Ahead of key speech, UK Chancellor says 10K civil service jobs to be cut

The United Kingdon will aim to slash the number of civil servants by 10,000 as it targets a 15% reduction in the government's operating costs, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said ahead of Wednesday's key statement on the public finances.

The Labour government will stick with its plan to lift real-term spending in every year of this parliament, but prioritize where the money is allocated, with departments expected to make efficiency savings through better use of technology such as artificial intelligence, Reeves said.

"I'm confident we can reduce civil servant numbers by 10,000," she told Sky News in a Sunday interview. "During Covid there were big increases in the number of people working in the civil service; that was the right thing to do to respond to those challenges, but it's not right that we just keep those numbers there forever."


When asked for examples where technology could be used to help reduce the size of the civil service that had numbered over 540,000 last year, Reeves listed briefing roles and said the UK's tax collecting office was already using AI to reduce fraud. Speaking to the BBC, she also confirmed newspaper reports that said Labour would ask the civil service to slash their administrative budgets by 15%, which represents £2 billion ($2.6 billion) worth of cuts by 2030.

Reeves will deliver her spring statement Wednesday alongside updated forecasts for the economy produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility. The headroom that allows the chancellor to meet her own fiscal rules has been wiped out since her October 30 budget, due to weak growth and high borrowing costs. She is likely to cut plans for government spending and welfare so as to rebuild the headroom, having promised to avoid further tax rises.