AI means NatWest is hiring a new breed of banker

TOM SAUNDERS

Fri, February 13, 2026 at 10:54 PM GMT+9 2 min read

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Paul Thwaite, NatWest’s chief executive, says banks are looking for ‘different graduates’ than in the past - Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg

Young people should study tech rather than traditional subjects like maths and finance if they want a career in banking, the boss of NatWest has said.

Paul Thwaite, the chief executive, said banks were looking for “very different” graduates from those hired in the past amid the coming boom in artificial intelligence (AI).

He said data scientists, software engineers, architecture planners and “prompt engineers” – people who design instructions for AI tools – were the new breed of banker he was seeking to hire.

“The profile of graduates that we recruit today, and we’ll do in future years, is very different, for example, to what we were recruiting four or five years ago,” he said.

NatWest hires around 250 graduates every year, spread across tech, commercial banking, risk management and financial crime.

As a student, Thwaite studied management science and chemistry at the University of Manchester, then joined Santander’s graduate scheme before switching to NatWest.

In a sign of its growing tech focus, the bank has invested £1.2bn across the group in AI and simplification in an effort to cut costs.

AI is already being employed in areas such as customer service and it said using AI to handle complaints had led to saving around 90,000 hours per year.

Overall, the bank reported pre-tax profits of £7.7bn over the year, up a quarter from 2024 and the highest since before the financial crisis that forced NatWest into a government bailout. Shares in the bank were down by 1.8pc by mid-morning.

Mr Thwaite received £6.6m in pay over the year, up from £4.9m in 2024, making him the best-paid boss of the bank since 2010. NatWest also announced plans for a £750m share buyback programme.

NatWest unveiled a £2.7bn deal to buy wealth manager Evelyn Partners on Monday as it looks to diversify away from traditional lending.

The acquisition is the bank’s largest since its £49bn deal for ABN Amro in 2007, a takeover which precipitated its near collapse and state bailout during the financial crisis.

Shares in NatWest have fallen around 10pc since news of the acquisition, amid concerns that the bank might have overpaid.

However, Mr Thwaite said he believed that the drop in the share price was to do with the wider economic and political uncertainty.

“It’s been a pretty volatile week for a whole host of sectors. You had some of the political disruption at the start of the week and economic disruption, not just domestically, but also internationally,” he said.

“I’m not worried because it’s the acquisition of a strategic asset,” he added. “It’s very attractive from a growth perspective.”

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