Facebook cuts 660 UK jobs as revenue nears record
Facebook cut more than 600 UK jobs as its revenue passed the £3bn mark in 2024, it has been revealed.
The London-headquartered arm of the US giant reduced its headcount from 6,338 to 5,679 during its latest financial year.
The fall comes after Facebook’s UK headcount had stood at 7,053 at the end of 2022.
Meta, Facebook’s owner, said the decrease in its headcount was due to changes made in the prior year and that the 5,679 figure was an average number of people employed by the business in 2024.
New accounts filed with Companies House also show that while Facebook’s UK headcount declined in the year, its employee costs actually rose from £2.2bn to £2.3bn.
This was driven by an increase in social welfare costs from £268.1m to £358.4m and share-based payments rising from £853.3m to £973.9m.
The amount Facebook UK paid in wages and salaries in 2024 fell from £1bn to £923.8m.
For its latest financial year, Facebook UK’s revenue increased from £2.8bn to £3.1bn while its pre-tax profit also rose from £355.4m to £362.4m.
The highest turnover the UK arm of Facebook has ever reported was the £3.3bn it achieved in 2022.
In September, parent company Meta revealed it was preparing to roll out a new subscription service in the UK that will allow users to pay to remove ads from Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook rival Snapchat’s losses mount
The results for the UK arm of Facebook come after Morning Wire reported last month that the London-headquartered division of Snapchat lost more than $757m during its latest financial year despite its revenue spiking to over $2bn.
For 2024, Snap Group has reported a pre-tax loss of $757.7m (£565.8m), accounts filed with Companies House show.
The latest total is down from the pre-tax loss of $1bn (£746.9m) it posted for 2023.
However over the same period, Snapchat’s revenue surged from $1.6bn to $2.1bn.
At the time, Snapchat said the main reason for the increase in its revenue was a combination of growth in advertisers and auction-based advertising demand and “optimisation efficiencies”.
During the year, the average number of people employed by the UK arm of Snapchat fell from 437 to 395.
TikTok cutting and creating jobs
This summer, Morning Wire also reported that TikTok was set to lay off hundreds of staff in its content moderation and security team in London.
At the time the company, which is owned by ByteDance, said it was centralising its “trust and safety” operations globally and planned to increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to moderate content.
The move, which was said to affect around 300 London-based staff, was part of a worldwide reorganisation.
The report came after TikTok announced in June that it was to create more than 500 UK jobs and open a second office in London.
The business confirmed its UK workforce was to expand to 3,000 by the end of 2025 and open a new 135,000 sq ft office in London’s Barbican.
For its latest financial year, the UK arm of TikTok reported a turnover of $6.3bn, up from the $4.5bn it achieved in 2023.
Its pre-tax loss was also slashed from $1.4bn to $657,323.
Reddit’s UK revenue more than triples
In September, Morning Wire reported that revenue at the UK arm of Reddit more than tripled during its latest financial year as profit also surged.
The London-headquartered division posted a revenue of £96.7m for 2024, accounts filed with Companies House show.
That total was up significantly from the £28.4m it posted for 2023.
Reddit said its UK turnover has increased by £68.3m in 2024 “largely due” to the introduction of third part advertising sales under that agreement.
The accounts also confirmed that Reddit UK’s pre-tax profit jumped from £37,129 to £4.8m in 2024.