Snyk Cut 203, Not 90: How to Size Layoffs From Companies House Filings

In June, the Snyk layoff was reported as 90 people out of roughly 1,550. On October 1, Tech.eu reported what Snyk's UK accounts at Companies House actually say: about 203 people, roughly 20% of the group, measured against 990 staff at the end of 2025. If you sourced from the June number, you sized the talent pool at less than half of what it really was, and you may not have noticed.

What did Snyk's Companies House filing actually show?

Snyk's FY2025 accounts describe "a reduction in force involving approximately 203 employees, representing approximately 20 per cent of the group's total current global workforce." In June, the press said 90.

The same reporting puts a price on the cut and shows the state of the business around it:

• Cost: $12.8 million to $13.8 million, covering notice-period and severance payments. That works out to roughly $63k to $68k per person.
• Write-offs: The Helios and Enso technology had a combined gross cost of $6.3 million and a carrying value of zero at December 31, 2025, which led to a $3.2 million charge.
• Financials: Revenue rose 11% to $309m in 2025, while losses grew from $169m to $189m.
• Headcount: 990 full-time employees at year-end 2025, down from 1,162 a year earlier.

This was Snyk's fourth round of layoffs. It came after CEO Peter McKay stepped down in February 2026, and interim CEO Ken MacAskill was in charge when it happened.

One caveat on the table: the 1,550 figure is from June 2026 and the 990 is from December 2025. Headcount was falling between those two dates, so the real gap between profiles and employees is probably wider than the table shows.

Why were the June numbers wrong in both directions?

Both halves of the fraction were wrong. The 90 came from an email Globes reported on, and the 1,550 was a LinkedIn profile count, which overstates how many people a company employs.

Globes described the email as going to "about 90 of the company's employees in Israel and the rest of the world." It took the 1,550 base, and the figure of about 90 Israeli staff, from LinkedIn. Divide 90 by 1,550 and you get 5.8%. Divide 203 by 990 and you get about 20%. A count that was too small, set against a base that was too big, made a one-in-five cut look like a trim.

Profile counts run high for two reasons, and the statutory figure counts neither:

1. Profiles outlive employment. Former employees keep listing the company after they leave.
2. Contractors appear on profile counts. UK law doesn't count contractors or agency workers as employees.

2.26x

Rumor overshot just as far in the other direction. An r/cybersecurity thread claiming cuts of "up to 30%" got 563 upvotes and 105 comments before the AppSec Santa newsletter checked the claim. A sourcer who planned around the press number built a pool half the right size. One who trusted Reddit overstated it. The filing was the only source the law required to get the number right.

Which parts of UK accounts reveal a layoff?

Three parts matter: the average employee note required by Companies Act s411, the post-balance-sheet events note, and any restructuring provision or staff-cost line. The events note is the one most likely to name a recent cut outright.

The average employee number

Under Companies Act s411, the notes to a company's annual accounts must disclose the average number of people it employed during the financial year. Companies outside the small-company regime also have to break that number down by category. The ACCA confirms this note can't be "filleted," meaning it can't be stripped out of the version filed at Companies House. That makes Companies House employee numbers some of the few headcount figures a company is legally required to publish.

Three things to know before you trust it:

• It's a headcount, not full-time equivalents. Two part-timers count as two people.
• Contractors and agency workers aren't included.
• Seconded staff aren't included either, because their employment contract is with another company.

The average also moves slowly. Anyone who leaves during a month counts as employed for that whole month, so a June cut only partly shows up in the next year's average. If you compare averages year on year, you'll always see a layoff late and smaller than it was.

The post-balance-sheet events note

Snyk's financial year ended December 31, 2025. The cut happened in June 2026, before the FY2025 accounts were signed, so it appeared in those accounts as a post-balance-sheet event. That's why the 203 figure surfaced in October 2026, about three months after the cut, rather than a year later.

Restructuring provisions and staff costs

When a filing gives you a restructuring cost but no headcount, divide the cost by a plausible figure per person to estimate how many people it covers. Snyk's $12.8m to $13.8m range lines up with 203 people at about $63k to $68k each. Then check the staff-cost breakdown to see which categories shrank.

The average headcount tells you a layoff happened. The events note tells you how big it was, a year sooner.

Which legal entity are you actually reading?

Only a group parent's accounts show global headcount. A UK subsidiary of a foreign company only reports people on UK employment contracts. Snyk files as a UK group parent, so its accounts captured cuts that took place in the US and Israel.

