British telecoms operator Virgin Media O2 is set to cut thousands of jobs in a sweeping shake-up of the business, Sky News reported on Saturday.
Up to 4,000 of the company’s 16,000 employees could be affected, according to people close to the company cited by Sky News. The precise number has yet to be finalised, the report said, so the final total may differ from the figure reported.
Most of the cuts are expected to fall on non-customer-facing roles, while a number of senior leadership changes are already under way. The company is also expected to review its use of contractors and suppliers as part of the effort to reduce costs.
Virgin Media O2 did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported, and the company has not itself confirmed the cuts. That means the report should be treated as unconfirmed until Virgin Media O2 says more — a point that matters for staff, customers and investors trying to judge how far the restructuring will go.
The reported cuts would be large by any measure. If the upper figure of 4,000 proves correct, it would amount to a quarter of the workforce, a scale of change that points to a deep restructuring rather than a routine round of efficiencies.
The move comes against a difficult financial backdrop. The Financial Times reported in July that Virgin Media O2’s owners were weighing options to reduce the company’s £22 billion debt pile. In September, the same newspaper reported that its shareholders were seeking to reduce costs by about £600 million.
Virgin Media O2 is jointly owned by Liberty Global and Spain’s Telefónica, formed from the merger of their Virgin Media and O2 UK businesses. It is one of Britain’s largest telecoms groups, selling mobile, broadband and television services to millions of households.
Cost pressure is a familiar story across the telecoms industry, where operators face heavy network investment alongside intense competition on price. A shake-up of this size, if confirmed, would signal that Virgin Media O2’s owners believe a much leaner cost base is now unavoidable.
For now, however, employees are left waiting for detail: which roles will go, over what timescale, and whether customer-facing teams will be shielded as the report suggests. Until the company confirms its plans, those questions remain open.
Sources: Reuters, “Virgin Media O2 to cut thousands of jobs, Sky News reports” (31 October 2026), https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/virgin-media-o2-cut-thousands-jobs-sky-news-reports-2026-10-31/ — reporting based on Sky News, citing people close to the company; Virgin Media O2 did not immediately respond to a request for comment, so the reported job cuts are single-sourced and unconfirmed.
