Barclays assessment 2026: cognitive tests, personality & business meeting

Updated September 2026 · 13 min read · Banking · 85,000+ employees worldwide

Barclays is one of the UK's largest banks and a highly competitive graduate employer. The recruitment process is multi-stage and specifically designed to evaluate both cognitive ability and alignment with Barclays' RISES values framework.

Barclays recruitment stages

Stage 1: Online application. Standard details plus motivation questions. Barclays screens applications, so your motivational answers need substance — reference specific Barclays initiatives, recent news, or business areas that interest you.

Stage 2: Barclays Online Assessment (three parts).

Part 1 — Cognitive Ability Assessment. As of 2026, Barclays uses the SHL Verify Interactive format: an activity-based test with drag-and-drop data interaction. 24 questions in approximately 36 minutes, mixing deductive reasoning (logic puzzles, calendar scheduling), inductive reasoning (pattern recognition), and numerical reasoning (profit/loss calculations, data interpretation from charts). You might be asked to schedule meetings on a calendar one moment and calculate year-on-year revenue growth the next. You must answer all questions — unanswered questions reduce your score. A calculator is available.

Specific question breakdown: 12 questions across numerical reasoning (percentages, ratios, chart reading), supplemented by inductive and verbal reasoning. Time limit for the numerical section alone: approximately 10 minutes. The test is considered challenging primarily because of the tight time limit and the need to switch rapidly between different reasoning types.

Part 2 — Barclays Values and Mindset Assessment. This is Barclays' official name for what candidates often just call the "personality" or "mindset" stage — a tailored version of SHL's widely-used OPQ32 personality questionnaire, adapted specifically to evaluate fit against the RISES values framework. The format is triplet forced-choice: you're shown three statements at once and pick the one that best describes you, then from the two remaining statements pick the one that's more like you. Barclays presents roughly 75 of these triplet sets, and while there's no hard time limit, it typically takes 20-25 minutes to complete. Evaluates your traits and characteristics against the requirements of the specific role you've applied for. While there are no "right" answers in theory, responses that align with the RISES values and the demands of banking (attention to detail, client focus, ethical judgment) score better.

Part 3 — Mindset Assessment (situational component). Evaluates your work-related tendencies, approach, and behaviours through workplace scenarios where you choose how you'd respond — Barclays' SJT component, distinct from the triplet-statement format used in Part 2. Every answer should reflect the RISES values.

Stage 3: HireVue video interview. Pre-recorded video interview with competency and motivation questions. Barclays uses HireVue with AI-assisted evaluation. Dress professionally, look into the camera, and structure answers using STAR format.

Stage 4: Barclays Business Meeting (assessment centre). An immersive 3.5-5 hour session, often in-person. Includes a project-based case study exercise specific to your business area, written summaries of business reports, video message recordings in response to line manager queries, and e-tray exercises. This is where you demonstrate both analytical skills and Barclays cultural fit.

A second stage of the Business Insight assessment is more grounded in the specific business area of your role — expect deeper, more role-specific scenarios with questions answered through multiple-choice and video responses. This stage is timed at approximately 45 minutes.

What ties these stages together is that Barclays is evaluating the same underlying RISES-alignment signal in three different formats — a written or spoken questionnaire in the Online Assessment, spoken competency answers on HireVue, and live team behaviour at the Business Meeting. A candidate whose responses drift across formats (claiming strong Service orientation on the personality questionnaire but showing little client-focus in the Business Meeting's group exercise, for example) reads as less credible than one whose behaviour is consistent throughout, which is why genuinely reflecting on your own real values before you start Stage 2 tends to serve candidates better than trying to strategically optimise each stage separately.

Preparation strategy

For the cognitive assessment: Practice SHL Verify Interactive format tests. Focus on speed — 36 minutes for 24 questions across three reasoning types means you have roughly 90 seconds per question, including switching between completely different question types. Practise transitioning between numerical calculations and logical puzzles rapidly.

For the personality and mindset assessments: Review the RISES values thoroughly. For each value, think of 2-3 specific examples from your experience. In forced-choice items, select responses that reflect Service and Integrity — Barclays places heavy emphasis on client-first and ethical behaviour.

What the e-tray exercise actually tests

The e-tray exercise embedded in the Business Meeting stage is worth understanding in its own right, since it's structurally different from anything earlier in the process. You're placed in the position of a new starter with a full inbox of emails, documents, voicemails, and requests that have accumulated — some urgent, some routine, some genuinely irrelevant to the task at hand — and asked to work through them, typically prioritising, responding, and making decisions under a firm time limit. Unlike the earlier cognitive tests, there's no single correct answer sequence; you're assessed on prioritisation judgement (does the most urgent, highest-impact item get handled first, or does a lower-priority email consume time it shouldn't), communication quality in your written responses, and whether your decisions show genuine commercial and risk awareness. Candidates who try to answer every item with equal depth typically run out of time and end up rushing the genuinely important ones — deliberately triaging first, before drafting any responses, tends to produce noticeably stronger results than working through the inbox strictly in the order items arrived.