Legal & General and Co-op to cut jobs as Balfour Beatty adds 2,000 roles
Legal & General expects to cut about 1,000 jobs next year and Co-op has confirmed role cuts under a £200m savings plan, while Balfour Beatty will create 2,000 UK jobs over two years.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story.
Three UK employers have announced separate changes to their workforces, with two set to reduce roles and one planning to hire.
Legal & General, the life insurance and pensions group, expects to cut around 1,000 jobs next year. Staff have been warned that cuts are coming by the middle of 2027. The company's boss gave the news this morning and said the business needed to become leaner.
The Co-op has confirmed it plans to slash roles as part of a £200 million cost-cutting scheme. It currently employs 54,000 people. It has not yet said how many jobs will go.
Balfour Beatty is moving in the opposite direction. The construction giant is creating 2,000 new jobs in the UK over the next two years. Around half of those roles are expected to come through apprenticeships, graduate programmes, internships and trainee positions.
The announcements cover different parts of the economy, from insurance and retail to construction. No further details were given on the timing of the Co-op cuts or on how the Legal & General reductions will be distributed across the company.
On screen
Stills are sampled automatically at 60-second intervals. Where shown, the still is the nearest available frame from the relevant broadcast segment and is included to show what was on screen during that part of the broadcast. A still may not correspond to the exact second of a quoted phrase.
Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, mapped by channel. Ordered by how many channels carried each claim.
| Claim | ITV |
|---|---|
| Balfour Beatty plans to add 2,000 UK jobs over the next two years. | |
| Legal & General is reported to plan roughly 1,000 job cuts next year, with staff told of reductions by mid-2027. | |
| The Co-op confirmed it will reduce roles under a £200 million cost-cutting programme. |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
ITV1's lunchtime news gave the three jobs announcements a short, straight business round-up slot within a wider bulletin. It focused on the headline numbers from Legal & General, the Co-op and Balfour Beatty, with no named interviewees, union reaction or regional detail. The item was reported alongside unrelated news, including an unexploded Second World War bomb in Cornwall.
- “Legal and General has said it expects to cut around 1,000 jobs next year.”
- “The Co-op has confirmed it plans to slash roles as part of a £200 million cost-cutting scheme.”
- “And the construction giant, Balfour Beatty, is creating 2,000 new jobs in the UK over the next two years.”
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.