Is Revolut’s recruitment drive paying off?
In a report last week, we found that Revolut’s revenue per employee rose 43% in 2023 compared to 2022. This week, we compared the neobank to five of its competitors – namely Monzo, PayPal, Remitly, Starling and Wise – to explore how well it is driving efficiency while growing its workforce.
Revolut’s total number of employees rose 38% to 8,152 by the end of 2023. Based on FY 2023 revenues of £1.8bn, or $2.2bn, calculated from the average GBP to USD exchange rate for the period, the company saw a revenue per employee of $274k (£221k).
This puts the company behind Remitly’s figure for FY 2023 ($350k) and Monzo’s FY 2024 figure ($295k), but ahead of FY 2024 figures for Starling Bank ($234k) and Wise ($240k). We used the latest financial year (FY 2024) for some companies as this tracks the annual period up to March 2024, and therefore gives a better sense of the companies’ most recent annual performance.
Aside from Revolut, several players have significantly increased their employee numbers in their most recent annual results, including Wise, which grew by 25% to more than 5,500 employees by the end of FY 24; Starling, which grew by 33% to 3,660; and Monzo, which grew 47% to 3,736 employees, though this was over a 13-month period up to the end of March 2024 as the company changed its financial year to end in March instead of February.
Founded more than 16 years before Revolut, PayPal had by far the highest FY revenues for 2023 ($29.8bn) and employee number (27,200). However, the latter was down by 9% YoY after the company significantly cut its workforce to reduce costs. This was one of several big layoffs the industry saw last year amid headwinds from a tougher economic environment.
On the other hand, employee numbers continue to rise for digital challenges. Revolut’s strong results for FY 2023 will underline further investment in its workforce, with the company saying in April it wants to expand its workforce to 11,500 by the end of 2024. While the company’s staff costs grew in 2023 by 38% to £498m ($620m), its gross profit grew by 114% to £1.37bn ($1.70bn), showing that it continues to drive efficiency. However, the neobank has been helped by a significant growth in interest income in 2023, which may not translate into sustainable growth if this environment changes in the future.
Read ‘Revolut’s revenue diversification: Inside its FY 2023 results’
