Barclays to cut 5,000 jobs this year

Barclays is cutting around 5,000 jobs this year, about 5% of its global workforce. It said 1,000 posts have already closed and a further 4,000 are due by year end. Cuts centre on the UK retail bank, with a significant proportion expected in India, where some UK back-office work is done. Investment banking is also affected. Around 60% of the cuts fall in support functions, including developers. The bank is ending a three-year cost-cutting programme and expects a further £1.1bn of savings in 2027. CS Venkatakrishnan said the cuts follow significant technology investment to simplify and improve the business. He said AI has an important role to play and may have a more important role in the future, that the bank will employ AI at scale, but that AI is the icing on the cake not the cake because the infrastructure build is needed first. Barclays reported £2.3bn profit for the three months to September, higher than a year earlier but slightly less than forecast. Russ Mould said Barclays was reaching for the AI lever, expecting to cut a decent chunk of its workforce as it expands artificial intelligence, but had failed to match expectations with its results. Will Howlett said the cuts showed how significantly AI and automation could reshape banking over the next few years, and that technology investment is increasingly translating into fewer people required to run the business.