Barclays to Cut 5,000 Jobs by End of 2026 in £600M AI-Backed Overhaul

Barclays Plc is cutting 5,000 jobs, or about 5% of its total headcount of roughly 93,000 employees at the end of 2025, as part of a technology-enabled effort to reduce costs while adopting artificial intelligence across the bank. About 60% of the reductions are concentrated in support functions, including developer roles. The London-based lender already eliminated about 1,000 positions during the first six months of this year, with the remaining cuts scheduled before the end of 2026. The restructuring will cost Barclays about £600M this year — roughly double its earlier estimate — to bring down future expenses following higher-than-expected costs in its half-year report. Alongside the overhaul, the bank maintained its multi-year targets and announced a £500M share buyback. Barclays reported third-quarter investment bank total income of £3.13B, slightly missing expectations as fixed income and currency trading revenue fell 19% year-over-year to £1.01B ($1.4B), offsetting a 47% revenue jump on the equities desk. The cuts follow broader automation-linked workforce reductions across UK banking, with HSBC weighing eliminating as many as 20,000 roles over the coming years and Standard Chartered planning to cut corporate function roles by more than 15% by 2030. "We will employ AI at scale. But AI is the icing on the cake, not the cake." — CS Venkatakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer of Barclays