Barclays makes cuts affecting more than 1,000 staff

Written by Ruby Hinchliffe
5th March 2020

Barclays plans to permanently shut its Leeds office by the end of this year which will affect 800 employees. The bank is also set to put a further 340 staff on notice for job cuts or relocation across the country, pushing the total jobs affected to 1,140.

Trade union Unite has put the Leeds office closure down to the landlord’s plans to sell the site to housing developers. The Union’s national officer Dominic Hook calls the “sheer scale” of cuts “alarming”, criticising the bank for flouting its “social responsibility”.

“In order to drive collaboration, Barclays is moving teams closer together at our UK sites,” says bank

The bank says 200 of its Leeds employees will be cut outright, and that a further 90 contractors will lose their jobs. The losses are expected to hit technology and operations teams the hardest, with a small number of customer service staff being affected too.

Another 270 staff will be moved to the bank’s Manchester and Sunderland offices – the latter office being more than 90 miles away from Leeds. Some of these employees will get financial help from the bank for their relocation, but Barclays has not specified how many.

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Another 100 staff at the Leeds will be asked to either work from home or at another Barclays location “in the area”. Roughly 140 staff have still not been accounted for by the bank.

Of the other 340 staff to be affected across the country – most being in Coventry where 157 employees are at risk – 50 will be cut outright, and the remainder will be moved to either Glasgow and Northampton.

The bank’s statement on the cuts read: “In order to drive collaboration, Barclays is moving teams closer together at our UK sites in Glasgow, Greater Manchester and Northampton; where we are investing in new campuses and office space.

“This will enable us to innovate at pace for the customers and clients we serve. We will do everything we can to support colleagues impacted by the changes announced today.”