Barclays is putting a renewed focus on its branches

In a major restructuring move, the bank is aiming to put a renewed focus on improving customer service.

Areas affected by the job cuts include human resources, IT, strategy and finance, with the bank cutting levels of duplication.

Back in February, Barclays, the UK's third largest bank, reported a 20% rise in full-year profits to �3.8bn.

The 800 job losses follow the merger of three of the bank's UK divisions earlier this year.

'Customer focused'

Its three separate operations, serving personal customers, businesses and high income customers, have become one UK banking division.

Barclays said some of the redundancies would be met by leaving posts vacant, while it would also seek to redeploy as many affected staff as possible.

The savings, which are being carried out in consultation with staff union Unifi, will partly help Barclays to fund the recruitment of new branch workers.

Around 200 such posts have already been filled, with the rest expected to be in place by the end of this year.

"We all felt we needed to do more to get customers back in the focus of the business," said Barclays' chief executive of UK banking, Roger Davis.

Barclays has more than 2,000 branches in the UK, with 26,000 people employed at offices, call centres and on the high street.