Qantas to Cut 850 HQ Jobs in Multi-Year Accenture Outsourcing Deal

Qantas will remove 850 jobs from its Mascot headquarters in Sydney under a multi-year partnership with technology consultancy Accenture, with the first roles affected from mid-2027.

An internal memo, sighted by Australian Aviation, says the airline aims to "simplify" parts of its corporate function and "reduce duplication". The cuts target the finance, procurement, people and marketing departments.

"Today we're announcing a new multi-year partnership with Accenture and changes that will affect parts of our corporate functions," the memo told staff. "I know this is hard news for some, and I'm sorry for the uncertainty it brings."

The airline confirmed the deal in a statement, describing a "strategic partnership" with Accenture to "modernise its back-end systems, processes and data, as it steps up investment in technology and AI alongside the largest fleet renewal in its history".

Where do the 850 jobs go?

Under the partnership, some roles will be offshored to Accenture's teams in India. Some will remain based in Australia. Others will "in time be transformed further with automation and AI", according to the airline's statement.

The internal memo confirms the individual roles to be removed "have not been determined". Qantas says it will work closely with affected employees and their union in the coming months.

CEO Vanessa Hudson framed the decision around technology overhaul rather than headcount alone. "The scale and speed of change in this space is unprecedented and unlike anything businesses have seen in generations," she said. "Leading organisations around the world are well progressed in using technology and AI to completely transform how they work, and standing still is not an option for us."

She added: "We need to reinvent the processes, platforms and data behind our business so we can innovate faster and deliver a better, more connected experience for our customers and our people."

What does this change for Qantas's cost base?

The driver is a legacy IT estate that the airline says includes more than 1,000 applications "that were never designed to work together". Qantas states that modernising these systems and connecting the data across them is "the critical next step to remove complexity, unlock innovation and accelerate the group's use of AI, with lasting benefits across the business".

Hudson said Accenture "has a global track record of doing this work for large organisations, including other airlines" and brings both the capability to design the transformation jointly and the capacity to deliver it.

On the workforce impact, she struck a conciliatory tone. "We know this will be difficult news for some of our people and this decision is not a reflection of their contribution or commitment," Hudson said. The airline says it is focused on redeployment into other roles across the group, including new roles being created in Australia, alongside reskilling, retraining and ongoing support.

The reduction of 850 positions comes in lower than an earlier internal figure. A memo sighted by The Australian Financial Review in August discussed outsourcing up to 1,000 jobs via the Accenture partnership, potentially through a combination of AI use and offshoring.

At that time, Qantas pledged to be "open and transparent" with staff and arranged for a team to travel to India with Accenture to investigate further.

A long-running AI strategy

The Accenture deal builds on groundwork Qantas laid publicly earlier this year. In January, Hudson said the carrier had been "laying the foundations" to scale AI usage "across the business" and argued Australia must move quickly on what she called "unprecedented" opportunities.

"Despite all the doomsday scenarios about the impact on jobs, the reality is AI isn't going to replace most jobs needed to operate an airline," Hudson said in January. "For us, AI is about working smarter and delivering a better experience for customers and providing the tools to set our employees up for success."

She pointed to applications spanning predictive maintenance, flight planning and HR functions, comparing the coming shift to the arrival of email, computers and iPads over past decades.

The partnership sits alongside the largest fleet renewal in Qantas's history, meaning the group is simultaneously retooling its aircraft and its corporate machinery. With first job impacts not expected until mid-2027 and further reductions rolled out "over the coming years", the Shape of the restructuring — and how many roles ultimately survive in Australia — will become clear only gradually.