Tech giant Palantir to cut scores of jobs in London
Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel
/ Getty Imagesech giant Palantir is planning to axe scores of jobs from its London office, the Standard can reveal.
The Colorado-based data analytics business co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel is consulting on proposals to slash as many as 75 jobs from the capital. That would represent a cut of just over 8% of its UK workforce, based on staffing numbers disclosed by the firm.
Last year, the company was reportedly exploring expanding to open a second UK base in the north of England, possibly near the NHS Digital headquarters in Leeds. But those plans are now under review and a final decision has yet to be taken.
Palantir declined to comment. It follows an earlier round of cuts announced by the business in February, in which it laid off 2% of its global workforce. The firm previously said in a statement: “We believe our company is at an inflection point and to continue to evolve, we are making the tough choice of reducing teams in several areas. These are incredibly painful decisions but the right ones for the company’s future.”
The plans make Palantir the latest major tech firm to reduce its presence in the UK, after social media giant Meta last month said it would withdraw hundreds of jobs in London including scrapping Instagram’s hub in the city and Amazon in January said it would close three UK warehouses in a move that would impact over 1,000 staff.
Nearly 200,000 employees have been laid off at tech companies across the globe since the start of the year, according to online tracker layoffs.fyi.
Palantir, which has a number of software contracts with the US and UK governments, earlier this month reported an 18% jump in first-qarter revenue to $525 million (£423 million), and said it expected to hit full-year profitability.
In an earnings call, the firm said it was “reorganising our efforts aggressively” to invest in developing artificial intelligence, amid an “unprecedented” surge in demand for the technology.
CEO Alexander Karp said: “The demand [for AI] is nothing I’ve ever seen in 20 years of being involved in Palantir.
“Our strategy on AI is just to take the whole market. We have no pricing strategy. We’re going to create a lot of value. We’re gonna get hundreds of customers and we will price it as we go.”
Palantir has 900 staff in London and reported UK revenues of $213 million (£172 million) in the year to September 2022, up from $160 million in the previous year, company filings show.