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Luke Mills of industry promotional agency Calling the Cape, which facilitated the deal said “It’s a fantastic vote of confidence from the UK market.”

Mills told Moneyweb since the start of 2004, Calling the Cape has facilitated deals worth R900m in foreign investment in the call centre industry. British companies were responsible for 80% of this business. He added that strong future investments were in the pipeline.

A recent survey in the UK puts South Africa as the most favoured offshore contact centre location in the world for UK companies, former leader India taking second place.

UK businesses including Barclays, JP Morgan and Lufthansa have call centres in Cape Town. Lufthansa offers a "follow-the-sun" strategy where calls are taken 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Not able to hire and house several hundred UK staff in the time frame given, TalkTalk needed to look elsewhere. After spending time in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa received the thumbs up.

Neutral English accents, a similar cultural outlook and time zone also contributed to the decision.

Steve Rescorla, customer service director for Carphone Warehouse said, “We’re confident they’ll rise to the challenge to fulfil our promise of great customer service.”

Rescorla said the call centres would operate from 8am-10pm UK time and would initially provide 500 jobs.

At the moment, South Africa has 535 call centres, employing an estimated 65,000 people. Employment is expected to grow by 25% within the next year, according to a study done by Deloitte and Calling the Cape.

Due to the expected increase in the broadband base, Rescorla said most of the calls would be helping new broadband customers go live.

TalkTalk offers landline, broadband and mobile services to 2.5 m customers, representing 10% of the UK market.