Sky plans to cut 1,000 jobs in UK and Ireland in 2024 due to shift to digital-only services

Sky plans to cut 1,000 jobs in the UK and Ireland this year. The broadcasting firm, which owns Sky News and is one of Europe's biggest media and entertainment providers, said that the engineer teams would be the most severely impacted, citing shift to digital-only services as the reason for their decision.

A Sky spokesperson said: "The launch of Sky Glass and Sky Stream represents a shift in our business to deliver TV over IP (an internet connection) rather than satellite. Increasingly, customers are choosing Sky Glass and Sky Stream which don't require specialist installation, and that has led us to change the number of roles we need to deliver our services."

However, it is unknown what other roles may be affected as the 1,000 figure was not finalised and could come in lower, said the broadcaster. It added it remained committed to its satellite customers and services despite the decrease in numbers of engineers needed for specialist servicing installations due to a change in customer habits. It is understood that around 80% of Sky Stream customers are new to the company.

This announcement comes a day after Channel 4 announced its plans to move out of London headquarters, making around 200 redundant and axing around 40 unfilled roles, including cutting the small linear channels such as music video station The Box and others.

The broadcaster said the move would happen in “the next few years” and Channel 4's annual reports said the building was valued at £90 million in 2022 and £98 million in 2021. It had previously committed to 600 roles being moved outside of London by the end of 2025.