Bentley to cut 150 UK jobs following 40% profit drop

Bentley will cut 150 jobs at its Crewe base as it streamlines operations following a year that stalled income and forced a future line-up re-write. The affected roles haven’t yet been confirmed, but CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser said they would be office based. These redundancies will take place over the next 12 months. Along with those jobs, the restructuring will remove a further 125 positions, but this reduction will be achieved by closing open roles (that have been created by employees leaving the company recently) and not renewing agency contracts. Finance boss Axel Dewitz said that the decision to cut roles was not driven by an emergency or crisis, and instead a need to be “more efficient” in the face of headwinds and increased costs. Indeed, Wallier said “cost management is definitely on the higher priority everywhere in the automotive industry”. Bentley recorded revenues of £2.25bn, just a one per cent drop on the year before, but pre-tax profits of £186.6 million were down 40% on 2024 driven by costs associated with geopolitical uncertainties (for example, the US tariffs), suppliers, and an interest drop in China. While volumes were down 5%, this was offset by higher average price per vehicle resulting in a 8.3% return on sales. Regarding the cuts, Dewitz said: “It is a very considered and very measured, focused review of our structures in the current turbulent times that every one of us are aware of. “And it is not a reaction to a dominant crisis. It's about increasing speed, increasing agility. It’s to get the right structure in place and to increase our robustness as to the ever changing environment. And we would like to translate that into a competitive advantage.” The car maker was also hit by wider Volkswagen Group changes, notably Porsche’s decision to delay its ‘Sport’ version of the group’s EV-only SSP 61 platform into the next decade. While, according to Dewitz, the financial impact was small (“in the three figures”) Walliser said it required a substantial future line-up re-write as it was to underpin most of Bentley’s next-generation vehicles. “The cancellation of the SSP 61 [meant] we had to renew and rethink and recalculate our complete product line up for all future offers,” said Walliser. “So if you compare our planning with the planning we did have two years ago, it looks now completely different.” He added that because “the platform is just not available anymore” Bentley’s next generation cars will stay on their current MLB architectures and be primarily sold with PHEV, with pure-ICE kept to “selective” models such as the Supersports. “The next generation of the cars will feature plug-in hybrids and we look very selective in ICE-only, but this depends also a little bit on markets and legislation,” said Walliser. “There is a lot of work to do, I have to say. I cannot now go into all the details, but we stay with a balanced portfolio.” Walliser added that the changes do not affect the incoming EV which is still planned to be revealed in the second half of the year. A second EV is not planned to launch until after 2030, he said.

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Bentley to cut 150 UK jobs following 40% profit drop

Tough year also led firm to rewrite future product plan after Porsche's decision to delay SSP Sport platform

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Bentley to cut 150 UK jobs following 40% profit drop

Tough year also led firm to rewrite future product plan after Porsche's decision to delay SSP Sport platform

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