# Canva's 1,271 Isn't a Layoff Count. Call the Ones Asked to Move to Sydney

_Canva's 1,271 mixes layoffs, role changes and Sydney relocations. Here is how to find the London and Nottingham engineers facing a move, and when to call them._

- Canonical URL: https://www.refolk.ai/blog/canva-1271-restructure-relocate-sydney-hire-engineers
- Published: 2026-11-15
- Reading time: 9 min
- Keywords: Canva layoffs 2026, Canva restructure relocate Sydney, hire Canva engineers, Canva Nottingham Affinity layoffs, source laid off design software engineers

On November 4, 2026, Melanie Perkins said 1,271 Canva roles, 22% of a company spread across 37 countries, are affected by a restructure. Read that as a layoff count and you'll call the wrong list. The people most likely to take your call are the London and Nottingham engineers who still have a job and have just been asked to move to Sydney.

## What Canva's 1,271 actually counts

Canva's 1,271 counts roles in scope, not jobs lost. It includes layoffs, rewritten roles, and people "being asked to relocate to centralised hubs," in Perkins' own words.

Canva hasn't said how many positions it is eliminating. It also hasn't said how many roles are relocating or how many employees will be asked to move. What it has said:

- Product, growth and platform merge into a single product organisation.
- Sydney becomes the main base for more product teams, pulling roles in from a workforce spread across 37 countries.
- Most hybrid staff are expected in the office 2 to 3 days a week from January.
- Some roles at the Nottingham campus (the former Serif, maker of Affinity) are affected. Canva confirmed this on November 13 but wouldn't give a local number.

(Fast Company dates Perkins' post to November 3. Most outlets say November 4. That's probably the gap between Sydney and US time.)

> **1,271** Canva roles in scope of the November 2026 restructure
>
> That's 22% of staff, and Canva hasn't said how many of them are actually losing their jobs.

So "Canva layoffs 2026" covers three different groups of people. Each needs a different message on a different schedule.

## Why the relocation group matters more than the laid-off group

The people asked to move have a deadline. The people laid off have at least six months of runway. That gap in urgency is why your outreach should start with the relocation group.

Fortune called Canva's exit package "a master class in how to handle layoffs," and the terms back that up:

- At least six months' salary.
- 12 months of healthcare where Canva provides it.
- Coaching and a year of LinkedIn Premium.
- Departing staff keep their MacBooks.
- The one-year vesting cliff is removed for anyone who joined in the past year. (A vesting cliff is the waiting period before any equity vests at all.)
- Eligible leavers can apply for $10,000 grants to start something, with Canva taking no equity.

Perkins also shared her email address and asked leaders with job openings to contact her directly. Any hiring manager who saw the post now has a direct line to the laid-off pool.

Put that together and the mechanism is clear. A laid-off Canva engineer has at least six months' salary, no vesting cliff to lose if they joined in the past year, and offers arriving through the CEO. They can afford to wait for the best offer. Looking urgent won't move them.

The engineer asked to relocate is in a different position. They have a job, a life in London or Nottingham, and a choice to make before the January office-day rule kicks in. Canva hasn't said publicly whether turning down a move counts as redundancy. If it doesn't, leaving could mean walking away from the package above. That uncertainty is exactly why they'll take a call now.

> A laid-off Canva engineer has six months of runway. One who's been asked to move to Sydney has a deadline.

## Where Canva's product engineers actually sit

Engineering, product and design profiles with "Canva" in the headline are overwhelmingly in Australia, with a small, senior cluster in the UK and a handful in the Philippines. In Refolk's index of professional profiles, the gap between Australia and the UK is about 24 to 1.

The filter was simple: Software Engineer, Senior SWE, Staff SWE, Engineering Manager, PM or Product Designer, with "Canva" in the headline.

| Market | Matches | What the top-25 sample shows |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 732 | 24 of 25 currently at Canva; 11 in Sydney or Greater Sydney |
| United Kingdom | 30 | 16 Canva, 3 Flourish, 2 Affinity, 1 Pexels; 12 are Senior SWEs |
| Philippines | 5 | 3 Product Designers; 4 currently at Canva |
| UK as share of Australia | 4.1% | Australia has about 24x the matches |

These are headline-keyword matches, so they undercount anyone who doesn't write "Canva" in their headline. That gap matters more than it sounds, and the next section explains why.

