Tesco is set to lay off up to 25% of its in-house legal team as part of a programme of cuts that will see the supermarket giant cut around a quarter of its staff across its head offices.

The company announced this morning (28 June) that more than 1,200 jobs would be lost in its head offices in Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield. The news comes after it announced last week that it would close its Cardiff call centre, putting a further 1,100 jobs at risk.

Tesco is currently executing a turnaround plan, with the aim of reducing costs by £1.5bn.

Tesco declined to confirm the exact size of its legal team, but when group general counsel Adrian Morris joined the company in late 2012, Legal Week reported that the team comprised about 200 lawyers, including 57 based in the UK.

According to the supermarket's website, the UK legal team is based at its Welwyn Garden City office.

A Tesco spokesperson said: "Over the past three years we have been making changes to improve the way we serve our shoppers better and are seeing good progress. However, the retail environment remains challenging.

"We have already responded by making changes to simplify the way we operate our stores and distribution, and now we are introducing further changes to improve the way we run our office. Whenever we make changes, our priority is to inform our colleagues first and we are working to support those affected."

Tesco recently reached an agreement with the Serious Fraud Office to pay a £129m fine to avoid prosecution for overstating its profits in 2014, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Kingsley Napley advising. Freshfields is Tesco's go-to firm for corporate and commercial matters, acting on major M&A deals such as this year's £3.7bn acquisition of Booker.