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What are the Barclays aptitude test questions? (every test type explained)
When Barclays invites you to its online assessment, called Business Insight Stage 1, you meet one sitting made of several parts, not a single paper. The provider behind it is Cappfinity, a strengths and behaviour specialist, with SHL-style reasoning items in the mix. That structure is the first thing to get straight, because each part rewards a different skill and a different kind of practice.
The Barclays online assessment is one sitting made of five different question types, not a single test. The whole block usually runs around 35 to 45 minutes, and it sits before any human sees your application, as the first filter in the bank’s graduate and early careers hiring.
What are the Barclays tests?
The Barclays aptitude test questions split into five components. The first three are reasoning tests: numerical, verbal, and critical or logical. The fourth is a situational judgement test that puts you in short work scenarios. The fifth is the values and mindset assessment, a set of forced-choice trait questions that has no right or wrong answers. The last two parts are where otherwise-prepared candidates quietly lose easy marks, so they deserve as much of your attention as the reasoning tests.
The full list of Barclays aptitude test questions, by type
If you only remember one map of the assessment, remember this list. It answers the question most searchers are really asking, which is what shows up on screen.
- Numerical reasoning: read a table or graph and calculate a percentage, ratio, or growth figure under time pressure.
- Verbal reasoning: read a short passage and judge statements as true, false, or cannot say, plus vocabulary and inference items.
- Critical and logical reasoning: spot the next step in a pattern, and weigh assumptions, inferences, and conclusions in a short argument.
- Situational judgement: rank realistic work responses from most to least effective against how Barclays expects people to behave.
- Values and mindset: choose between workplace statements to build a picture of how you prefer to work.
| Question type | What it measures | Format | Right answer? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Numerical | Working with data at speed | Multiple choice from a table or chart | Yes |
| Verbal | Reading and judging fast | True / false / cannot say | Yes |
| Critical and logical | Reasoning about arguments and patterns | Multiple choice | Yes |
| Situational judgement | Workplace behaviour and priorities | Rank most to least effective | No single one |
| Values and mindset | How you prefer to work | Forced-choice statements | No |
This aptitude test sits alongside the broader family of screens you might meet, and if you are comparing employers it helps to see how a general aptitude test for bank jobs is put together. Barclays simply builds its own version of that pattern and adds the behaviour and mindset layer on top.
If you want to see how this plays out for you, take the career aptitude test.
Barclays numerical reasoning test questions (with a worked example)
The first of the Barclays aptitude test questions you meet is numerical reasoning, and it is where many candidates lose time. The Barclays numerical reasoning test questions almost always start from data. You are shown a table or a chart, then asked for a percentage, a ratio, or a rate of change. The arithmetic itself is school level. The pressure comes from the clock, because you have roughly a minute per item and the numbers are chosen to punish anyone who reaches for a calculator before reading the question.
On the Barclays numerical test the maths is simple; the difficulty is doing it fast, roughly a minute a question.
How do you answer Barclays numerical reasoning questions?
Work a real one. Say a table shows quarterly card transactions in millions: 82 in the first quarter, 96 in the second, 110 in the third, and 128 in the fourth. The question asks for the percentage increase from the first quarter to the fourth. Here is the five-step method that keeps you fast and accurate.
- Read the question before the table. You only need two numbers, 82 and 128, so ignore the rest.
- Find the exact cells. First quarter is 82, fourth quarter is 128. Do not slide a row by accident.
- Set up the sum once. Percentage increase is the change divided by the start: 128 minus 82, over 82.
- Estimate before you compute. The change is 46 on a base of 82, a bit over half, so the answer is near 56 percent.
- Confirm and match. 46 divided by 82 is 0.561, or about 56 percent, which will be one of the options.
Notice that the estimate did most of the work. On a timed test, ruling four options down to one with a rough figure is faster than a precise long division you might mis-key. For more drills across roles, work through some worked aptitude test questions and answers until the setup becomes automatic.
Barclays verbal reasoning test questions
The Barclays verbal reasoning test questions reward a specific discipline: read fast, decide fast, and stay inside the passage. The most common format gives you a short business passage and a statement to judge as true, false, or cannot say. The trap is smuggling in what you already know about banking instead of judging strictly by what the passage states.
Take a passage that reads: Barclays graduate schemes span investment banking, technology, and risk, and every applicant completes the online assessment before any interview. Now judge two statements. “A candidate is interviewed before taking the online assessment” is false, because the passage puts the assessment first. “Most applicants who take the assessment are invited to interview” is cannot say, because the passage gives no proportion at all.
Barclays verbal questions test how fast you read and decide, not how much you already know about the bank. Alongside true, false, or cannot say, you may meet vocabulary gap-fills, where you pick the word that fits a sentence, and inference items, where you decide what the passage lets you conclude. In every case the answer lives in the words on screen, never in your outside knowledge.
