Barclays sheds 400 IT jobs

Axe falls on technology workers whose roles are "unclear"

More Barclays IT workers will be shown the door as current setup "impedes performance"

Barclays is to cut over 400 IT staff whose "responsibilities are unclear", the banking giant announced today.

The cull will take place mainly in London and Cheshire, and will involve the elimination of 150 permanent jobs and 250 freelancers from the Global Infrastructure and Service Delivery areas of the business. The bank said that none of the roles are being offshored.

"Barclays continually reviews its operations and resources so that it functions as efficiently as possible as business needs and customer requirements evolve," the group said in a statement.

"As part of this process, we have identified some aspects of our technology operations where the organisational structure impedes performance, and roles and responsibilities for colleagues are unclear. In some cases, roles are obsolete or being duplicated elsewhere within the bank."

Jobs will also be shed in Northampton and Poole. Barclays announced last summer that it had changed its plans to close its current facility in Poole to go to a new site to increase efficiency.

It was understood at the time that the move would cause the loss of around 1,100 jobs and that 800 to 900 staff would stay, but the bank has rejected calls from workers union Unite for written guarantees that jobs will be kept.

Barclays cut more than 1,800 roles in July as it offshored parts of its technology setup. At around the same time, it reduced IT contractor rates by around 10 per cent to "bring them in line with market rates".