Two things follow from the table.

**Australia is the crowded market.** With 732 matches, almost every Australian employer will be chasing Canva alumni at once. If you're hiring in Melbourne or Sydney, you're competing with everyone.

**The UK pool is small and senior.** Thirty profiles, with 12 of the top-25 sample at Senior SWE level. Thirteen of those 25 are in the London area and three are in the East Midlands (Nottingham, Derby, Grantham). Figma and Photoroom both appear as current employers in the sample, so other design-tool companies are already hiring from this group.

There aren't many candidates, and each one is worth a lot. For a recruiter outside Australia, that's a better position to be in than fighting over 732 people.

> **24%** UK Canva profiles in the sample that list an acquired brand as current employer
>
> 6 of 25 say Flourish, Affinity or Pexels instead of Canva.

## Search the product surface, not the parent company

To hire Canva engineers outside Australia, search for Flourish, Affinity, Serif and Pexels alongside Canva. In the UK sample, about a quarter list one of those as their employer.

A product surface is the specific product an engineer actually builds, as opposed to the company that owns it. Acquired teams keep their original brand long after the deal closes. Flourish, the London data-visualisation company, even kept its logo on the company cups. People put what they work on in their profiles, and for these teams that's Flourish or Affinity, not Canva.

That's why a search for "Canva" in London undercounts. The 30 UK matches are a floor. The engineers most likely to be consolidated into Sydney are the ones most likely to be missing from that search, because they sit in acquired product groups that have kept their own identity.

The search terms that actually work:

1. **Flourish** plus London. This is the data-visualisation team, and Canva's Europe lead is Flourish co-founder Duncan Clark.
2. **Affinity** or **Serif** plus Nottingham. Serif employed about 90 people in Nottingham when Canva bought it in 2024, under then-CEO Ashley Hewson.
3. **Pexels**, which shows up in the UK sample.

Doing this by hand means running every brand-and-city pair, then checking each result to confirm the person actually worked on the product. That checking step is the gap [Refolk](/) closes: you describe the person in plain English, including the product they worked on and the city they live in, and get back a ranked shortlist across LinkedIn, GitHub and the open web, whatever their headline says.

> **Example search:** "Senior software engineers in London or Nottingham who worked on Flourish, Affinity or Serif at Canva, with rendering, graphics or data-visualisation experience" - [run it on Refolk](https://www.refolk.ai/s/tyjny10dvn)
>
> A ranked list of engineers matched by the product they built rather than the employer on their headline, with links to their GitHub and public work.

## London first, Nottingham second, Manila unknown, Austin mostly sales

London's data-viz engineers are the most likely to be asked to move, Nottingham is the confirmed site of cuts, Manila's engineering footprint is unclear, and Austin is mainly a go-to-market office. Rank your calls in that order.

### London

Core product-design engineering already sits in Australia, while the data-visualisation team is in London. Canva's stated aim is to bring teams that need close collaboration into Sydney, and product, growth and platform are now one org. An offshore product team like Flourish is the obvious one to consolidate. That's an inference, not an announcement, but the incentives all point that way.

The UK pool is heavy on Senior SWEs, and 52% of the UK sample sits in the London area. These are people who chose to live in London. A move to Sydney is a large ask.

> **Engineering roles open in London** - [see the open roles](https://www.refolk.ai/jobs/search?family=engineering&location=london)
>
> Live engineering postings in the city where Canva's data-visualisation team is based.

### Nottingham

Cuts at Nottingham are confirmed, but the number isn't. Against a baseline of about 90 Serif staff in 2024, even a modest cut touches a meaningful share of the site. Engineers there who are asked to relocate face the same move-or-leave choice as London, with Sydney even further from the life they've built. A credible remote or East Midlands-friendly offer stands out.

