Lloyds Banking Group is planning to hire hundreds of engineers in India as the company plans to shift its employment opportunities from the UK. The British bank aims to have 4,000 permanent employees working in technology and data in India by the end of the year, reported The Financial Express.

Citing a source familiar with the issue, the report said that the layoffs planned in UK will account for almost half of the company’s global tech workforce. The employees in India will be based out of a tech hub in Hyderabad, which the bank opened in 2023.

Currently, the lender is on the lookout for roles in Hyderabad, including cloud, quality, and full-stack engineers, all positions that require a highly specialised skillset.

Llyods’ Overhaul In IT Operations In UK

Notably, the expansion in India coincides with a major overhaul of the IT operations in the company. Recently, the bank warned that 6,000 IT employees in the UK were at risk as the lender reassessed the skills ‘required for each critical role in our engineering job families’.

As part of the restructuring, Lloyds intends to create 1,200 new high-skilled tech jobs, however, the staff will have to apply for these roles through a competitive selection process that will finish up later this month.

Issuing a letter to employees last month, Ron van Kemenade, COO, Lloyds, said, “While many colleagues will transition into these new roles, we do expect some will not secure a role through this change, considering skills, location and reduced demand for certain roles.”

However, Mark Brown, General Secretary, BTU (an independent union at Llyods), accused the bank of ‘hypocrisy’, stating that it was not helping the country prosper at all. 

Notably, other financial institutions from the UK have also shifted their jobs to India. NatWest operates a workforce of more than 17,000 employees in Bengaluru and Gurugram, while Nationwide has some IT jobs in the country as well.

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