Dyson, the vacuum cleaner maker turned hair care pioneer, is cutting 1,000 UK jobs as part of a global restructure.
The news comes as Dyson moves to reduce its 14,000-strong workforce globally amid a wider cost-cutting drive.
Dyson currently has 3,500 UK employees across sites in Wiltshire, Bristol and London, which means the proposed cuts would shrink the company’s workforce in its founding country by a quarter.
“We have grown quickly and, like all companies, we review our global structures from time to time to ensure we are prepared for the future,” said Dyson CEO Hanno Kirner.
“As such, we are proposing changes to our organisation, which may result in redundancies.
“Dyson operates in increasingly fierce and competitive global markets, in which the pace of innovation and change is only accelerating.
“We know we always need to be entrepreneurial and agile.”
Dyson, which was founded by Sir James Dyson in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, in 1991, has manufactured its products in Malaysia since 2002.
In 2019, it shifted its headquarters from Malmesbury to Singapore, with Sir Dyson at the time pointing to the growing importance of supply chains and customers in Asia.
But its research and development efforts are still located in Malmesbury.
The Dyson Institute, where 160 undergraduate engineers work on Dyson projects three days a week, and study for two, is also based in the Cotswolds town.
A Dyson employee reportedly told the BBC that “everyone involved in R&D have now exited all Dyson buildings… whether this capability will return over the next few weeks remains to be seen”.
Dyson’s intelligent Supersonic Nural hair dryer forms part of a beauty innovation push
Dyson entered the hair care technology space in 2016 with the launch of its Supersonic hair dryer.
It expanded its portfolio further with the Airwrap Styler in 2018 and the Corrale straightener in 2020.
Dyson’s Airwrap multi-styler and dryer spurred a hair tech ‘arms race’ when it launched just ahead of the Shark FlexStyle 5-In-1 Air Styler & Hair Dryer in 2022.
As well as Shark Beauty, Dyson faces competition from the likes of Zuvi and GHD.
Beauty has been earmarked for investment by Dyson, which has ploughed half a billion pounds into expanding its portfolio.
In 2022, the company said it planned to launch 20 new beauty products by 2026.
So far, these have included Dyson’s Supersonic Nural hair dryer, which hit the market earlier this year.
The ‘intelligent’ dryer auto-adapts to help protect hair and scalp health.
An accelerometer knows when the machine is put down, and deactivates the heater and decreases airflow.
However, beyond beauty, Dyson’s ventures have been less successful.
In 2019, the company shelved a project to make an electric car into which it had sunk £500m.
