Facebook unveiled its first major engineering centre outside of the US at a media event hosted in London this morning where where the chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne, MP, was also in attendance.

The new engineering centre, located in London’s Covent Garden, where the team will be headed by led by Facebook engineer Philip Su whose “landing team” helped develop the social network’s Facebook App Centre, Timeline, Ticker and photo products.

Facebook has already recruited locally with the initial UK developer intake now undergoing a six-week orientation phase at the social network’s US headquarters before starting in the London office later this month.

Engineers will work on a range of projects, including Facebook platform and mobile products, and a release published by Facebook claimed it intends to bolster its UK headcount further-still.

Osborne was also quoted as saying that the opening of such offices would be key to the UK’s economic turnaround in the release. “No British government has worked harder to place technology and innovation at the heart of its policy agenda and this announcement today is a reflection of that,” he said.

Facebook VP of engineering Mike Schroepfer, who was also in attendance at this morning’s event, was quoted as saying: “The London engineering team will play a crucial role in development of future products and core technology for Facebook.”