𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

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Barclays says it expects to have cut about 5,000 staff by the end of 2026 after the use of artificial intelligence (AI) made the bank more efficient.

The cuts will affect about five per cent of all its employees, which totalled around 93,000 globally at the end of 2025.

The majority of the reductions relate to operational and functional roles across the bank.

About 1,000 of the roles were cut during the first half of 2026, and the remainder are spread out over the second half of the year.

Group chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan, known within the bank as Venkat, said this was “a result of the investments which we’ve made into technology over a number of years and which we continue to make”.

This includes the adoption of AI to make some work processes more efficient, which has meant the bank can employ fewer roles such as developers.

Barclays is coming towards the end of a three-year strategy to boost performance, which has involved major cost-cutting and ramping up technology capabilities.

In the third quarter, the company made some £200 million worth of “structural cost actions”, part of about £600 million made during the year.

The bulk of the cost cutting came from the UK retail bank, but a proportion was also in its investment bank.

Barclays said it has a further roughly £300 million worth of savings planned for the final three months of the year.

The banking group reported a pre-tax profit of £2.3 billion for the three months to the end of September, which was 12 per cent higher than the same period a year ago.