### Manila

One directory describes Manila as a full engineering hub, but only 5 Philippines profiles match in Refolk's index, and 3 of those are Product Designers. Either Manila engineers don't put "Canva" in their headlines, or the hub leans toward design and operations. I can't tell which from the data. Don't plan a Manila engineering campaign until you've checked it with a product-surface search.

### Austin

Sources describe Austin as Canva's main US base for go-to-market work. Most affected people there will be in sales and enterprise roles, not engineering. If you're hiring account executives, it's worth a look. If you're trying to source laid-off design software engineers, it isn't.

## How to time outreach around the January deadline

Reach the relocation group before January, when the 2 to 3 office-day rule starts and the move-or-leave decision gets real. Reach the laid-off group later, once the first wave of CEO-forwarded offers has passed.

A workable calendar:

- **November to mid-December: relocation group.** They're weighing a move against their life in London or Nottingham. A conversation now is an option they can put next to Sydney. Waiting until January means competing with whatever they've already decided.
- **December: Nottingham specifically.** Canva has confirmed cuts there but not how many local staff are affected. A calm, specific message lands better than a mass InMail.
- **February onward: laid-off group.** With six months' pay, they'll field the Perkins-referred offers first. Your offer looks better once the easy options are gone and the founder-grant ideas have met reality.

The valuation context also matters. Backers Blackbird Ventures and Airtree marked Canva down from $41.8bn to $34bn. For an engineer asked to move across the world to protect equity that has just been marked down, "stay where you live" is worth more than it was before the markdown.

## What to say in the first message

Lead with location, then the work, then timing. Don't lead with urgency or with the restructure.

The relocation group doesn't need reminding that they're under pressure. What they need is a credible alternative that keeps their life where it is. A message that works:

- **Opens with the place.** "This role is London-based, hybrid, and isn't moving."
- **Names their product surface.** Mention Flourish or Affinity by name. It shows you didn't just search "Canva."
- **Respects their timeline.** "If you're weighing a decision before January, I'm happy to move at your pace."
- **Asks a small question.** A 20-minute call, not an application.

Writing the message is the easy part. Finding the right handful out of 30 UK profiles is the hard part, and hiring for a single senior graphics or data-visualisation role from a pool this small can still take weeks of searching, cross-checking and cold outreach before you get one real conversation. If you'd rather start with candidates who have already been screened and opted in, that's a different route.

## FAQ

### How many people is Canva actually laying off?

Canva hasn't said. The 1,271 figure, 22% of staff, covers layoffs, role changes and requests to relocate to centralised hubs like Sydney. Canva hasn't disclosed how many positions are being eliminated or how many employees are being asked to move, so treat 1,271 as an upper bound on disruption, not a count of job losses.

### Where should recruiters look to hire Canva engineers outside Australia?

Start in London and Nottingham. In Refolk's index, the UK has 30 engineering, product and design profiles with "Canva" in the headline, with 12 of a 25-profile sample at Senior SWE level, compared with 732 in Australia. Search for Flourish, Affinity, Serif and Pexels as well as Canva, because about a quarter of the UK sample lists an acquired brand as their employer.

### What is happening with the Canva Nottingham Affinity team?

Canva confirmed on November 13 that some roles at its Nottingham campus were affected but wouldn't say how many. The site came from the 2024 Serif acquisition, when Serif employed about 90 people there. Some staff may also face relocation requests, so approach engineers with a role that doesn't require them to leave the East Midlands.

### When is the best time to contact Canva staff asked to relocate to Sydney?

Before January. That's when most hybrid staff are expected in the office 2 to 3 days a week, which forces the move-or-leave decision. Laid-off staff get at least six months' salary and other support, so they can wait. The relocation group can't, and a London- or Nottingham-based offer gives them a real alternative to Sydney.

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_From the Refolk blog. More posts: https://www.refolk.ai/blog/index.md_