British Gas parent Centrica has confirmed plans to cut about 1,300 jobs over the next two years, with contact-centre teams in Glasgow and Edinburgh among the sites affected. The reductions were announced alongside the company’s half-year results on Thursday, which showed an 18% drop in first-half adjusted profit to £737m.
Around 500 of the roles are in customer operations across contact centres in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Leicester, Stockport and Leeds, with a further 800 positions going across group support and outsourced offshore functions. Centrica said the cuts equate to roughly 14% of its customer-operations workforce.
The company said the changes reflect a sustained shift in customer behaviour rather than an AI-driven redundancy programme, with 90% of British Gas customers now using digital channels and inbound contact volumes down about 20% year on year. Centrica is separately spending £600m on an AI-led overhaul of customer service infrastructure.
For the Scottish labour market, the announcement matters because Centrica’s Glasgow and Edinburgh sites have been long-standing sources of large-volume, entry- and mid-level service jobs. A detailed city-by-city breakdown has not yet been published, and the company has said the reductions will be delivered through a mix of natural attrition, voluntary departures and selected redundancies over two years, with formal consultation to follow.
Centrica shares fell more than 4% on the day of the results despite a 9% dividend increase.
