Barclays, one of Britain’s biggest banks, says it will cut about 5,000 jobs this year, roughly 5% of its staff, and it is pointing to artificial intelligence as part of the reason. The plan came with the bank’s third-quarter results on 22 October. Banking Dive reports that about 1,000 of those jobs already went in the first half of the year, so around 4,000 more are due to go by December.
Who is affected
About 60% of the cuts will fall on what the bank calls “support functions”. These are the behind-the-scenes teams that keep a bank running, rather than the people serving customers or making trades. Notably, Barclays included software developers in that group.
In its results presentation, the bank described the changes as “organisational simplification and technology change efficiency driven by AI”, Euronews reported. In plain terms: fewer layers of management, plus AI tools that let smaller teams do the same work. Developers are on the list because AI coding assistants can now write and check a lot of routine code.
Not all about AI
Barclays is careful not to pin everything on AI. Chief financial officer Anna Cross told analysts the cuts relate both to simplifying the organisation and to AI-driven changes. Chief executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan said the bank wants to “employ AI at scale”, but added: “AI is the icing on the cake, not the cake.”
The cuts also come at the end of a three-year cost-cutting drive. Banking Dive says the bank has spent £307 million on restructuring in the first nine months of 2026 and expects to spend about £300 million more by the end of December. That brings the total to more than £600 million, roughly double what it first estimated.
A profitable bank, still cutting
This is not a struggling business. Quarterly profit rose about 12% from a year earlier, helped by a 47% jump in stock-trading income, according to Banking Dive. Barclays also announced a £500 million share buyback, Euronews said. Even so, its shares slipped, as some analysts felt the results missed expectations.
Barclays is not alone. Banking Dive notes that HSBC was reported in March to be considering up to 20,000 job cuts, mostly in middle- and back-office roles, and Standard Chartered said in May it would remove more than 7,800 corporate-function jobs by 2030.
One analyst, Will Howlett of Quilter Cheviot, told Euronews the move shows “just how significantly AI and automation could reshape the banking industry over the next few years.”
What Barclays says it will do for staff
- Advertised job openings will be offered to existing employees first.
- Some support staff will be moved into other roles through redeployment projects.
- Senior leaders plan to put about £150 million into staff skills by 2030.
What it means for you
If you work in an office job at a large company, especially in support, operations or routine software work, this is a clear signal of where employers see savings from AI. The roles most at risk are ones made of repeatable tasks done on a computer. It is worth learning the AI tools your employer is bringing in, and paying attention to internal job postings and training schemes, since companies like Barclays are steering existing staff toward those first. For bank customers, nothing changes directly, but expect more automated service over time.
Sources
- Barclays to cut 5,000 employees this year — Banking Dive
- Barclays to cut 5,000 jobs as it turns to AI to improve efficiency — Euronews (via Yahoo Finance UK)