Jaguar Land Rover has opened a JLR voluntary redundancy programme affecting salaried staff and managers, prompting Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds to arrange emergency talks with the company’s bosses and the Unite union early next week. The Times has reported that as many as 4,000 jobs could be lost, though JLR has not confirmed that figure.
JLR confirmed the move to the BBC, saying it had informed colleagues and trade union partners of the programme and would share further details with employees before making any wider announcement. The company said the changes would ‘simplify’ the business and ‘improve efficiency and build greater resilience’, but did not rule out compulsory redundancies further down the line.
Reynolds rules out a bailout but leaves the door open
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Reynolds said the meeting would focus on ways to ‘mitigate any job losses’. He was clear, however, that the government would not step in to bail the company out. ‘There would be no support if it’s to bail people out,’ he said, while adding that he remained open to a ‘long-term investment in the future’ of the company.
Reynolds framed the likely cuts as part of a normal business cycle for a company of JLR’s size. ‘A company the size of JLR, which is a huge British success story, at various times in its business cycle, the number of, directly, people it employs will change,’ he said. He has also spoken with West Midlands mayor Richard Parker about supporting the business and its workforce.
The cuts are believed to affect mainly white-collar workers. JLR employs about 30,000 people in its UK operations and approximately 10,000 more at plants overseas. As recently as July, the company said fewer than 300 people would leave under cost savings plans announced at that time.
The JLR voluntary redundancy programme in context
The announcement comes roughly a year after a cyber attack in September 2025 shut down all manufacturing at JLR for several weeks, with not a single vehicle produced during that period. That stoppage led to a 27% drop in overall production. The overall cost of the attack and the resulting loss of output was estimated at £1.9 billion. In June, JLR said it planned to cut about £1.7 billion in costs over the coming years to aid its recovery, targeting areas such as materials, warranty and fixed costs.
Tariffs and a drop in sales have added further pressure since. According to Reuters, JLR has 17 sites in England, underscoring the breadth of any potential impact across the country. Despite the redundancy programme, Reuters also reports that JLR plans to launch five new products over the next 12 months and intends to invest between £15 billion and £18 billion over the next five years in electrification, digital technologies, advanced manufacturing and customer experience improvements.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said her union had been warning about a ‘perfect storm’ hanging over the automotive industry for some time. ‘Death by a thousand cuts has been going on under the nose of successive governments,’ she said, adding that there had been ‘intensive’ discussions over the weekend about limiting job losses. Unite is party to those talks alongside Reynolds and JLR leadership.
Reynolds was also asked about the government’s electric vehicle sales target, which requires manufacturers to ensure a rising percentage of the cars they sell each year are zero-emission, reaching 80% by 2030. He said one of his first acts as Business Secretary was to give the industry more flexibility in working towards that goal, and that a further consultation was still open. ‘It’s not where it needs to be and that’s why we’re willing to change the regulation to work with where consumer demand is and the industry,’ he said.
The talks take place against a wider political backdrop: Chancellor John Healey is preparing to deliver a speech in the Midlands on Monday promising to boost economic growth by changing how the government values investment in infrastructure such as transport and housing. JLR is based in Coventry, in the West Midlands, making it one of the region’s biggest employers. Jaguar Land Rover said it would share further information with colleagues first, ahead of any public update on the scale of the programme.
