New research suggests that demand for underwriters within the UK capital for general and non-life business experienced a ‘surge’ in 2021.
London-based analytics firm Vacancysoft has a new report, Underwriting: UK Insurance Labour Market Trends, that says firms in the UK posted 2,100 underwriting vacancies last year, up 120% since 2020 and 91% higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic.
James Chaplin, CEO of the company, said: “Our data reflects how much underwriting is hardwired into the UK financial system. While recruitment across nearly all other areas within insurance was significantly cut back in 2020, underwriters remained much in demand across the country.”
He added: “Most of the sector was paralysed by uncertainty brought about by the liability associated with covid. Now this matter is largely settled, insurers will be looking to revisit policies to immunise themselves against future extreme ‘black swan’ events — which is what this surge in hiring for underwriters suggests.”
According to Vacancysoft, non-life insurance firms were mainly responsible for the uptick in underwriting vacancies, publishing 140% more new jobs in 2021 compared to a 92% year-on-year rise within general insurance companies. Non-life businesses in the UK now account for nearly 37% of all underwriting vacancies, a share that rose 19 percentage points since 2017.
Vacancysoft estimated that the top five insurers in the UK advertised a total of 340 underwriting roles in 2021, up from 169 the year before. However, this does not account for roles that were not advertised, people promoted from existing roles, or natural wastage from people retiring or moving on to different companies.
There was some variation between the UK’s regions.
Wrote Vacancysoft: “A comparison of national hiring to trends emerging in London shows that vacancies in the capital have been fluctuating between 25%-40% of total jobs for underwriters over the last five years. Only once has this threshold been exceeded, in the immediate aftermath of the first lockdown ending: in September 2020, over 41% of all underwriting vacancies were in London.”
It added: “Since then, the London share has trended downwards as the volumes have picked up, ranging between 30%-35%. This suggests that, as the market has moved past covid, it is the regional hubs that have been scaled up.”
