Barclays is likely to lay off IT staff as part of its restructuring. The bank is looking to cut the number of middle level managers and increase staff at branches.

Barclays wants to reduce its headcount by about 800. A spokeswoman stressed that this would not all be redundancies - some staff will be redeployed and some posts will not be refilled.

The bank has brought together three separate businesses, business banking, personal banking and premier banking into one division. This means there is some duplication for departments like HR and IT.

A spokeswoman for Barclays said: "There is inevitably some duplication now we have three departments merging into one. We have talked to the unions and we're now talking to staff. This process will take some time and is ongoing."

A spokesman for union Unifi said job losses would hit all back office areas, not just IT.

Separately, Barclays is talking to Accenture about a project to outsource IT development or "build services". If the deal goes ahead it would mean about 1,000 people in centres in Cheshire, Dorset and Kent moving to Accenture. ®

Related stories

Barclays: Internet scam victim
Email fraudsters target Barclays
Barclays BACS system crashes