This is the easiest mistake to make with a UK company headcount lookup. Search Companies House for a US-headquartered company and you may find only a UK subsidiary. Its accounts will report the UK staff and say nothing about cuts elsewhere. Before you read any numbers, check two things:

• Is this the parent or a subsidiary?
• Are these group or company-only accounts? Look for "consolidated" in the title of the statements.

If the UK entity is a subsidiary, its filing is still useful for sizing UK cuts. It just won't tell you about the global picture.

Why can't WARN notices catch layoffs like this?

WARN is US-only and has thresholds. It applies when an employer has 100 or more full-time employees, the layoffs last over six months, and they affect at least 50 full-time employees. It does nothing for layoffs in Israel, London, or anywhere else outside the US.

Snyk's cuts landed in the US and Israel. My search found no Snyk WARN notice. That doesn't prove none exists, but a cut split between US staff and a foreign office may never meet a filing threshold. Here's how each signal handled Snyk:

Companies House is the slowest of these, but it's the only one where the law requires the number to be disclosed.

Do layoff trackers double-count?

Yes. Aggregators log news coverage rather than events, so a late filing story can show up as a second layoff. Interviewpal now lists two Snyk layoff events in 2026 totaling 293 employees, which is the June 90 plus the October 203. TrueUp also lists an October 2026 event.

There was one cut, of about 203 people. If you use trackers to decide which companies to mine for candidates, treat every "new" event that comes a few months after an earlier one as a possible restatement. Check it against the filing before you double your outreach.

Where did Snyk's leavers go, and how do you source them?

The cuts landed in the US and Israel, and in Israel the top employers of AppSec engineers are SaaS product companies, not security vendors. A search for exact job titles at security firms will miss most of these people.

In Refolk's index of professional profiles, 133 people in the UK currently hold an AppSec or Product Security Engineer title. In Israel the number is 37, so the UK has 3.6x as many. In Israel, the top employers for that title are WalkMe (3), Gong (2), Fiverr, and LinearB, all product companies. In the UK, the top three are Meta, Santander, and Boeing.

That gap matters for sourcing laid off engineers. Snyk alone had about 90 Israeli staff on LinkedIn, while the whole country has only 37 people with an AppSec title. Snyk's Israeli leavers are a large cohort relative to that market, and they will probably move into AppSec work at product companies, often under titles that don't say "AppSec." Searching for "Application Security Engineer" finds the 37 and misses most of the rest.

A better way to cut the cohort:

• Acquired teams first. Helios (founded by Eli Cohen and Ran Nozik) and Enso Security were both written down to zero in the same accounts. People whose history runs Helios or Enso, then Snyk, are where I'd start.
• Search by employer history, not title. Look for "ex-Snyk" plus a 2026 end date, whatever their current title is.
• Product-company landing spots. Watch WalkMe, Gong, Fiverr, and LinearB for new security hires.

Title-and-keyword search breaks down for this kind of cohort, which is the gap Refolk closes. You describe the person in plain English and get back a ranked shortlist, so profiles with an unhelpful title still show up.

Timing is the hard part. The filing came out about three months after the June cut. By then a 203-person cohort has had a full quarter to find work, and the people still worth reaching are scattered across job titles no saved search will catch. For a hard-to-fill security role, starting a cold search from the filing date means starting a quarter behind.

FAQ

Are Companies House employee numbers reliable?

They're the most reliable public headcount figures available, because s411 requires them and they can't be filleted out of filed accounts. Read them for what they are: an average headcount over the year, excluding contractors, agency workers, and seconded staff. They lag reality, but they aren't padded the way profile counts are.

How long after a layoff does it appear in a filing?

It depends on when the cut falls relative to the financial year-end and the signing date. Snyk's June 2026 cut appeared in accounts reported on October 1, 2026, because it happened before the FY2025 accounts were signed and was disclosed as a post-balance-sheet event. A cut that falls after signing waits for the next year's accounts, and even then the s411 average only partly reflects it.

Does this work for US companies?

Only partly. If a US company has a UK group parent, as Snyk does, its filing shows the global workforce. If it only has a UK subsidiary, the filing shows UK employment contracts and nothing more. That's still useful for sizing UK cuts, which WARN never covers.

How big is Snyk now?

The filing gives 990 full-time employees at the end of 2025. Subtract the roughly 203 people cut in June and you get about 787, which assumes no rehiring and would put Snyk around 32% below its end-2024 headcount of 1,162. Treat that as an estimate until the FY2026 accounts are filed.