Direct Line set to axe 800 jobs across the UK

The cuts by the company, which also owns the Churchill and Green Flag brands, will affect almost 7 per cent of its 11,000 strong workforce.

It said the redundancies, which were first reported by Sky News, will take place predominantly between 2021 and 2022.

There are two regional Direct Line offices in Leeds, on The Headrow and on Neville Street, near to Leeds Station.

The company also has sites including Doncaster, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Ipswich.

Staff at the Ipswich brand have been informed that the office will close in 2022.

A spokeswoman for Direct Line said that the company has promised to give our people at least 12 months’ notice of the final date.

Staff at the Manchester Quay Street branch have been told that the company will be relocating some roles to our Leeds and Glasgow offices and losing others.

Staff at the Bromley office and a small number of teams in Leeds will move to a "fully agile operating model in some parts of the business" and "would result in teams being organised differently, changing reporting lines."

A Direct Line Group spokeswoman said: "Like many companies we are having to prepare for changes in the way we operate, reflecting changing customer behaviour where people are increasingly opting to interact with us digitally.

"We are therefore proposing a number of changes across the business which sadly mean the loss of jobs for some of our people.

"These decisions are always really difficult; we take the wellbeing of our people very seriously and have given people as much time as possible to prepare."

Direct Line said it will be working with its employee representative body to support workers through the process, including helping them to find new jobs by working with local organisations, as well as providing CV training.