and Gatwick.

There are also 350 multilingual customer service agents based at the Emirates customer contact centre in Manchester.

Laurie Berryman, vice president United Kingdom at Emirates, commented: “The UK has always been an important region for Emirates, not only in terms of our operations here, but as a source for talented employees.

“We’re looking for skilled workers who are ready to broaden their horizons and work for a global organisation offering huge opportunities.

“Dubai offers something truly special for expats, from a booming social and sports scene to world quality schools. Emirates also offers staff unrivalled benefits, including a tax-free salary, fully-furnished shared accommodation and health benefits.

“We’re confident that with such a strong offering, we’ll see a good response from candidates this year.”

In 2014, Emirates received nearly 483,944 online applications for over 2,000 jobs, from over 227 countries.

It also receives an average of 1,500 career-related enquiries each month on its social media channels.

In the UK alone, Emirates received 147,667 online applications for jobs last year.