An Indian company says it is to hire 1,000 new staff in the UK to help it meet a surge in demand for digital services.

Infosys, the listed software exporter, said it would ramp up its UK presence over the next three years in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

It explained that the pandemic had “exacerbated” the need for digital skills and infrastructure, such as cloud technology, as businesses continue to adapt to new ways of working following over a year of disruption.

Infosys said that the majority of the new workforce would come from recently graduated students from either colleges or university.

The company promised to mentor them in areas including cloud computing, data and analytics, artificial intelligence, open-source technologies and enterprise services segments.

The announcement, welcomed by PM Boris Johnson, builds on the government’s ambition to bolster digital infrastructure and was announced shortly after the UK signed a new post-Brexit trade deal with India.

Salil Parekh, the Infosys chief executive, said: “Bridging the digital divide and making quality digital education accessible to every citizen are vital to the establishment of a robust future workforce, and the UK’s economic recovery.

“Our commitment to the UK is to support both recovery and growth through digital acceleration, hiring new talent, and supporting the development and reskilling of existing talent to meet evolving economic demands.”

Mr Johnson responded: “This investment from Infosys is a vote of confidence in the UK and its technology sector and will help that sector scale new heights – creating the jobs of the future.

“We need more firms like Infosys with a commitment to investing in people to help the UK build back better.”

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