Virgin Media O2 is preparing to cut thousands of jobs in a sweeping shake-up of the British telecoms group, according to reports on Saturday, in what would be one of the largest rounds of redundancies in the UK telecoms sector in recent years.
As many as 4,000 of the company’s roughly 16,000 employees could be affected, Sky News reported, citing people close to the company. The precise number has yet to be finalised, and the company is expected to confirm a cost-reduction target in financial rather than headcount terms when it reports third-quarter results on Tuesday.
Most of the losses are expected to fall on non-customer-facing roles, while a number of senior leadership changes are already under way at the company, which is led by chief executive Lutz Schüler. Virgin Media O2 is also expected to review its use of contractors and suppliers as part of the effort to bring costs down.
The reported cuts come against a backdrop of mounting financial pressure. Virgin Media O2, a 50-50 joint venture between Liberty Global and Spain’s Telefónica, carries about £22 billion of debt, and its bond prices fell sharply over the summer. The Financial Times reported in July that the owners were weighing options to reduce that debt pile, including cutting the dividend and capital spending, and in September that shareholders were seeking cost reductions of about £600 million.
The job losses would add to significant layoffs elsewhere in the sector, including at BT Group and Vodafone Three, as operators try to become more efficient in the face of rising costs and tougher competition. Trade union officials at the CWU and Prospect are understood to have been briefed on some of the impending changes.
The figures remain unconfirmed: they rest on unnamed sources cited by Sky News, and Virgin Media O2 declined to comment on the report. No final headcount figure has been announced, and the scale of the cuts could still change before Tuesday’s results.
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/ ; Sky News, “Virgin Media O2 to axe thousands of jobs in sweeping shake-up”, via https://greatdriffieldradio.co.uk/uk/virgin-media-o2-to-axe-thousands-of-jobs-in-sweeping-shake-up/
