Barclays to cut 5,000 jobs, citing AI; developers among those hit

Barclays, the British banking group, said on Thursday, October 22, 2026, that it expects to cut about 5,000 jobs this year, roughly 5% of its workforce, as it uses technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), to lower its fixed costs. The bank announced the figure with its third-quarter results. Chief financial officer Anna Cross told reporters that about 1,000 of the cuts have already been made and the remaining 4,000 will be completed by the end of the fourth quarter, and that around 60% of all the cuts fall on staff in support functions, a group that includes software developers.

Large banks are among the biggest employers of technology workers anywhere, and they are also among the first to say openly that AI is changing how many people they need. Barclays is one of the clearest cases so far: a major lender putting a number on job cuts and linking part of them, in its own results material, to efficiency from AI. That makes it a signal for anyone building a career in banking technology, operations or software, in Britain or elsewhere.

The detail that matters most for job-seekers is where the cuts land. "Support functions" in a bank are the teams that keep the business running rather than dealing with customers or markets directly: operations, back-office processing, internal technology and similar work. The bank's statement that developers are part of this group is notable. Writing and maintaining code was long treated as a safe, growing field. AI coding assistants, which suggest or write code from a plain-language request, are now common in large companies, and employers are starting to say they need fewer people for some routine development work.

The bank's chief executive, C.S. Venkatakrishnan, was careful not to put the whole decision on AI. He tied the reductions to years of spending on technology, and said the use of AI in the firm was "the icing on the cake, not the cake". In other words, the bank presents AI as speeding up a long-running push to automate and simplify, not as the single cause. Barclays has run earlier cost-cutting rounds in 2023 and 2024.

Barclays has not said how the cuts are split by country, so it is not possible to say from its announcement how many roles, if any, are affected in India or any other location. Readers working at the bank, or at firms that supply it, should rely on what their employer tells them directly rather than on estimates.

Short-term: About 4,000 more employees are expected to leave Barclays before the end of December 2026, most of them in support and operations roles. The bank will carry further restructuring costs, about £300 million in the fourth quarter by its own plan.

Long-term: Other banks are likely to be asked by investors whether they can make similar savings, which could slow hiring for routine operations and development roles across the industry. At the same time, banks still need people who can build, test, check and supervise AI systems, and who understand risk and regulation, so the mix of skills employers want is shifting rather than simply shrinking.

Who is affected: Barclays staff in support functions, including developers; technology and operations workers at other large banks; students and early-career professionals choosing between banking technology roles; and the bank's shareholders, who reacted to a profit miss on the same day.

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