A reduction of 7,731 roles since late March has brought the company's core workforce down to 90,000, excluding overseas staff being transferred into a partnership with Verizon. The restructuring contributed to a 12% rise in half-year pre-tax profit to £1.1 billion, prompting shares to surge as much as 6%. Under Kirkby's leadership, the business has raised its 2030 savings goal to £3.7 billion, aided partly by plans to eliminate 10,000 roles via artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, Openreach continues to see record demand, with full-fibre connections reaching 24.1 million homes against a 25 million year-end target.
Key points
Total headcount is scheduled to drop to between 75,000 and 80,000 by 2030 to meet an elev…: Total headcount is scheduled to drop to between 75,000 and 80,000 by 2030 to meet an elevated £3.7 billion cost-saving target.
Artificial intelligence deployment across internal operations is expected to eventually r…: Artificial intelligence deployment across internal operations is expected to eventually replace approximately 10,000 BT roles.
A proposed £400 million takeover of TalkTalk faces regulatory review after drawing compet…: A proposed £400 million takeover of TalkTalk faces regulatory review after drawing competitive criticism from rival Virgin Media O2.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
BT has cut almost 8,000 jobs from its workforce since the end of March, as it pushes ahead with sweeping cost cuts across the business.
The telecoms group said its workforce had fallen by 7,731 to 90,000, excluding staff in its international business, which is being spun out in a joint venture with the US telecoms company Verizon. It had a workforce, including contractors, of about 130,000 people two years ago.
Most of the cuts have been at BT’s Openreach division, as the buildout of its fibre network slows, as well as through a drive to slash billions in costs by 2030.
The huge cuts helped bolster BT’s pre-tax profit in the year by 12% to £1.1bn in the six months to the end of September.
BT shares, which are listed in London, shot up by as much as 6% in early trading on Thursday, touching a five-year high and ranking it among the best performers across the FTSE 100.
Allison Kirkby, who had been a BT board member and became chief executive in February 2024, has overseen a multibillion-pound…
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