Transformative Workforce Optimisation at Tier 1 UK Retail Bank 

How an evidence-based resourcing approach helped protect jobs and cut costs at a major UK financial institution

The current technology landscape in financial services is a complex one. New regulations, evolving customer expectations and recruitment challenges are giving many banks pause.

Faced with their own dual challenge of reskilling its workforce and avoiding redundancies, our Tier 1 UK banking client, in partnership with our team of experts, identified the need to initiate a data-driven transformation programme.

This initiative aimed to harmonise and visualise disparate data sources to foster significant cultural and operational changes at the bank.

Challenge

Our client needed to optimise its balance of permanent and non-permanent staff, particularly in high-demand digital technology roles. The bank’s fragmented data ecosystem had hindered its ability to gain comprehensive insights into its workforce’s technical capabilities. Without those insights, our client recognised that delivering an efficient and effective workforce strategy was going to be especially challenging.

Ultimately, the bank wanted to:

Create a data-driven view of their technology and digital workforce, providing a “single source of truth” around skills and capabilities

Use the insights generated to support an evidence-based approach to workforce planning – enabling decisions to be made using facts rather than gut feel

Ensure the adoption of that approach, with a user-centric and iterative design that would encourage long term behavioural change

Solution

Our client, in close collaboration with our team, implemented a robust data integration strategy. Using API connections, the bank unified its workforce data into a single data lake. This cohesive dataset was then utilised in Tableau to create detailed, intuitive dashboards, providing a three-dimensional view of the workforce.

Outcomes:

• Permanent Workforce Expansion: thousands of permanent software engineers were added, aligning with the bank’s digital-first strategy
• Avoiding Redundancies: improved workforce planning enabled the bank to retrain at-risk employees, significantly reducing redundancies
• Cost Savings: the optimisation programme helped avoid hundreds of millions in resourcing costs by replacing contract workers with permanent staff where feasible.

Cultural Shift

The initiative also led to a broader cultural transformation within the bank. Approximately 400 leaders now have access to the resourcing insights platform, fostering more strategic, data-driven decision-making aligned with the bank’s long-term goals.

Real Differences, Delivered

Beyond the significant savings potential whilst addressing an industry-wide talent shortage, our partnership has revolutionised our client’s workforce planning approach. This new direction contributes to better understanding and retention of the best in-house technology talent at the bank.

By leveraging advanced data analytics, the bank has not only optimised its resourcing costs but also supported a significant cultural shift, ensuring sustainable growth and improved operational efficiency.