Clifford Chance is cutting around 10% of its business services staff in London, with the company citing increased use of AI and changing business demands as key factors.
According to the Financial Times, around 50 roles in finance, human resources and IT will be made redundant, with a further 35 roles potentially subject to rescoping or restructuring. The company is also moving more support operations to its global hubs in Poland and India.
A Clifford Chance spokesperson said: “In line with our strategy to strengthen our business, we can confirm that we are proposing changes to some of our London-based business professional functions.
“Proposed changes could see the creation of new roles, changes to the scope of roles, review of team structures and, in some cases, reductions in roles.”
The move comes as major professional services firms increasingly recognize that AI is reshaping workforce planning. Mohamed Khande, global chairman of PwC, said the company will not achieve its previous goal of hiring 100,000 staff in five years, pointing to AI as a key factor in reducing demand for entry-level roles.
“The world looked very different when we planned to hire this many people,” he said. BBC. “Now we have artificial intelligence. We want to hire, but I don’t know if it’s going to be the same level of people that we hire. It’s going to be a different set of people.”
But Khande added that PwC is having trouble recruiting AI specialists. “We are currently looking for hundreds of engineers to help us advance our AI agenda, but we are having trouble finding them,” he said.
