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The company’s streamlining efforts continue amid revenue decline
BT has released its latest quarterly figures, revealing the extent of job cuts that have taken place over the first half of the financial year.
The figures show that the company’s headcount has been reduced by around 6% in this financial year to date, representing around 5,000 jobs, bringing the company’s total headcount to roughly 111,000.
These job cuts contributed significantly to the almost £250 million in cost savings BT has achieved in the same period.
The move is part of a long-term downsizing strategy from BT, which began in earnest in 2023 under the leadership of ex-CEO Philip Jansen. At that time, the company said it would aim to reduce costs by £3 billion by 2025, a goal that was subsequently met a year ahead of schedule.
This streamlining process has been further accelerated under new CEO Allison Kirkby, who took over the role in February 2024. Kirkby has pledged further restructuring, with BT now targeting yet another £3 billion in cost savings by 2029.
Job cuts, naturally, play a key role in this strategy. BT said in 2023 that the company is aiming to reduce its workforce by around 55,000 by the end of the decade, a move which would leave it with 75,000–90,000 staff.
Besides headcount reduction, BT’s results revealed a company still grappling with a highly competitive market. Revenues were down by 3% to £9.8 billion in H1, year-on-year, with pre-tax reduced by 11% year-on-year to £862 million. Much of this reduction, the company said, could be attributed to a fall in legacy landline services and a weaker mobile market.
The company is also under pressure in the fixed broadband sector.
Openreach, the company’s fibre network subsidiary, reported that its fibre network rollout has passed 20 million premises and remains on track to hit the company’s goal of 25 million by December 2026. However, Openreach CEO Clive Selley says the company is preparing to ‘hold fire’ on additional approvals for the additional 5 million premises needed to reach its 2030 target of 30 million until the Telecoms Access Review
The company added 1.1 million new full fibre customers in H1; however, this was not enough to offset customer losses elsewhere, with the company noting an overall decline of 242,000 broadband customers in Q2. Openreach said these losses were the result of strong competition and a weaker broadband market.
Despite this seemingly bumpy road, Kirkby maintains that the company’s wider transformation to greater growth remains on track.
“BT is delivering on its strategy in competitive markets. Since the start of the year, we’ve driven customer growth across consumer broadband, mobile and TV and we’re stabilising our UK-focused business division,” said Kirkby. “Outside the UK, we’ve completed strategic exits and we’re reshaping our international unit. BT’s transformation is delivering ahead of plan, as our UK focus and radical simplification and modernisation are helping to offset declines from our international and legacy businesses and higher labour-related costs since the start of this tax year.”
In related news in tandem with the quarterly results release, BT also announced a new deal with SpaceX’s Starlink to use the latter’s satellites to deliver connectivity across the UK’s hard-to-reach areas. Commercial launch is expected in the latter half of 2026.
Virgin Media O2 announced a similar arrangement with Starlink last week.
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