The UK is a world leader in financial services and Glasgow plays an important part in this success.  The Barclays Glasgow campus will be home to approximately 5,000 Barclays colleagues by 2023, and has transformed the local area through regeneration.

Barclays set out to build something transformative, bringing the community together, helping entrepreneurs flourish, and supporting local enterprise.  During the construction of the campus, over 70 Scottish firms worked on site, with two thirds from Glasgow. As part of the project we transformed a brownfield site into a city centre park with spaces for community events and two historic buildings have been restored for public use.

At the heart of our vision was a world class and sustainable campus that contributes to Barclays ambition to become a net zero bank by 2050. To that end, we are installing a Sustainability Centre on Campus, that will provide self-generated solar energy and rely on carbon-free technology to heat and cool the buildings. The site also offers community hub spaces which allow us to work with local social enterprise, local start-ups and great local micro businesses. The building and workspace have been designed with collaboration in mind and it will support us in our ambition to deliver the latest innovations to our customers and clients.

Designed to be Different: Zero waste, biodiversity, and neurodiversity

The campus builds on Barclays’ net zero ambitions and zero waste strategy and with a desire to prioritise sustainability in a city centre site. The Campus will be the first to achieve zero waste by 2025. It will offer reusables and onsite compost that will be repurposed for our landscaping needs. We will also produce our own honey and support city biodiversity with 60,000 honey bees on site.

The building was also designed with neurodiversity in mind. Being careful about the choice of finishes, the acoustics and the light quality were all important considerations to drive inclusivity at the campus.

Revive, inspire and regenerate through local sourcing and diversity & inclusion

Throughout the project we have collaborated well with the main economic agencies and local government to realise a shared vision of redeveloping an area that has been derelict for decades.  Our regeneration of the area has breathed new economic life into the city, expanding the city centre across the River Clyde to the south while, crucially, building a site that will retain and attract the best talent.

The project has had at its core a sourcing objective that has prioritised local businesses and entrepreneurs – whether that is sourcing locally printed fabric for furnishings, using locally timbered wood in construction, or bringing on-site community-based micro enterprises to showcase and sell their products.  Many of the small businesses that have been engaged in this project have been able to hire new staff, scale-up, and re-open after lockdown due to their partnership with Barclays.

We also tasked our lead contractors to deliver the project via local and diverse subcontractors. This supported Barclays’ drive for local solutions, social mobility, and diversity & inclusion.

Employment and Eagle Labs: Bringing teams together to drive innovation

This project is the latest step in our global location strategy which is focused on bringing teams closer together to drive innovation and collaboration whilst striking the right balance between working collaboratively and the need for flexibility.  The campus is home to a number of teams working across our business, including high value technology, risk, and compliance roles, and will soon host a Barclays Eagle Lab.  As one of the UK’s largest incubator networks, these labs help to nurture skills and create thriving entrepreneurial eco-systems.

Working with universities in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Barclays has been developing a robust pipeline of graduate and apprenticeship opportunities. We have increased headcount in Glasgow by over 90% over the last four years, including 750 people during the COVID pandemic, and by 2023 Glasgow will account for around 10% of our UK workforce.

Barclays is proud to have delivered this project which will help to shape the evolution of Glasgow’s city centre over the long-term, through lasting benefits for both society and the wider local economy.