Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is to cut up to 500 management roles in the UK as the automotive giant grapples with falling sales and the financial fallout from US import tariffs.
The carmaker, which employs more than 30,000 people in the UK, confirmed the cuts will be implemented through a voluntary redundancy scheme and represent no more than 1.5% of its British workforce. The company described the move as “normal business practice”, but experts say it reflects deeper challenges in the wake of international trade tensions.
Last week, JLR revealed a decline in sales for the three months to June, attributing the dip partly to a pause in exports to the US due to new tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, as well as the planned phase-out of some older Jaguar models.
The US government’s decision to impose a 10% import tariff on British-made cars earlier this year prompted JLR to temporarily halt shipments to the US. Although a UK-US trade deal has since reduced tariffs from 27.5% to 10%, this still marks a sharp rise from the pre-tariff rate of just 2.5%.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Wake Up to Money, Professor David Bailey of the Birmingham Business School said tariffs “play a big role” in JLR’s recent difficulties. “It wasn’t that long ago that JLR was reporting bumper profits — £2.5bn for the year ending in March — the best results in a decade,” he noted. “But tariffs have definitely had an impact.”
He added that while some UK-assembled models such as the Range Rover are subject to the new 10% tariff, others — including the Defender, manufactured in Slovakia — still face a punitive 27.5% rate when exported to the US.
Despite the challenges, JLR has been expanding its electric vehicle operations and bringing in new workers for its future EV lines. However, the short-term impact of trade disruptions appears to have prompted the company to restructure at the management level.
The company’s decision to scale back comes just weeks after Labour MP Preet Kaur Gill, representing Edgbaston in Birmingham, praised the UK’s trade deal with the US for helping to protect automotive sector jobs. Speaking to Business Matters before the JLR announcement, she said the tariff reduction had “helped preserve 12,000 jobs” and expressed confidence in maintaining strong trade ties going forward.
“In my region, Jaguar Land Rover is a really important employer. The fact that we’ve managed to bring tariffs down… this is an ongoing relationship, and our commitment is to make sure we continue that,” she said.
JLR operates major production and engineering sites in Solihull, Wolverhampton and Halewood on Merseyside, and continues to build several Range Rover models in the UK.
While the company describes the job cuts as part of routine restructuring, analysts say the timing underscores how even major players in the UK automotive sector remain vulnerable to global trade tensions and policy shifts in key export markets.
