Entertainment

BBC News to close more than 100 roles in £5.5m savings plan

Putri ArdhanaPublished 16m ago2 min readBased on 8 sources
BBC News to close more than 100 roles in £5.5m savings plan
Photo by EEIM / Public domain

BBC News will close more than 100 roles over the coming months in a savings plan expected to save £5.5 million ($7.4 million).

The details were reported by Deadline on 20 October 2026. The cuts affect posts, meaning some vacant roles will close alongside filled jobs. Staff were told in an internal email.

The email came from Rachel Jupp, the BBC’s director of news. Jupp took up the post on 5 October 2026, according to the BBC. She was formerly editor of the current-affairs programme Panorama and succeeded Deborah Turness, Deadline reported at the time of her appointment.

BBC News has been asked to contribute £51 million toward the BBC’s overall £500 million savings target. This latest tranche takes its running total to £30.5 million. That leaves a further £20 million still to find. Jupp said she will set out further details in early 2027.

The news division is not alone. BBC Media Tech, the technology arm that supports broadcast and online output, has announced the closure of 110 roles.

The wider squeeze is large. The BBC as a whole is expected to cut between 1,800 and 2,000 jobs. That range was given when Jupp’s appointment was confirmed. It covers savings across divisions, not just news.

Earlier reporting gives context for how the plan has built. In June 2026, Reuters reported that the BBC planned to cut hundreds of jobs in Britain in a downsizing of its news division. A separate Reuters report that month cited a drive to cut 550 jobs to save £500 million over three years.

An even earlier proposal looked different. In June 2025, 130 role closures and the cancellation of the long-running interview series HARDtalk were linked to a BBC-wide effort to save £700 million ($943 million). That figure has since been superseded by the current £500 million target. BBC News staffing has been under pressure before. In early 2024, five female presenters with more than 100 years of combined experience had been off screen since March on full pay during a previous restructuring.

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