Scores of jobs are on the line in Aston Martin’s St Athan plant.
The luxury sports car brand today announced a 20% cut in its 3,000 strong workforce in Britain, mostly at its Gaydon HQ and St Athan plants.
Aston Martin has confirmed the firm’s net losses jumped 52% last year to £493.2m. It has this month announced plans to raise some capital by selling the naming rights to its F1 team but it has also associated itself with luxury property developments in South America to widen its business portfolio.
The luxury car firm, synonymous with James Bond, has struggled for several years and blamed US president Donald Trump’s tariffs in a statement made last month.
The firm said the job cuts should deliver annual savings of around £40m and most of the savings would be made this year.
A spokesperson for Aston Martin said US tariffs had been “extremely disruptive” with demand “extremely subdued” in China, the world’s biggest auto market.
It has trimmed its five-year capital spending plan to £1.7bn from £2bn by delaying investment in electric vehicle technology, which it had initially planned to develop in St Athan when it opened there in 2019 to build the company’s first SUV, the DBX, before adding a BEV or Hybrid model later.
After a massive recruitment campaign, the plant employed about 750 staff in permanent, contractor and fixed term positions but soon after opening it saw sales slide in the Covid outbreaks around the world and last November was said to be be considering 100 job losses as business slumped with trade setbacks.
Aston Martin said in a statement yesterday, “Having undertaken at the start of 2025 a process to make organisational adjustments to ensure the business was appropriately resourced for its future plans, we had to take the difficult decision at the end of 2025 to implement further changes.
“This latest programme will ultimately see the departure of up to 20% of our valued workforce.”
It has backing from European, Middle Eastern and Chinese sources as well as America.
