Telecoms giant BT is to close nine of its call centres across the south east, but the Oxford operation will be saved.

Instead, the city offices, where 112 are employed, will to be one of three in the region to be upgraded to a "next generation multi-function customer contact centre".

The Reading centre is one of those to be closed and its 36 BT staff will be asked to redeploy to Oxford.

The move is part of a major re-organisation of BT's call centre operations which will see 2,200 job losses, although BT insists all of them will be on a voluntary basis with workers given the choice of being able to switch to other areas of the company.

More than £2m is expected to be spent on the Oxford centre, part of which will be spent on upgrading the skills of the existing workforce.

BT spokesman Paul Dorrell said: "Staff in Oxford will have better promotion prospects and more training.

"The site will become a contact centre rather than a call centre with employees taking on a whole range of activities rather than just one discipline."

Across the UK, BT is closing 53 of its 102 call centres over the next two years and spending £100m on upgrading 30 more.

Patricia Vaz, BT Retail's managing director of customer service, said: "We are totally committed to managing these changes sensitively and professionally and in line with specific principles agreed with the unions."

The cuts will take the number of full-time posts in call centres to about 13,600 by the end of March 2004.

The first closures will take place in October and some centres will remain open to help staff find new work.