HUMAN CAPITAL PULSE: BANKING · ISSUE 5 · MAY 2026
A monthly Human Capital benchmark for HR and People leaders in Banking: the sector's talking points and how culture, workforce and talent compare across your peers, built on Deltabase data covering 5,500+ companies and 11M employee reviews.
Editor's note
May made AI's effect on bank jobs concrete. First-quarter results showed the largest US banks removing roles while crediting AI with productivity gains, a City survey warned that office mandates are pushing finance staff towards the exit and Lloyds was recognised for using AI in its own People function. For HR leaders, adoption is now a workforce design question.
Leroy Hall, Deltabase
The month in three
1. US banks cut 15,000 roles in the first quarter as AI scales
What happened: The Next Web reported on 14 May that the six largest US banks eliminated about 15,000 positions in the first quarter of 2026 while combined profits rose 18% to $47bn. At JPMorgan Chase, operations roles fell 4% and support roles 2% while client and revenue roles rose 4%; Bank of America credits its Erica assistant with the work of about 11,000 full-time employees.
The Deltabase lens: Workforce: Operations make up 4.0% of JPMorgan Chase's workforce and 5.9% of Wells Fargo's. Deltabase Employee Turnover data shows average monthly turnover in January–April 2026 was lower than a year earlier at JPMorgan Chase (0.62% against 0.76%), Wells Fargo (0.77% against 0.88%), Bank of America (0.49% against 0.60%) and Citigroup (0.64% against 0.69%).
So what: Falling turnover alongside AI-linked cuts means fewer natural exits; plan redeployment rather than relying on attrition.
2. Office mandates push City finance staff towards the exit
What happened: City AM reported on 19 May that a Morgan McKinley survey of 471 financial services workers found nearly six in ten said office presence requirements make them more likely to leave, while 67% said attendance was increasing stress or burnout. Barclays introduced a three-day minimum earlier this year.
The Deltabase lens: Culture: Work-Life Balance is banking's most broadly improving topic: median NSS across ten banks rose from +7.4% to +12.6% in 2025, with eight of the ten improving. Barclays rose from +18.1% to +35.0%. Workforce: Barclays' average monthly turnover was 0.52% in January–April 2026, against 0.64% a year earlier.
So what: Attendance rules can erode the sector's broadest sentiment gain; measure Work-Life Balance before and after any change.
3. Lloyds wins AI in HR award for colleague development tool
What happened: Lloyds Banking Group said on 26 May it had won awards at the 2026 Global AI Awards, including AI in Human Resources for Prosper, a People & Places tool that gives colleagues personalised insights and development opportunities.
The Deltabase lens: Talent: 13.8% of Lloyds' workforce lists learning and development skills, against 17.0% at Bank of America, the highest among ten banks. Culture: Lloyds' Career Progression NSS was −47.2% in 2025, little changed from −46.5%.
So what: AI in HR is most valuable where career sentiment is weakest; link development tools to visible internal moves.
Stat of the month
+11.9%: JPMorgan Chase's Tech in Workplace NSS in 2025, the only positive score among ten Top 100 banks, where the median was −38.4%.
| Company | Talent: share with AI skills | Talent: share with machine learning skills | Culture: Tech in Workplace NSS, 2025 |
|---|
| Goldman Sachs | 8.3% | 6.6% | −29.0% |
| HSBC | 7.0% | 2.4% | −43.7% |
| Lloyds Banking Group | 6.1% | 2.7% | −52.1% |
| Citigroup | 5.8% | 2.7% | −36.3% |
| Wells Fargo | 5.2% | 2.1% | −44.9% |
| JPMorgan Chase | 4.4% | 4.0% | +11.9% |
Source: Deltabase Talent data, share of workforce listing each skill (skills overlap and are not summed). Deltabase Culture data, Employee Net Sentiment Score (−100% to +100%), 2025; sector median of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Standard Chartered.
Spotlight: Standard Chartered vs Wells Fargo
Standard Chartered improved from −5.4% to −3.3% in 2025 (1,024 reviews) while Wells Fargo slipped from +5.6% to +3.8% (3,167), still ahead. Standard Chartered leads on Learning & Development (+66.4% against +32.5%) and D&I (+46.7% against −19.7%). On Talent, Wells Fargo has more AI and cloud skills (5.2% and 5.1%, against 3.9% and 3.3%), while Standard Chartered has more cyber security skills (2.1% against 1.0%). Wells Fargo has 16.1% of its workforce in Tech (Standard Chartered has no Deltabase Workforce data). Standard Chartered's people stay longer: median tenure is 6.8 years against 4.6, and monthly turnover averaged 0.51% against 0.77% in January–April 2026.
For your People team
- Build a skills baseline for AI, data and cloud by function and benchmark it against named peers before setting reskilling targets.
- Track Tech in Workplace NSS alongside AI roll-outs, so you know whether employees trust the tools they are given.
- Model redeployment capacity now: with turnover falling, fewer roles will free up through natural exits.
See how your Human Capital compares with your Banking peers. Book a 30-minute benchmark walkthrough across culture, workforce and talent. Book a walkthrough →
Sources: The Next Web (14 May 2026); City AM (19 May 2026); Lloyds Banking Group (26 May 2026); Deltabase Culture data; Deltabase Workforce data; Deltabase Talent data; Deltabase Employee Turnover data.