The move may affect jobs at restaurants linked to Premier Inn sites across Oxfordshire.
Whitbread, the parent company of Premier Inn, revealed intentions to cut approximately 3,800 roles across the UK and Ireland alongside shuttering every remaining Beefeater and Brewers Fayre site. This represents a strategic repositioning as part of a five-year business plan revision triggered by recent tax rises.
Over recent years, Whitbread has substantially grown its Premier Inn estate in Oxfordshire, opening sites in Abingdon, central Oxford near the Westgate Centre, and Botley. Some of these Oxfordshire properties have already remodelled their restaurants into the Thyme brand, although some classic Beefeater and Brewers Fayre outlets remain open.
The sites still operating include the Longwall Beefeater in Cowley, the Brewers Fayre at the Bicester Premier Inn, the Beefeater at the Kidlington (Airport) Hotel in Oxford, and the Applecart Beefeater next to the Didcot Premier Inn.
About 12 percent of Whitbread’s 30,000 UK and Ireland workforce employed at Beefeater and Brewers Fayre locations will face impact. The business stated that formal talks with affected staff would begin shortly.
Whitbread expects to keep a substantial portion of those affected and intends to redeploy them into different roles. The company highlighted that it typically recruits roughly 15,000 people each year.
The country’s biggest hotel operator had already started converting some underperforming Beefeater and Brewers Fayre sites into additional hotel rooms and now intends to roll this out across the remaining 197 venues.
This transformation entails Whitbread selling and leaseback arrangements worth £1.5 billion in freehold assets.
According to Dominic Paul, Whitbread’s chief executive, the company’s intention is to convert all remaining branded restaurants to a unified food and beverage concept that hotel guests prefer, enabling them to add more highly profitable extension rooms. The continued focus on commercial execution and operational efficiency will strengthen market leadership and allow the company to capture additional market share from competitors, many of whom face growth challenges.
Whitbread warned in late 2025 that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ 2025 budget tax measures would add £50 million in costs this year, resulting from changes to business rates calculations. This follows prior pressures from rising labour costs and escalating food expenses.
More than 800 Premier Inn sites operate throughout the UK.
The Beefeater brand, launched in 1974 and famous for serving steaks and classic pub meals, along with the Brewers Fayre chain, are now set to vanish from British high streets.
Residents in Abingdon expressed sadness when the Ock Mill Beefeater attached to the former Premier Inn on Marcham Road closed in 2023. The building now belongs to The Unicorn School and is being converted for educational use.
The jobs cuts announcement came as Whitbread revealed that revenues for the year ending February 26 stayed level with the same period the previous year.