Lloyds Bank reviews tech and engineering personnel in reorg • The Register

Lloyds Banking Group this month launched a review of the technology and engineering professionals working in the UK operation with headcount reductions inevitable and some roles being offshored to Lloyds Technology Center in India.

Staff were informed by their line managers on February 5. They subsequently had to lodge extra information including new skills or qualifications by February 12 and the outcomes will be communicated to all staff on March 18. The proposed date for serving notice is March 25 and the switch to a new structure is scheduled to begin on April 1.

All techies and engineers who joined Lloyds before November are going through this process. Insiders told The Register that the bank considers that job functions have changed following three years of a digital transformation program, and as such, they may no longer be deemed suitable for their roles.

“There will be assessment and selection for most technology roles,” a source from within the tech division said. “The more senior roles will have enhanced or wider responsibilities.”

Staff will be deemed at risk because their role is changing, they are in selection for the current job but there will be fewer of the positions, they’re not working at a hub location given for the role, the role no longer exists under the future structure and there is no alternative, or the role no longer exists in the Platform at the current location.

“This is basically UK-based tech roles – does not affect those based in Lloyds Technology Centre in (Hyderabad) India – they were all hired on the ‘new’ roles. Nor anyone hired since November last year in UK, as the new definitions would apply to them,” the source said.

Following the reorganization, Lloyds expects to create 1,200 “net” new roles across Software Engineering, Platform Engineering, Technical Platform Specialists, Technology, Architecture and Data Engineering teams. However, we’re told there is no indication of how many existing roles the bank expects to make redundant. We asked, but it didn’t provide an answer.

“Given their investment in Hyderabad, that’s where they’ll do the bulk of recruitment, though they have said there will be increased recruitment,” said a member of the tech team who asked to remain anonymous.

We’re told there are roles where the overall title and grade is the same but changes will come in the definition. In other cases, the title and definition will change.

Lloyds has reworked processes and structures since 2022 under the Platform approach. This seems to bring together tech and business teams with shared objectives and goals, accelerating the pace of commercial change in a world that is banking more and more online. It sought to shift to a standard, agile way of working.

The next stage is Platform 3.0 and involves further investment in tools and automation.

As an example, different product teams had their own Jira; it was “somewhat siloed,” said a source. By moving to a single view, workloads could become visible to all teams so it was “possible to assign and move work to related teams, have visibility, and link associated work across teams.”

Lloyds also consolidated processes and tools, rationalized support roles, and business analysts were eliminated or moved to Customer Journey Managers.

A spokesperson at Lloyds Bank told The Reg this is the “next significant step in the strategic transformation of Lloyds Banking Group.”

“To achieve the ambitious strategy we launched in February 2022 and deliver better service to our customers, we are transforming our business. We are excited about the progress we have made, which is already delivering benefits. As we remain focused on achieving engineering excellence and building highly skilled tech teams as we move faster forward to deliver great outcomes for our customers, we are creating 1,200 net new roles.

“Making changes means not only creating new roles and upskilling colleagues but also saying goodbye to talented people who have been part of the Group’s success in the past. Where that is the case, we will do everything we can to support them with the changes recently announced. We know change can be uncomfortable, but we are excited about the opportunities ahead as we propel forward to achieve our growth ambitions and deliver exceptional customer experiences.”

In late January, Lloyds said it planned to shutter another 136 branches by March 2026, citing reduced footfall and more customers banking online.

In the nine months ended September 30, 2024, Lloyds generated statutory profit after tax of £3.77 billion, down 7 percent year-on-year. ®