Image via The PIE News
Last updated
British Council: Layoffs
British Council plans to cut approximately 25% of workforce (alongside closure of 11 country offices) to manage £197m pandemic-related debt. Already reduced headcount by 2,110 FTE since April 2021; further redundancies signalled as part of turnaround plan. Organisation not expected to return to profitability until 2029/30.
Source: The PIE News
The leadership read
Workforce moves like this mark the contracting side of consulting hiring conditions.
Market context: MitchelLake's Talent Market Index sits at 107.9 (Hot), up 2.4 on the prior month; EMEA hiring signal is running easing (-8.7pts).
British Council: 1 signal in the last 90 days — in line with the Consulting median of 1 across 46 tracked companies; 0.1% of MitchelLake's EMEA signal flow; 2 tracked across 64 days.
MitchelLake in this thematic
Also at British Council →
More signals across Consulting
Layoffs · EMEA
Kyndryl →Kyndryl is conducting multi-country workforce rebalancing with a $200 million severance charge. In the UK alone, at least 100 employees expected to leave through voluntary redundancy with 4-month pay packages, with compulsory redundancies to follow if targets not met. Affects small percentage of 73,000-person workforce.
Partnership · EMEA
Arcadis →Arcadis appointed to Transport for London's Professional Services Framework 3, expanding its public sector infrastructure advisory footprint in the UK.
Ma Activity · EMEA
Ripple →Ripple acquired Hidden Road, a global prime broker, for $1.25 billion in April 2025, expanding into institutional prime brokerage, clearing, and financing services
Leadership Change · EMEA
Sopra Steria →Laura Chaubard appointed to lead Defense, Security & Space vertical at Sopra Steria. Chaubard is a Polytechnic graduate, general armaments engineer, and former director-general of École Polytechnique.
Partnership · EMEA
Genpact →Genpact announced a partnership with Nestlé Business Solutions to establish a new Global Capability Center combining Genpact's process intelligence, domain expertise, and advanced technology solutions to accelerate Nestlé's process transformation.
Restructuring · EMEA
Savannah Group →Savannah Group, a UK-based executive recruitment firm, has entered insolvency and been listed for sale after a failed pivot to AI-driven talent acquisition. Revenue fell 20% YoY (£15.6m to £12.4m), debt costs spiked 5.5x, and net profit halved. The company invested heavily in MapX, an AI recruitment platform launched publicly in February 2023 after internal development since 2019.
Intelligence powered by Autonodal ↗
Nearby in the record