Barclays critical and logical reasoning test questions
This part runs on two overlapping strands. The logical strand shows you a sequence or pattern, often a row of shapes or symbols with one missing, and asks for the item that continues the rule. The critical strand hands you a short argument and asks you to reason about its parts. Recognising the shape of the question on sight is half the battle.
Barclays critical and logical questions reward spotting the structure of an argument before you read every word. The critical items break into four recognisable sub-types, and it is worth knowing each by name.
- Assumption: given a conclusion, decide what must be taken for granted for it to hold.
- Inference: treat the passage as true, then judge whether a further statement follows from it.
- Deduction: from two stated rules, decide whether a conclusion necessarily follows.
- Evaluate an argument: judge whether a proposed action is a strong or weak response to the situation.
Barclays situational judgement test questions (SJT)
The situational judgement test drops you into short work scenarios and asks how you would respond. There is no single correct answer. Instead you rank a set of responses from most to least effective, and your ranking is scored against how Barclays expects strong colleagues to behave.
Here is a realistic Barclays situational judgement test example. You are three weeks into a graduate rotation. A senior colleague asks you to redo a client summary by the end of the day, but you have already promised another team you would help them hit a deadline this afternoon. You might tell the senior colleague yes and let the other promise slip, try to do both at once and hope neither slips, or explain the clash to both, propose the summary first thing tomorrow, and ask which is the real priority.
The Barclays situational judgement test has no single right answer; it ranks how well your instinct matches the six competencies. The third response usually reads best, because it communicates early, weighs priorities out loud, and keeps every commitment visible rather than hiding a dropped promise.
What are the competencies that Barclays look for?
Barclays scores judgement against six named competencies, and reading them before the test tells you what “good” looks like to the assessor: Agile Learner, Relationship Navigator, Team Collaborator, Resilient Performer, Critical Analyst, and Numerical Interpreter. A strong SJT answer is usually the one that shows a learner’s curiosity, protects relationships, and keeps the team informed. Its five core values, Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence, and Stewardship, sit underneath those competencies and point the same way.
Barclays personality and mindset assessment questions
Here is the section almost every competitor guide skips, and the one that trips up prepared candidates: the Barclays values and mindset assessment. It is a forced-choice questionnaire of roughly 32 workplace-trait questions, done in about 20 to 25 minutes, where you choose which of two statements fits you better. There is no reasoning to solve, and there are no correct answers to find.
What it does have is a consistency check. The assessment repeats the same underlying traits across similar items, so answering as your idea of the perfect banker on one question and as yourself on a near-identical one leaves a visible seam. The professional body that sets standards for this kind of instrument, the British Psychological Society, is a useful reminder that a well-built assessment is designed to notice when answers do not hang together.
The Barclays personality and mindset assessment has no right answers, but it does check whether your answers stay consistent.
Barclays personality assessment answers: are there right answers?
The honest answer to the search for Barclays personality assessment answers is that there is nothing to memorise. A personality assessment for Barclays maps how you prefer to work, and the only losing move is inconsistency. Answer honestly and at a steady pace, lean gently toward the collaborative, resilient, curious end when two answers feel equally true, and resist the urge to game it, because the game is what the consistency check is built to catch.
How hard is the Barclays aptitude test, and what score do you need to pass?
People ask how hard the Barclays aptitude test questions really are, and the honest answer surprises them. Difficulty here is widely misread. The reasoning is not advanced, and the mindset section asks nothing you have to study. The hard part is speed and composure, holding a clear head while a clock runs and four plausible options sit in front of you.
Are the Barclays tests hard?
They are hard in the way a driving test is hard: not because any single question is beyond you, but because you have to perform a familiar skill smoothly while nervous and timed. Candidates who struggle almost always struggle with pace, not content, which is good news, because pace is the most trainable part of the whole assessment.
What score do I need to pass the Barclays online assessment?
Barclays rarely states an official pass mark, so any threshold you read is an estimate drawn from candidates. As a rough guide, clearing roughly the top half of applicants tends to keep you in for general routes, competitive graduate schemes look nearer the top 25 to 30 percent, and analyst or markets roles are often reported around the 75th to 85th percentile.
Barclays rarely publishes an official pass mark, so every percentile you read online is candidate-reported, not confirmed.
One caveat worth holding: treat every score figure above as a candidate-reported estimate, not a published Barclays threshold. The bar moves by scheme, by year, and by how many people apply, so aim to be comfortably fast rather than to hit a number.
Preparing for and passing the Barclays aptitude test
- Two to three weeks out: sit one full, timed practice assessment to get a baseline and find your slowest section.
- Each week: run short daily drills on that weak spot, numerical mental maths or verbal reading pace, always against a strict timer.
- Practise for speed: because these tests are built so most candidates cannot finish, train confident first decisions over a flawless final answer.
- Test day: a quiet room, a stable connection, water, paper and calculator ready, and a few slow breaths before you start.
