Santander Reviews

3.8

71% would recommend to a friend

(8,356 total reviews)
avatar

Héctor Grisi

87% approve of CEO

58% positive business outlook

Santander has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 8,356 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Santander employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Finance industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

8K reviews
1.0
24 Mar 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The work life balance is reasonable. That is the sole "pro" that could be attributed to this company.

Cons

If you only read this first line - don't even contemplate working here. It will drive you to depression and hating your life, it really is that bad. The main issue is that the company is full of dead wood and dinosaurs. The business model was to take over lots of different banks and merge them to the San brand. This has left an incredible amount of incompetent people within the company, often in senior positions. I see the issue...it would cost a lot of money to make these people redundant, but it is what would be required to properly move forward. HR are a complete waste of space, the pay is relatively poor and the employee perks are essentially non-existent. You don't even get free hot drinks, and they seemed so proud when they stopped charging for hot water...! Oh, but then there are no fridges or milk so this is rendered fairly useless anyway. The graduate scheme isn't that at all - using the word "scheme" is a complete disgrace. No training, awful work and no career prospects or guidance. I cannot stress enough how choosing Santander as a graduate option is pretty much career suicide before you've even got going. If you do work there as a grad, get out as soon as you can - start applying elsewhere from day 1. I could go on but I've wasted enough of my life with this place - it really was the worst time of my life, and I'm certainly not alone in thinking this. I just hope this will persuade anyone thinking of getting a job here not to!

1.0
29 Jan 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1) Due to 3% interest paid by 123 account, Santander got a lot of good customers. 2) Large company.

Cons

1) No review done for the staff performance and no 1:2:1 as it supposed to be. Staff review are seems to be a joke. 2) Favouritism is very high within Management therefore if you need to get a good bonus, promotion or save your job without any issues then you need to be a beck and call for at least one of the senior managers in the company. 3) Very little data security and gossips are very high on the agenda. Senior managers mark you most of the time according to gossip rather than your actual work. 4) Spent extra time how to copy stuff from other companies, if it look good on the paper without having any knowledge why the other company has implemented these procedures, values, behaviours, etc. therefore not follow the rules by most of the management but these manager’s managed to get away nicely. 5) Santander is very quick to ruin someone’s career without thinking or investigating the issues accurately. 6) Very good in taking short cuts to save few Pounds (every possible occasion). 7) There is no other word, it is below third class management.

3.0
17 Jul 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Some amazing people still left (but very few) Good pension and benefits

Cons

People with any entrepreneurial spirit or wanting to make a change are no longer encouraged to be themselves. Push to get everyone into an office for no real reason under the banner of “collaboration” but it’s really to justify having the space. So many people being made redundant there’s a fear whenever you get an invite to meet with your line manager. Presentism is now the go to standard.

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Glassdoor has 24,611 Santander reviews submitted anonymously by Santander employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Santander is right for you.