Barclays has revealed it expects to have cut around 5,000 staff by the end of 2026 after turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to make the bank more efficient.
The UK banking group said this is the equivalent of about 5% of all its employees, which totalled around 93,000 globally at the end of 2025.
Some 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.
The majority of the reductions relate to operational and functional roles across the bank.
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 has seen 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 £200m worth of “structural cost actions”, part of about £600m 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 £300m worth of savings planned for the final three months of the year.
Barclays third quarter pre-tax profits rise by 12%
It comes as the banking group reported a pre-tax profit of £2.3 billion for the three months to the end of September, which was 12% higher than the same period a year ago.
The third-quarter profit rise, in line with expectations, came on the back of steady investment banking income and stable costs that allowed it to launch a new share buyback worth £500m.
Barclays is the first major European lender to report its quarterly earnings, with British banks’ results likely to be overshadowed by finance minister John Healey’s first budget on October 28, where further taxes on banks may be levied.
Healey has refused to rule out hiking taxes on banks’ bumper profits despite intensive public and private lobbying by the industry in recent months, as the finance minister mulls higher taxes to help fund the Labour government’s policy agenda and as higher borrowing costs eat into the public purse.
Banks have argued they are already highly taxed compared with other jurisdictions and that any such levy would curb lending.
Barclays’ investment bank reported total income in the third quarter of £3.1 billion, lower than forecasts for £3.3 billion.
Third quarter earnings from Barclays’ Wall Street rivals earlier this month showed the cyclical nature of investment bank revenues, as dealmaking slowed and fixed income desks underperformed, with only equities trading sustaining the strong momentum seen in the first half of the year.
Barclays’ equities revenues rose 47%, outperforming the average 37% gain across the top five US players according to a Reuters calculation from company statements.
The British lender, however, saw income from fixed income trading slide 19%, worse than a 5% drop among its US peers.
Additional reporting from Reuters