Barclays Is Cutting 5,000 Jobs, Including Developers, in AI Push
Barclays is cutting about 5,000 jobs as the British banking giant leans more heavily on artificial intelligence, and software developers are among the workers being let go.
The bank announced the cuts Thursday alongside its third-quarter earnings. The reductions make up roughly 5% of Barclays' global workforce and are expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
Who Is Losing Their Jobs
About 60% of the cuts are coming from support functions. In its earnings presentation, Barclays said that includes "fewer developers as AI makes our people more productive," according to AFP.
The bank described the cuts as part of "organisational simplification and technology change efficiency driven by AI." In its earnings statement, Barclays said it is "structurally reducing" costs through "technology-enabled" reductions in staff, Business Insider reported.
Not all of the cuts are new. About 1,000 roles were already eliminated in the first half of the year, with the rest set to go by the end of 2026, Silicon Republic reported. Barclays has not said exactly where the remaining cuts will fall.
What Barclays Is Saying
Anna Cross, Barclays' group finance director, told Bloomberg that "the changes that we're making in the third and fourth quarters of this year are sizable."
She said the changes "relate both to the simplification of the organisation and to some of the impacts that we're starting to see from AI."
The cuts are part of a larger, three-year plan to boost performance, invest in technology and slash costs. Barclays expects to spend about £600 million, or roughly $800 million, on that effort by the end of 2026, and is planning about £300 million in additional savings in the final three months of the year.
Profits Are Still Up
The layoffs come even as the bank is making more money. Barclays reported a 13% rise in third-quarter profit after tax, to £1.65 billion, or about $2.2 billion. Total income rose 3% to £7.37 billion.
Chief Executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan pointed to the bank's "ongoing momentum" and said its investment bank "delivered strong equities performance." Equities revenue jumped 47% from a year earlier, while bond and currency trading fell nearly 20%.
Not everyone was impressed. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said the bank "failed to match expectations" in the third quarter and that a new share buyback did not fully ease investors' disappointment.
Mould also pointed to two "major clouds" hanging over the bank: a widely expected tax increase on the banking sector in the U.K. budget due next week, and a reported investigation into whether Barclays misrepresented risks in its private credit portfolio.
A Growing Trend
Barclays is far from the only company pointing to AI as it trims its workforce. Writing computer code is one of the most common ways businesses use AI, which has led several companies to cut developer jobs. When Business Insider analyzed 15 recent layoff memos, it found that "AI" was the most frequently used term.
Other major banks are rethinking hiring, too. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has said the bank will likely hire fewer bankers and more "AI people," while Goldman Sachs said last year it planned to "restrain head count growth." Some Wall Street executives say they now want junior hires with strong judgment and communication skills, since AI can handle much of the repetitive number crunching.
Earlier this month, Netflix announced plans to cut about 1,000 jobs, while eBay and video game maker EA also announced layoffs. In September, Volkswagen approved 50,000 more job cuts, bringing its total to 100,000.
For workers, the message from companies like Barclays is becoming clearer: As AI takes on more routine tasks, many employers expect to get the same work done with fewer people.
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