Demotion at work

[Mummybeen19]

Long time mumsnet lurker who is looking for a little bit of advice. A couple of days ago I received a call from work asking if I could go into the office to discuss a restructure (read expansion of the team) which has been talked about for a while and how it would impact my position. I received no formal invite to the meeting or information about what would be discussed. So yesterday I get to the meeting and HR and my line manager are both waiting, it transpires that the company restructure is effectively making my job redundant and being replaced with two roles which will cover my responsibilities but also require a technical skill which I currently don’t possess. I have been offered effectively a demotion (from a manager role to a senior role) which will effectively take away a lot/most of my responsibilities or the option of statutory redundancy. Now there are other roles which I could do (more of a sidestep in career progression) but I have been told I would need to apply for these along with external candidates. Is all of this legal? Obviously accepting the more junior role would impact my cv!
I’ve been at the company 8 years.

Or call them out on it if it proves to be false. State what you have discovered and see how they respond

Thanks everyone who has offered advice and kind words, it is very much appreciated and has been really useful helping me process the situation and balance my views for both options I have.

@DelphiniumDoreen @HappiestSleeping I think you’re both probably right in the that they just expected me to accept the role and get on with it. Even though redundancy is just statutory I’m still tempted to take it.
The change has come about after a change in senior management, although this has been done via internal recruitment and is actually someone whom I wouldn’t have expected to make such a cut throat decision (although business is business I guess!) definitely not a new face to the business, just a new direction for the team
@ThelastRolo20 this is what I thought about the structure of the meeting, I’m not too clued up on the legalities of the redundancy process, but I thought that I was supposed to at least have a pre consultation meting/letter where I was told my role was at risk rather than just being told the team structure has changed your role is gone and here’s the job we’ve got for you to replace it. I’ve also as of yet received no formal write up letter/email post meeting. I’m not sure if it’s different if a single role/person is being made redundant
ill definitely be discussing if they would be open to reconsidering the job title so it has less impact on my career further down the line.
@spoonbillstretford This is the bit that is confusing me; they currently have a junior role advertised (which is being taken on as part of the restructure) which requires this skill so surely the senior role they are offering me will also.. in fact during the meeting they told me I will be upskilled in this particular skill. I’m just clearly not good enough for either of the roles that my current job is being split between!

@LimeQuoter there are definitely jobs out there at my current level that my skill set without this further skill would match, but obviously hearing them say the opposite didn’t feel so great at the time!