8:30 am, September 8, 2026
JLR is a company that has gone through its fair share of tough times over recent years, with the firm’s performance taking a battering from US tariffs, weaker demand and even a cyberattack.
Against such a testing backdrop, it should perhaps not come as a surprise that the firm has been left needing to make cutbacks.
Car Dealer reported yesterday (Sep 7) that the UK’s biggest car manufacturer is looking to cut costs by £1.7bn as it attempts to rebuild profitability and strengthen its finances.
The plans include proposals to axe around 4,000 jobs globally over the next two years, after ministers ruled out stepping in with a government bailout.
But where has it all gone wrong, and where does this whole situation leave JLR? We’ve been taking a look at the details…
What has actually been announced?
JLR says it wants to cut around 4,000 jobs from its global operations over the next two years as part of a wider drive to reduce costs by £1.7bn.
The cuts are expected to focus largely on office-based roles, with the UK workforce set to be hit hardest.
The company employs around 30,000 people in the UK, where most of its vehicles are built at plants including Solihull in the West Midlands and Halewood in Merseyside.
JLR said it had informed employees and trade union partners about the voluntary redundancy programme, with chief executive PB Balaji saying the company was ‘committed to supporting everyone with care, fairness and respect’ through the process.
Why are cuts needed?
Financially, it has not been an easy time for JLR of late, with both revenue and profits falling sharply.
In its accounts for the three months to the end of June, the carmaker reported a 9.6% year-on-year drop in revenue to £6bn, while vehicle volumes fell 9.2%.
Pre-tax profit also fell to £109m before exceptional items, having previously stood at £351m a year earlier.
Elsewhere, profit margins were hit by a one-off provision linked to US fuel economy rules, which partly offset the benefit of reduced US-UK tariffs.
The latest figures follow a disastrous financial year for JLR, with profits falling by more than 99% to just £14m after the cyber attack and other production disruptions hit the business.
How much impact did the cyberattack have?
For any carmaker, the ability to get vehicles off the production line is an absolute essential. Unfortunately for JLR, that was not possible for a good chunk of last year.
The firm was forced to grind production to a halt at its UK factories for five weeks from September 1 last year, following a major attack on its computer systems.
The incident caused major disruption to the business and wider UK economy, hitting sales in late 2025 and contributing to the company’s heavy financial losses for the year.
Production eventually restarted in October, but JLR then had to rebuild vehicle volumes after losing several weeks of output.
The company has continued to recover from the attack, with the disruption forming part of the problems that pushed its annual pre-tax profit down to just £14m.
What else has contributed?
The cyberattack was one of a number of major issues which hit the group’s finances.
More recently, production of its vehicles was knocked by the impact of a fire at a supplier’s factory.
JLR briefly paused production for its Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models at its Solihull plant in March after a major fire at the factory of a component manufacturer in Norway.
This heavily weighed on production volumes in the second quarter of 2026.
JLR also said it witnessed disruption linked to the Middle East conflict, which has also driven energy and fuel costs higher.
The company was also impacted by the fallout of Donald Trump’s US tariff policy – which introduced a 10% tariff on the first 100,000 cars produced in a year, which this rising to 27.5% after.
The tariff policy weighed on sales of the Range Rover and the Defender models in the US.
JLR said earlier this year that it was talking with fellow carmaker Stellantis over a potential deal to allow them to produce vehicles in the US.
Rebuild needed
For JLR, the focus now will be on whether its cost-cutting programme can help turn around a business that has been hit by a succession of setbacks.
The company needs to restore profitability while continuing to invest in its next generation of models – chief among which is the controversial Jaguar Type 01.
With 4,000 jobs now on the line and the government ruling out a bailout, the pressure is firmly on JLR to get its recovery back on track.