Virgin Media O2 confirms thousands of UK job cuts in £800m cost-cutting drive

Virgin Media O2 has confirmed plans to slash thousands of jobs in the UK under a push to cut its cost base by around £800m, as it grapples with firmer competition and paradoxical regulation in the fibre market. The telecoms giant said around £300m of the total savings would come from cutting its 16,000-strong workforce in the UK, with aims to reduce its staff costs by around 30 per cent by 2029. The company has not disclosed how many jobs in total will be lost. The cuts form part of a wider cost-saving drive as Virgin Media O2 seeks to simplify its management structure and reduce spending on contractors and suppliers. Erhan Gurses, telecoms analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, estimated that the redundancies could generate around £200m in annual gross personnel savings by 2028, with further reductions in contractor spending potentially increasing that figure. However, he warned that the savings would do little to resolve the company’s balance-sheet pressures, with net le