AROUND 500 jobs at the Adastral Park research and development site near Ipswich are to be transferred to India.The software development posts are held by workers recruited from India to work at the Martlesham Heath facility for three offshore suppliers of BT Exact, the BT group's research, technology and IT operations business.

AROUND 500 jobs at the Adastral Park research and development site near Ipswich are to be transferred to India.

The software development posts are held by workers recruited from India to work at the Martlesham Heath facility for three offshore suppliers of BT Exact, the BT group's research, technology and IT operations business.

It is understood that the workers are to be relocated to India to undertake similar work, but at local rates of pay.

The move is said by a source within Adastral Park to be saving the suppliers up to £100 per day per employee – equivalent to a total of around £250,000 a week or £13million in a full year.

A BT group spokesman said: "Three of our offshore suppliers engaged in software development have had staff based temporarily at Adastral Park in the UK.

"BT has agreed with a plan proposed by those suppliers that approximately 500 staff can return to India."

BT Exact specialises in telecommunications engineering, network design, IT system and application development.

It was formed in April last year through the merger of BTexact Technologies, the research and development business of BT based at Adastral Park, and BT Computer Partners, the group's IT arm.

BT Exact's work involves a team of more than 6,000 technologists, more than half of them located at Martlesham where the group now works in conjunction with a wide range of international partners.

Although the jobs being transferred to India were only temporary, the move forms part of a broader trend for work to be relocated from the UK to parts of the world where labour is cheaper.

Software development is a fast-growing sector in India but the "offshoring" of jobs from the UK has been most pronounced in the insurance industry.

Last month, Norwich Union announced plans to create 950 jobs in India and Sri Lanka, at a cost of 150 compulsory redundancies in the UK including 70 in Norwich.

And earlier this week, Royal & SunAlliance said it would be creating 1,100 jobs in India over the next two years, with the possibility of compulsory redundancies in the UK not being ruled out.