Vodafone cuts 11,000 jobs as new boss says group ‘must change’

Margherita Della Valle, recently appointed Vodafone’s group chief executive, said the cull comes as part of a plan to simplify the business.

It will impact the group’s UK headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire, as well as markets worldwide.

Della Valle said: “Our performance has not been good enough. To consistently deliver, Vodafone must change.”

“We will simplify our organisation, cutting out complexity to regain our competitiveness”.

The announcement comes as Vodafone reported a 1.3 per cent drop in full-year earnings to a lower-than-expected €14.7bn (£12.8bn) and forecast little or no growth in earnings over the current financial year.

Vodafone's former boss Nick Read, who was ousted abruptly in December 2022 due to concerns over the group’s performance, had unveiled his own plans shortly before his removal to drive around €1bn (£883m) of cost savings.

At the time, the firm said the plans could lead to job losses but no figure was put on the number of roles being cut.

Vodafone has around 12,000 staff across the UK based in seven offices, including its headquarters in Newbury and hubs in London, Manchester and Glasgow. Its global headquarters is based in Paddington, London.

The group, which had around 100,000 employees worldwide at the end of 2022, has been selling off chunks of its business amid an ongoing overhaul.

In January this year, it finalised a deal to sell its Hungarian arm for £1.5bn to local technology company 4iG.

Earlier this year, the company also announced that it would cut 1,000 jobs in Italy, which was followed by reports that full-time roles would be axed in Germany – its biggest market – where it described its operations as being “under pressure”.

The telecoms giant said today that the 11,000 job cuts – a little over 10 per cent of its total global workforce – would take place over three years, affecting both its headquarters and local markets in other territories.