To know which topics to drill, it helps to map the wider aptitude test syllabus so no format catches you cold, and to read some plain guidance on how psychometric tests work before you begin.
Cappfinity and SHL tests are built so most candidates cannot finish, which is why timed practice beats slow accuracy. The anxiety most people feel is normal and manageable. A short warm-up practice run on test morning settles the nerves far better than a last-minute cram, which mostly adds pressure.
The Barclays aptitude test for tech and graduate roles
For a tech graduate, the Barclays aptitude test questions look similar on the surface but weight differently underneath. Technology, analyst, and markets schemes lean harder on the numerical and logical sections, and they set a higher percentile bar than the bank’s general graduate routes. For many technology roles, a technical or coding exercise also appears later, at Stage 2, once you have cleared the reasoning screen.
Technology and analyst schemes at Barclays weight the numerical and logical sections more heavily and set a higher bar. If you are aiming at a data-heavy scheme, spend most of your practice on numerical speed and pattern logic, and expect the fit questions to still count. Another finance-sector screen worth seeing for contrast is the Bloomberg aptitude test, which shares the data-under-pressure feel while testing different ground.
What the Barclays aptitude test really measures about your career fit
An aptitude score measures speed under pressure, not whether the work itself will suit you. A high result rises and falls with practice and nerves. Whether a scheme in trading, technology, or risk will suit the way you are built is a separate matter, and no timed test of speed can reach it.
Knowing your own strengths changes how the whole process feels. When you understand what you are naturally good at and what steadily holds your attention, the mindset assessment stops reading like a trap to outguess and starts reading like a description you already recognise. People who get to use their strongest abilities most days are far more likely to stay engaged at work, about six times as likely in Gallup’s workplace research, so a direction that fits your strengths is worth more than a coached pass.
Think of it as two different maps. A practice pack is the map of one employer’s front door. A read on your own strengths is the map of which doors are worth knocking on at all. You want both, but only one of them still helps after the Barclays offer lands.
Know if the role fits before you sit the test
A Barclays practice pack helps you clear the screen. The other question, whether the work behind the screen would sustain you, is the one the Pigment career test takes on. It reads your strengths and what holds your attention, then names the directions that fit, in about eighteen minutes.
Get clarity on your career →The reassuring part: the Barclays aptitude test questions are learnable, the mindset section rewards honesty, and the fit question underneath it all is one you can answer for yourself before the results ever come back.
Common questions
“What are Barclays’s core values?”
Barclays sets out five values: Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence, and Stewardship. The situational judgement and mindset sections are scored partly against how well your choices reflect them, so it helps to read them before you sit the assessment.
“What is the pass rate for Barclays online assessments?”
Barclays does not publish an official pass rate. Candidate reports vary widely by scheme, and competitive graduate programmes are far harder to clear than the bank’s general routes, so treat any single figure you read online as an estimate rather than a confirmed number.
“How do I prepare for Barclays tests?”
Take one full timed practice run to find your slowest section, then do short daily drills under real conditions. Because these tests are built so most people cannot finish, practise for speed and confident first decisions, not for a perfect score.
“How long does the recruitment process take at Barclays?”
From application to offer, Barclays graduate hiring usually runs several weeks to a few months, depending on the scheme and how quickly each stage is scheduled. The online assessment is only the first step, followed by a video interview and, for many roles, an assessment centre.
“Can I reapply to Barclays if I’m unsuccessful?”
Yes. Barclays generally lets unsuccessful candidates apply again in a future cycle, though you are usually asked to wait for the next recruitment season rather than reapplying straight away. Use the gap to practise the sections that let you down.
“How much time does the Barclays online assessment take?”
Most candidates finish the Barclays online assessment in roughly 35 to 45 minutes in one sitting, with the values and mindset section taking about 20 to 25 minutes of that. It is designed to be done in a single focused block rather than across several days.
How many Barclays aptitude test questions appear in each section?
Cappfinity does not publish exact counts, but candidate reports are consistent: numerical, around 18 to 20 questions in 20 to 25 minutes; verbal, 24 to 30 in a similar window; critical and logical, 12 to 18 items in 12 to 15 minutes; situational judgement, 12 to 15 scenarios; values and mindset, around 32 forced-choice pairs in 20 to 25 minutes. In total, roughly 100 to 115 items in a single 35 to 45 minute sitting. For context on how this maps to other finance screens, the difference between an aptitude test and a psychometric test is worth reading, and the EY and KPMG aptitude test pages show how similar employers structure the same question types.
What comes after the Barclays assessment
The aptitude screen is the first filter. For most graduate routes, a pre-recorded video interview follows: three or four competency questions recorded without a live interviewer. Cappfinity provides the video interview platform too, so the interface is familiar. From there, successful candidates are invited to an assessment centre covering group exercises, a written case, and a panel interview. Spring week applicants often bypass this stage. The Target Jobs graduate resources cover assessment centre frameworks in detail and are the best public reference for that stage.
